Tish

Tish is the first-person narrator of a story shaped by Fonny’s imprisonment and her pregnancy with his child. She moves through work, family care, and public spaces under financial and racial pressure, while remaining committed to Fonny and to bringing their child safely into the world. Her attention to photographs, visits, and the risks of ordinary travel gives those commitments practical as well as emotional weight.

Identity and Narrative Position

Tish tells the story from within her own experience, making her perceptions of streets, work, family, and separation central to its account of events. Her thoughts do not remain detached from her circumstances: the prospect of Fonny staying in jail changes how she considers work and money, while the approaching birth makes each commute feel consequential.

Her relationship with Fonny is shown through both intimate images and difficult realities. One photograph shows them together, laughing beside the railing of the house on Bank Street; another shows Fonny alone near a record player, an image Tish particularly treasures. The contrast preserves more than a record of their relationship: it holds together their shared happiness and the separation imposed by his imprisonment.

Work, Pregnancy, and Public Space

After a night of exhaustion, Tish gets up and goes to work rather than calling in sick. She has tea with Sharon in near silence, then walks through streets crowded with people heading to work and others returning to furnished rooms. She notices the garbage piled along the side streets and stoops, and thinks about how limited her choices may become if Fonny is not released. Her concern is not abstract: she expects to keep working almost until the birth and cannot see how she will manage if pregnancy makes the journey impossible.

On the subway, Tish fears that if she faints in the crush of passengers, she and the baby could be trampled. She holds the rail more firmly and compares the packed car’s space, and perhaps its intention, to depictions of slave ships. At the same time, she distinguishes the crowded passengers’ indifference from deliberate personal hostility: they press against one another, absorbed in getting through another workday, without seeing her. The scene links the physical demands of pregnancy to a wider condition of constrained, anonymous labor.

Action and the Threat of Public Violence

In a crowded shop, a young man makes unwanted advances toward Tish and follows her inside. She tries to leave before Fonny returns, while a white police officer is across the street and bystanders watch without intervening. When the man grabs her, she strikes back; Fonny enters and intervenes. Tish then holds him in place as the officer runs toward them, fearing that the officer will kill him. She tells the officer that the other man attacked her and that everyone saw it, but nobody in the shop confirms her account aloud.

Tish’s response is both protective and tactical. She places herself between Fonny and the officer, holds his wrists, and tries to prevent either of them from moving. She has recognized the racial danger of the scene before Fonny returns: although the street is crowded, she sees it as white, and understands that the officer’s presence may make the consequences fall on Fonny. Her intervention brings the possibility of testimony into the open, but the silence of the witnesses leaves her carrying the claim alone.

Family Support and the Work of Waiting

Tish’s pregnancy does not remove the pressure to earn money. She is afraid to quit her job, and the work schedule often makes her miss the six o’clock visit with Fonny. She explains that if she leaves work, she may be making that visit indefinitely; Fonny understands her reasoning, but understanding cannot make the waiting at the prison easier. In Tish’s account, a regular visitor gives a prisoner evidence that someone outside still cares. When no one comes, the danger is not only loneliness but the sense of being in serious trouble.

While Sharon is away in Puerto Rico, Joseph and Ernestine help look after Tish. Joseph directly asks whether she wants to bring the baby into the world, and she confirms that she does. The exchange gives practical form to her resolve: pregnancy has become physically demanding, and she is often sick, but the answer she gives Joseph is unambiguous. Her confidence does not erase hardship; it establishes what she intends to continue through it.

Tish also helps preserve Fonny’s identity for people working on his case. When Hayward asks for a photograph, she produces two: the picture of the couple on Bank Street and her favored portrait of Fonny alone. Sharon takes the photographs to Hayward, studies his response, and then retrieves them. Later, during her confrontation with Victoria Rogers in Puerto Rico, Sharon carries the photograph of Tish and Fonny. Tish is not present for that exchange, but the image makes their relationship part of Sharon’s effort to challenge the accusation that has put Fonny in jail.

Birth and Narrative Significance

As the pregnancy advances, Tish describes the baby’s movements as a changing claim on her attention and strength. She distinguishes the demands of caring for it from her happiness about its arrival, and understands that Fonny would not forgive her if she failed to bring it safely into the world. The same commitment underlies her work, her visits when she can make them, and her answer to Joseph.

The closing scene brings Tish’s labor to its turning point. When Sharon asks how she feels, Tish opens her mouth but cannot catch her breath; her attention narrows first to her mother’s eyes and then to Fonny. She screams, and the narrative moves to Fonny working with wood and stone before the baby’s repeated cries carry across the distance. Tish gives birth on October 12, 1973. The ending joins separation and arrival: Fonny remains at a distance in the final image, while the child whose safety Tish has struggled to protect is now present.