Juan Alvarez Cisneros

Grand Plans for the Future

Juan Cisneros never intended to spend the rest of his life in New York. He would work as a bond trader until he could pay off his college loans and put away money for his parents. Then, said his girlfriend, Stephanie Albert, they planned to move out West. They would go to graduate school and become professors. He would teach history, she would teach English.

Mr. Cisneros, 24, who lived in Manhattan, was gentle and patient. He loved running and reading. "You're going to do what?" Ms. Albert asked him, incredulous, when he told her he was taking a job at Cantor Fitzgerald. His parents had immigrated from Guatemala when he was 6. He went to Dartmouth College, volunteered as a Big Brother and fell in love with Ms. Albert.

One Saturday afternoon two months ago, they found themselves in New Jersey, having offered to help a friend set up for her husband's 40th birthday party. Alone in a room with a view of Manhattan, they began dancing. They were joking, teasing, making grand plans for how they would celebrate each other's 40th when the time came.

"Thrilled with the present, excited about the future," Ms. Albert remembered sadly. "And it absolutely takes my breath away that we won't even be able to spend our 25th birthdays together."