Read Online Within Arm's Reach by Ann Napolitano - Free Book Online

on remaining very calm. Over time she has created a clinical, cool personality that harnesses all emotions underneath. But her demeanor is not a completely successful roadblock. When she is surprised, as I have surprised her just now, her control can blow away as easily as a thin piece of paper on a windowsill.
    When Lila becomes angry, all logic, rationality, kindness, and volume control are lost. I have never been so hurt as I have been beneath the hard-driving, pointed, obliterating sleet of my mother’s and sister’s words. My father and I have tiptoed around them from day one, careful not to offend, or provoke, or, in Lila’s case, surprise. I have misstepped this morning. I should have put some thought into how I would tell her.
    But Lila catches herself in time. Her slow breathing matches mine. We face each other. Lila is two inches taller than me, so I gaze slightly up, she looks slightly down. I can see the corollaries running through her mind: I’m not married, I’m not in love with Joel, I’ll have to tell Mom, Dad, and Gram, I don’t make enough money, I have a problem with commitment.
    “Does Gram know?” Lila asks.
    This almost makes me laugh. How could she think I’d be anywhere near ready, or able, to tell Gram that I am pregnant with an out-of-wedlock baby?
    “Of course not.”
    “Have you lost your mind?” My sister sounds curious.
    The smell of the coffee, steaming, waiting for me across the room, makes my eyes fill with tears. I want it so bad.
    I had an abortion five boyfriends and two and a half years ago. Three-quarters of the women my age that I know have had at least one. The trip to the abortion clinic (preferably one several towns away from where you live) is a massive silent rite of passage among white, well-educated girls of my generation. It is a careful, deeply held secret even the bigmouthed among us don’t discuss. Of the hundreds of Dear Abby letters I’ve received, only a handful have touched on the topic of abortion, and none have asked my advice on how to recover from one. This is a godsend, as I do not know the answer. My physical recovery was fine; the emotional recovery was a different matter. I was left with an emptiness inside me, and a very Catholic ache that told me I had sinned.
    Maybe Lila and Joel are right to be upset with me. Maybe I’m self-destructive. Maybe I wanted this. Maybe on some level I had, despite a semi-consistent regimen of Ortho-Novum pills and Trojan ribbed condoms, tried to get pregnant. Maybe my body knew that this was my only path to redemption and decided, without consulting my brain, to go for it. I believe in my decision to keep this baby, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s necessarily the right decision, or that I recognize the girl who made it.
    My sister raises her eyebrows. She has no use for ambiguity, vagueness, or long pauses. When something confuses her, she wants an answer. She is waiting; wanting to understand why I would veer so sharply off my life’s path. She wants to match up the sister in her memory—the one she’s known from early childhood to this Sunday morning—with the girl who stands before her now with the big, unwelcome news.
    I wish I could help her. I always want to help Lila, although usually it ends up working the other way around. “Maybe I have lost my mind,” I say, as calmly as possible.
    Then I turn my back to her and putter around the kitchen, trying to compose myself, trying to stay away from the coffee, trying to figure out where I am going to find the strength to stand behind this decision for another ten minutes, then for the remainder of this day, then for the rest of my life.

LILA

    Two days after Gracie tells me she’s pregnant I catch her sneaking some guy out of her bed and out the back door. It is five in the morning. I’m barely conscious, huddled over a cup of coffee in the kitchen. I’m scheduled to be at the hospital by six.
    I haven’t turned any lights on because I find it’s