Within Arm's Reach

by Ann Napolitano

  “We’re not together anymore, Mom. He won’t be involved.”

  There is a note of panic in my mother’s voice that makes me wonder if she has been drinking. “Oh Gracie, why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you.”

  I am almost certain my mother thinks I should have had an abortion. Quietly, without bothering anyone. She prides herself on being a modern woman, with all of its complications and sacrifices. But she is not modern enough to embrace my single, pregnant status. She doesn’t know how to present this to her women’s group. This kind of event would never take place in the wonderful mother-daughter relationship she conducts in her head. At the moment she doesn’t even recognize me as her daughter.

  I do feel badly. I have busted up the game my family has been playing since Lila and I hit puberty. In the game, Lila and I are polite, well-educated, achieving daughters who love and respect their parents. In exchange for presenting this front, and going to college and meeting other expected life landmarks, we have been permitted to keep our personal lives completely private. My mother never really wanted to know me, she just saw the daughter she wanted to see. She picked out a few relevant facts, that I was popular and a strong writer, for instance, and then she made up the rest. She has done the same thing with Lila. Really knowing someone is too messy and disturbing and even tedious for my mother. It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love me, because she does. That’s why this hurts so much now. I have behaved in a way no daughter of hers would ever behave, and that has forced her to face the reality that she does not know me. This was not pleasant for either one of us.

  “I’ll be fine, Mom, I promise. You don’t have to worry.”

  There was a hard sob. “I shouldn’t have worked so much when you were a child. A few of those nannies were not the best role models.”

  “I should go, Mom. Can we talk about this later?”

  “I need to ask you one question first. I’ve been wondering, how did your grandmother know about this? Did you tell her?”

  “No,” I said. “Gram just knew. I didn’t have to tell her.”

  “I have to go myself,” my mother said. “I’m just running out the door. Do you need anything?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’m okay.”

  WHEN I tell Lila about this conversation, she says, “Mom always makes everything about herself.”

  I say, “Do you realize she’s going to be a grandmother?”

  Lila laughs so hard she snorts, and I laugh, too, watching my sister’s face. It is no problem for me to keep laughing; I like the sound. I am so thankful that Lila didn’t move out. She said something happened to her student loan situation, so that she couldn’t afford her own place after all. I know she’s not telling me the whole truth, but I don’t care. I don’t want to drive her away by asking too many questions. For the first time since she moved in we are hanging out together. We watch television. Lila flips through magazines while I read my letters. We go food shopping. She seems to not mind my company and I enjoy hers.

  But Lila’s schedule is more insane than ever, and she creeps in and out at odd hours. More than once, she and I have frightened each other in the hall in the middle of the night, me in my bathrobe, her in her jacket and shoes smelling of fresh air. I know that regardless of whatever else is going on, she is getting laid on a regular basis. I knew she had had sex when she came home the morning after Easter. There was a vagueness to Lila’s eyes as if she were unable to focus on the chairs, the table, the room around her. I recognize that look.

  At first she denied it, and then when I wouldn’t let up, she admitted it was true but refused to say anything more. She said that it didn’t mean anything and was going to end any minute, so there was no point in discussing it. Then she would leave the house, and I wouldn’t see her until the next morning.

  The phone rarely rings when I’m home alone. My father has not spoken directly to me since Easter. I’m not surprised. I know he’s embarrassed and ashamed and doesn’t know what to say. I don’t want to speak to him for those same reasons, but I miss him.

  The constants in my life right now are Gram and Grayson. If the phone does ring, it is one of them. Since our last meeting, Grayson and I have spoken about nothing but work. I haven’t apologized for yelling at him. He hasn’t apologized for insinuating that I can’t handle having a baby on my own. Just like when I broke up with him on his answering machine, we are ignoring the issue at hand and focusing on business. Grayson requested that I come into the office three days a week instead of my usual one. He says that a professional, sterile environment will help me choose my letters and my responses with more balance and objectivity.

  He gives me the office of a writer who spends most of his days covering stories in South Jersey. I sit in the gray room with no windows and center my laptop on the steel desk and arrange my letters in neat piles. Then I tuck my chair in and put both feet flat on the linoleum floor. I arrange and rearrange the correspondence. I type a few starting lines on the screen. But that is as far as I get. The lighting is too harsh in the office. The waistband of my pants cuts into my swollen stomach. My pumps are too tight. There are too many distractions. That gossiping goat Charlene pops her head in at least once a week and asks me, with the most malicious smile, how my bubbala is doing. During one visit, she hands me a white envelope.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “Another letter from your adoring public. It must have gotten separated from the normal mail. Strange, isn’t it?” Charlene smiles, but the curve of her lips is cold and mean. She flips her hair and then leaves without closing my office door.

  I look the envelope over. It couldn’t have come in with the mail. There’s no stamp, and it is addressed simply to the Dear Abby Department, Bergen Record. I slit the envelope open with my favorite silver letter opener and pull the thin piece of paper out. The cursive writing on the page is so full of loops and flourishes that it takes a minute before I can concentrate on the words.

  Dear Abby,

  My boyfriend and I are deeply in love. What we have is the real thing. We are very blessed because we know that God made us for each other. We couldn’t be any closer or any more committed. Unfortunately, we went through a rough patch last year, and the town tramp took advantage of the situation by seducing my true love.

  When she realized he would never be able to care for her, she tried to trick him into marriage by getting pregnant. She is the worst kind of woman, a weak slut who can’t keep her legs shut or hold on to a man. Dear Abby, please tell me how I can get it through this girl’s dim brain that my man is off limits. She won’t get a thing from him. Not his love, and not a dime.

  Sincerely,

  Righteous in Ramsey

  I breathe out slowly and fold the letter shut. I know I shouldn’t be surprised by Margaret’s ferocity. I should be relieved to have this letter. I’ve spent the last few months on the lookout for an approaching redhead, anticipating her attack. Still, I’ve never received a Dear Abby letter from someone I know, or from someone who knows me. My letters have always been my best escape, and my peace. Until now they have been written only by strangers who trust me, look up to me, and turn to me when they need to be saved. A line has been crossed, and I feel oddly revealed by Margaret’s choice to come at me in this manner. I flip the letter over so I am looking at the blank side of the page, then tear it into tiny bits and drop it in the garbage.

  GRAYSON INSISTS that I attend the weekly staff meetings, which I have always skipped in the past. I sit through only one, which is sufficiently humiliating to keep me away in the future. The meeting falls first thing on a Thursday morning, which is the day my column comes out. I get my first look at the paper as Grayson’s assistant hands them out at the door of the conference room. I can tell that everyone else in the room ran to the end of their driveway at the crack of dawn and read their copies. When they walk in the room they toss the newspaper the assistant hands them onto the table and take a seat. There are about twelve people
at the meeting, including the major front-page writers and the main editors: Business, Local, National, Sports, Arts, and Lifestyles. My boss is the Lifestyles editor, a cranky man with prostate problems that make it difficult for him to sit. I’ve never had much to do with him. When I have column problems I have always gone to Grayson. The editor frowns every time he sees me, so I figure he’s happy enough with our arrangement. Today as he paces the length of the room, he says, “What are you doing here?”

  “I asked her to come, Bill,” Grayson says from behind me. That shuts him up. Still frowning, he takes a seat. It is interesting to see how all these editors and writers, mostly men in their forties and fifties, respect Grayson. I rarely see him in this kind of group setting. My personal and professional relationships with Grayson have generally taken place one on one.

  While Grayson grills the editors on the major stories in their sections, I flip through the paper to find my column. I try not to listen to their discussion. Wars in countries I can’t find on a map, car wrecks, plane crashes, abandoned children, drug busts, local zoning battles, etc., have never been anything I’ve gone out of my way to hear about. I ignore the news and turn right to the Lifestyles section.

  Once I’ve located my column, I see that Grayson has done it again. He has rewritten my advice. This has been going on to a small degree since the beginning. He used to edit my writing. He would cut a sentence here or there, or rework a phrase. But over the last six months, he has begun to alter the content of my advice. He has deleted parts, and changed the very nature of what I was trying to say.

  I look up at Grayson. He is pacing with great energy at the head of the room. He says, “I think the Route 17 overpass coming in two years ahead of schedule and ahead of budget is front-page material. Who disagrees? Then let’s move on to the story on Christie Whitman’s presidential ambitions. Quick answers please.”

  This week the response Grayson has changed the most radically is the one I wrote to a girl grieving over the death of her mother. The girl felt her life had fallen apart and that she didn’t know who she was anymore, or what to do next.

  My advice was for her to experience her sorrow from beginning to end. I suggested she keep a journal, and live one day at a time. I suggested that if she ignored her sadness, or buried it, she would just have more problems later on. I told her that once her mourning had ended naturally, she would see who she was and know what to do. Her course would unfold before her.

  Out of the advice that was actually published, only the first sentence was written by me.

  Dear Sad in Secaucus,

  Your sorrow is completely appropriate and natural, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But it has been several months now, and it is time to return to your life. I am sure that right under your nose there is a good friend or a relative who cares about you and knows you. Turn to that person now and let them lead you back to your life. You have been trying to make things work on your own and that can be a mistake. Don’t be ashamed to ask for help.

  I read this advice over and over again. I try to imagine this young girl, twelve or thirteen, sitting in her pink bedroom in her dad’s house in Secaucus, reading this advice. Seeing it for the first time this morning, just like me. Letting it seep in, trying to feel whether it is true. Trying to feel whether it is what she needs.

  I can only hope that it is. I know I have let her down. If my advice can’t make it through a run-in with Grayson’s red pen, then it is not strong enough, right enough. Things have changed; I can’t deny that. I can still feel the heat of Margaret’s letter on my fingertips. Maybe I do need somebody to check and balance what comes out of my mouth. Besides, Grayson is the only one who seems to pay attention to me at all, as of late. Gram is just interested in the baby, and Lila is so often gone. I shouldn’t disregard the only person who is listening to what I have to say, even if he is forever rewriting the content.

  “Gracie,” Grayson says. “You with us?”

  I look up from the newspaper. Grayson is staring at me from the head of the room, and many of the editors and writers have swiveled their chairs in my direction.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “You read your column? Any problems or comments you want to make?”

  Bill the Lifestyles editor shifts uncomfortably in his chair. There is a tangible feeling of resentment. I am the smallest fish in this room, and they’d like to either throw me out the door or into the frying pan. I don’t belong here.

  The business editor says, “Grayson, I think we need to take a harder line with the Dow Jones story. I’d like your guidance on that.”

  “One minute, Carl. Gracie, anything?”

  “No,” I say. “Nothing. Thanks.”

  I AM back home in the empty house and on my way upstairs to change when I glance out the front window and see a car sitting in the driveway. It is an old gray sedan that looks vaguely familiar. Because of the way the afternoon sun glints off the windshield, I can’t see who is sitting behind the wheel. I stand perfectly still, watching, torn between hiding in my bedroom and walking outside to see who it is.

  I am still deciding on my course of action when it is decided for me. The driver-side door opens and Aunt Meggy gets out. Then the passenger door opens, and I see Aunt Angel. Meggy walks around the car and extends her hand. Angel takes it and lets Meggy help her out of the car. I watch from the window, wondering what is going on. Neither of my aunts has ever visited me before.

  They seem to be conferring by the side of the car. Angel leans against the door as Meggy rubs her lumpy shoulders. Suddenly, I understand: Angel is sick, and they have stopped by looking for Lila, looking for help. I cross the living room and swing open the front door. But I have moved too quickly, and the sunlight hits me in the face and turns the world into bright spots of loose color. I move my head and struggle to focus on the two women.

  “Lila’s not here,” I call out. “She’s at the hospital.”

  They both turn and look at me. Meggy says, “We’re not here to see Lila.”

  “Isn’t Aunt Angel hurt?”

  Angel steps away from the car and I can see that she’s been crying. Meggy says, “She’s fine. We came to see you. Aren’t you going to invite us in?”

  I move so the door is left unblocked. I tell myself to calm down. No one is injured. This is not a matter of life and death. My thoughts reorder, and I know that if my aunts have come to see me, it must be about the baby. They have come to tell me what an embarrassment I am to the family.

  Meggy requests a cup of tea, and Angel accepts a glass of cold water. We sit at the kitchen table while the teakettle rattles and shivers its way to hot.

  “So,” I say, looking from Angel’s swollen face to Meggy’s determined one. My silly hope that I might be able to keep the conversation light and pleasant fades.

  “All right, Angel,” Meggy says. “You wanted to talk first. Go ahead.”

  I am almost amused by Meggy’s obvious sense of agenda, but not quite because I know that my situation is what she is headed for, and I suspect that the collision is going to hurt. I have never had much to say to Meggy. She and Lila can banter back and forth, but I don’t have the quick wit or sarcasm to take part. My aunt and my mother don’t get along because my mother’s feelings are so easily hurt and Meggy has such a sharp tongue. Meggy cuts immediately to the point and my mother never gets there. Mom complains that her younger sister is selfish. I don’t argue with my mother, but I never thought that her accusation was entirely fair, because Meggy always seems to be looking out for someone—Aunt Theresa and Aunt Angel, for instance. She took in Mary and John when Aunt Theresa became upset about Uncle Jack. And she is always harassing Johnny to be a better husband to Aunt Angel, and to stop being so absorbed in his alleged depression. Today I assume she is here on behalf of all my aunts and uncles, to tell me what a disappointment I am.

  “How’s your job, Gracie?” Angel says. She taps the tabletop with ragged fingernails. “I always enjoy your column. I tell eve
ryone I know that you’re my niece.”

  “Okay, you’ve lost your chance,” Meggy says.

  The teakettle lets out a sharp whistle, and we all jump. The noise always reminds me of Gram, and this time it reminds me that she’s expecting me to visit her tonight to pick up my monthly check. I pour the hot water into Lila’s favorite mug, which is covered with scientific equations. I have already set out the tea bag, milk, and sugar, so I simply hand the mug to Meggy and sit back down.

  “Listen up, Gracie,” Meggy says. “I’m going to start with a story that took place when I was a kid. It’s something that happened all the time in the Irish community, but this is just one example.”

  “It happened where I grew up, too.” Angel nods.

  “There was a family that lived two houses down from us. They had eight or nine children, the normal amount in our neighborhood. Your mother and I used to baby-sit for them. Anyway, the oldest girl got pregnant when she was in high school. She was sent away on a trip before she started showing. When she gave birth, her mother adopted the baby and said it was the child of one of her husband’s business colleagues. The teenager then came back home and finished growing up. And it all worked out. The girl went to college and got married, and her little boy was raised by his grandmother, who loved him.”

  A dark feeling fills my stomach, as if I have swallowed something that doesn’t agree with me. I must be misunderstanding the story. This can’t be headed where it seems to be. I try to keep my voice casual. “What happened when the kid found out who his real mother was?”

  Meggy and Angel look at each other. “That’s not the point. The child could have just as easily been raised by a cousin or by an aunt. This practice was very common at the time. It’s like adoption, but within the family so everyone remains together.”

  My body folds over slightly, protective against the hunger in my aunts’ gaze. The air in the room is so heavy I have a hard time opening my mouth. “You think I should give up my baby?”