Within Arm's Reach by Ann Napolitano Page A

like the only possible choice. “Yes.”
    “Yes. Okay . . . yes.” He says the word as if he is trying it out, trying to locate its meaning. “I’m sorry about this,” he says. “I am. But I have to go now. I’ll call you in the morning.”
    “You don’t have to call,” I say.
    Joel is now sitting on the side of the bed. I am looking at his back.
    “You knew, Gracie, didn’t you, that this wasn’t a serious relationship for me? I was trying to get over Margaret. And you never have serious relationships. Everybody knows that.”
    “What do you mean, everybody knows that?”
    There is fear in Joel’s eyes. He is standing, naked, his shoes in one hand and his socks in the other. His mind is on Margaret. He is wondering what she will say. I wonder if any of the men I have been with have ever given me that much thought, that much power. Probably Grayson did, but he gives everything a lot of thought, so that doesn’t count.
    Joel is looking down at the shoes he is holding. He says, in a dazed voice, “I don’t know how this could have happened. I was so careful.”
    I want him to leave. I am sitting up in bed, the sheet pulled to my chin so all of my bare skin is covered. That time is over. “ We, Joel. We . And we weren’t always careful.”
    But I only half-believe those words as I say them. I know, in the deepest part of me, that this event involved Joel in only the most minimal way. This began in me, and it will come from me. This baby is mine. It’s my path, not his. So I am not surprised that he has chosen to argue the point.
    “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Gracie. I really don’t. I never wanted to have anything to do with your feelings. But this just doesn’t feel like it’s true. I don’t feel like it’s mine. It’s not mine.” His pants are on. He is in the middle of the last sentence and in the middle of pulling his shirt over his head when he leaves the bedroom.
    Downstairs I hear the breezy noise of the refrigerator door opening, then the clink of beer bottles before Joel leaves and the house grows dark and empty. Only then do I feel a glimmer of the sweet relief that always comes after a breakup, when I am left blissfully alone. But this time it is only a glimmer, and I am no longer truly alone.
    I MAKE my way into the kitchen the next morning with only one thing on my mind: coffee. French roast with three spoonfuls of whole milk. I haven’t had a cup in eight and a half weeks, since I found out I was pregnant. But I need one now, this instant, as soon as possible.
    I walk straight to the coffeemaker. When I notice Lila bent over the kitchen table it throws me. I forget that she is staying here. My room-mate is usually a stranger whose name I get off the roommates’ Web site at the Bergen Record . I choose a girl who only needs a place for a few months, someone I won’t have to get to know well. One of those girls moved out right before Lila’s housing fell through. It’s been years since I’ve seen my sister in her pajamas. In our normal routine we used to meet for lunch or a movie; we only saw each other fully awake and out of choice. Running into my sister in my own home at odd hours of the day and night is new and strange.
    “Come look at these pictures,” she says. “Gram must have left them the other day. They were in an envelope with our names on it under one of the magnets on the refrigerator. Did you see them there?”
    Only when the coffeemaker is warm under my fingertips and the hot liquid is beginning to splash into the empty pot do I join her at the table to see what she is talking about. Lined up in front of the sugar bowl are three photographs of Lila and me as little girls. I was probably seven, Lila five, but we were close to the same size and weight. The three pictures appeared to be taken in the course of one afternoon. We were on a hillside wearing winter coats. There was no snow, only waving grass.
    The first picture shows us posed, standing back to