Within Arm's Reach (8 page)

“Do you remember how your grandfather would talk to you and your cousins about what it means to be Irish?”

Gracie nods. “Whenever he drank too much.”

I glance down at my hands in my lap. Beneath the age spots and the blue veins, they are the same hands I raised my children with. They are the same hands I parked on my hips while I told my children which parts of themselves they needed to cultivate so they would be able to survive in a hard world. Now it’s time for me to do that work again.

“As you know, Gracie, I was never much for that kind of talk. But I think that perhaps since Patrick’s been gone, you and your sister have forgotten what he was trying to teach you. He wanted to educate you children about who you are, even when he told those silly tales. I’ve been thinking about a story my mother used to tell about a neighbor in Ireland who she called an Irish dreamer. And when I say a dreamer, I mean a real dreamer, not a drunk. He would walk out his front door every morning and put his finger up in the air to see which way the wind blew. He would turn his finger in every which direction, eyes squinted, pipe clenched tight between his teeth. When he finally thought he’d figured the wind out, he’d be ready to start off to work. There were a few ways he could get to his job—on the back road, down the main avenue, or cutting through the next yard. He would turn his entire body first in one direction, then another. When he thought he had made his choice, he would raise his right knee and lean forward, but he never quite took a step. He would stand there all day long, the children mocking him, the housewives shaking their heads. Of course, he soon had no job to get to, but each morning he went through the same routine. My mother said he died out there one morning, his knee raised up in the air, hoping to make a decision. I’m sure the last part wasn’t true. That was the kind of ending my mother liked to give stories. No doubt he had a heart attack or died in his sleep, but the point is the same.”

Gracie has her hands on the pockets of her bathrobe. “Gram, why—?”

I give a sharp nod, to shush her. “The point, Gracie, is that some of the Irish are like that, locked in indecision, swinging from one possibility to another. And for people like that, sometimes the most dangerous thing is when they accidentally make a big decision. When they do take that step, it’s because someone pushed them, or because they tripped.”

I see now, from the look on her face, that Gracie is getting it. “You think I’m like that? I’m like the man who can’t get himself to work?”

“You need to make something of your life before life makes something of you.”

Gracie just stares at me. When I look back, I realize for the first time that Gracie’s pale blue eyes are the exact shade of my mother’s eyes, and my firstborn daughter’s. The realization jars me—how could I not have noticed that before?—but only for a moment. I push the feeling away.

I cross my legs, right over left. Even with only one foot on the floor, there is no dizziness. That is good, as I have only started to say what I came to say. “Gracie, are you planning to marry Joel?”

Gracie takes a letter out of her pocket and grips it with both hands. “Why would you think— Joel and I broke up.”

“You’re planning to raise this child by yourself?”

She blinks hard, like a child pushing back tears. I have to remind myself that Gracie’s twenty-nine years old. She looks half that. “How did you—”

“I bore nine children myself. I know what a pregnant woman looks like.” I am happy with the timber of my voice: confident, steady, clear. I sound like the woman Patrick married because she was nearly always right. I recognize myself, and that feels wonderful. “You must need money. How much should I give you right now? We can work out a schedule of payments for the future.”

“Gram, I’m going to figure that out for myself. I have a lot that I need to figure out. I don’t expect you to fix this for me.” And now Gracie is crying; fat tears run down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Gram. I know I must be a disappointment to you. You think I’m indecisive. . . . I never wanted . . .”

“Don’t go losing your head, Gracie. No tears. What’s done is done. I’ll write you a check and you and the baby will be able to live comfortably. I’ll help you.”

Gracie seems to notice the letter in her hands for the first time. She folds it carefully and puts it in her pocket. “I have a system for my letters,” she says. “The right pocket of my bathrobe is for trivial letters, the ones with small, easy questions. The left pocket is for the tougher situations, things like depression and bereavement.”

“I don’t give a fig about the damn letters,” I say.

I have always thought that Gracie’s job was ludicrous. People should keep their problems to themselves. The very idea of publishing your concerns, much less your family’s problems, in the local newspaper is reprehensible. I am embarrassed for those women who in times of need turn to a perfect stranger instead of turning to God. And I am not pleased that Gracie thinks she can help these strangers. It is like volunteering to captain a lifeboat that is stranded with no oars in the middle of the ocean. These women are clearly past help. It is a losing battle and my granddaughter will lose right along with them.

Gracie says in a pleading tone, “You can lecture me if you want, Gram. I don’t mind. I know you must think this is very irresponsible of me, even immoral. I just want you to understand.”

“What exactly do you want me to understand?”

My granddaughter’s cheeks are shining, but the tears have stopped. “Why don’t you think I can do this? How can you be so sure?”

I reach into my purse and pull out the checkbook. “Obviously I wish you would have waited until you were married, but I do not believe in ending pregnancies. I am going to take care of you and this child. I am going to help you steer your life in an appropriate direction. I’m not going to sit back and watch you bounce from boyfriend to boyfriend anymore, Gracie. I’m not going to watch you wander through your life without a plan. This baby will be well cared for and loved, and you will be back on your feet, if it is the last thing I do. You will both be safe.”

Gracie seems to struggle for a minute for words, then says in a blank voice, “Okay.”

“Now, before I leave, I’m sure you have expenses like doctor’s visits and vitamins that you need to pay for in the near future. How much shall I write the first check for?”

Gracie, tiny in her bathrobe, shakes her head. “I can’t . . . I have no . . .”

“I can’t talk to you, Gracie, if you can’t even finish a proper sentence. I’ll leave you a starting amount of money, and then you let me know how much more is necessary.”

When Gracie sees me to the back door and then watches me walk away, I think I hear her saying after me, under her breath, instead of good-bye,
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry
.

BEHIND THE huge wheel of my Lincoln, I feel a little badly that I took such a hard line with Gracie. But I am not pleased with her, or for her. This pregnancy is wrong, and I can’t tell her it isn’t just to make her feel better. I wish her parents had made her spend more time in church as a child. One of the problems with her generation is that their collective sense of right and wrong is too flexible, and they just end up confusing themselves with too many options.

However, I can’t deny that the news of this baby has made me happy. I had feared I would not live to see a great-grandchild, and having four generations of McLaughlins in the world at one time is a lovely thought. Beyond that, my pleasure is more complicated. The strings are crisscrossed to the point that I can’t see the beginning or ending of the knot. Gracie’s infant is now inextricably linked to those moments in my car before the accident, reaching for and worrying about my own lost babies. I know, with a pang beneath my ribs, that I will do anything for the first of my great-grandchildren.

I drive home slowly. I am cautious, with Kelly’s doubting voice in my ear. I press down on the brake a few blocks before each green light, anticipating it will turn red. I take the turns wide. I put my blinker on well in advance. When I pull into the assisted-living center’s parking lot, and into the spot that was assigned to me after its previous owner had a stroke, or a heart attack, or died, I turn off the engine and put the ignition key into my purse for the last time.

I am now, sixty-two years after earning my license, a non-driver.

This is not a depressing moment. I have, after all, always been the one to decide when the next phase of my life will begin. I make my own rules. I live by my own choices. No one tells me what to do. I will not bend on this point until it is absolutely necessary. And now, after twenty-four delusion-free hours, that time of personal surrender is the furthest thing from my mind.

GRACIE

Grayson leans across a desk that is messy with loose stacks of paper, half-empty soda cans, and plastic bags filled with quarters and says, “What gives?”

I purposely wore my vintage pink-lensed glasses to this meeting so Grayson wouldn’t be able to study my eyes. He is big on studying eyes, listening to the tone you use, noting whether you fidget or not. He is a newspaperman, and he likes to gather information. For the three years I’ve known him, he has been gathering information on me, first as a girlfriend, then as an employee. Sometimes I am tempted to ask him what he plans to do with everything he has learned about Gracie Leary. But most of the time I don’t want to draw attention to the subject. I consider myself lucky to have successfully withheld one big secret from Grayson for the past two and a half years. To protect that one secret, I am willing to do anything. I almost don’t mind the fact that I have to tell him about this pregnancy today, soon, any minute.

“You’re the one who scheduled the meeting,” I say.

“Why did you cancel last week?”

“Something came up.” I sit up straight, trying to look professional. But I have never felt professional and it doesn’t help that I was distracted while getting dressed this morning and am therefore wearing sneakers with my pantsuit. “Wasn’t my column all right?”

“Actually, no,” he says.

I take my glasses off. “I spent hours on it—what are you talking about? It was great this week.” Then I feel a twinge of doubt. “Wasn’t it?”

“I can tell from the letters you’re choosing to answer that something’s wrong,” he says. “A few months ago you wouldn’t go near the depressed teenage girls, now you can’t get enough of them. And do you even read the advice you’re giving them? You told one heartbroken girl, and I quote, ‘to stay in the darkness for a while and to learn from it.’ You can’t say that to a fifteen-year-old, Gracie—that means suicide! We had to edit the line out before the column printed.” Grayson raps a pencil against the stack of papers in front of him. “Just tell me what your problem is. You know that if you don’t tell me I’ll find out anyway.”

I am slightly appalled. I remember writing that line, but it didn’t sound that negative and frightening in my head. I had meant it to be comforting. I was suggesting growth and self-awareness to the young girl, not death. But I know better than to argue the point with Grayson. Like Lila, he is very logical. When it comes to the newspaper, he doesn’t care about intentions, only about what appears in black and white. And the newspaper is everything to him, if something can mean everything to someone as cool and controlled as Grayson.

Grayson is thirty-three. He wrote for the Local section all through college and then became editor of the section three years after graduation. That was all he had ever dreamed of, careerwise, but then his father, who was editor-in-chief of the paper, suffered a massive heart attack at a Giants football game. Before he died he called a staff meeting in his hospital room and named Grayson to replace him as editor-in-chief. The deal was that Grayson would try the job for six months, and if he didn’t work out by consensus of all the editors, he would return to his old position. The six-month trial period came to a close three years ago, and though there have been a few complaints, Grayson has held on to the job.

“I hate it when you rewrite my columns, Grayson. You don’t do that to your other writers.”

“I edit all of my writers.”

“I’m not talking about editing, I’m talking about rewriting.” I am stalling. Grayson is the one person who always thinks highly of me. I don’t look forward to watching his eyes dim and grow hooded.

Grayson shakes his head. “Don’t change the subject. What’s wrong?”

“My gram was in a car accident.”

“I heard about that. Four stitches but she’s fine. Try again.”

“My mother is driving me crazy.”

This gets a small smile, as it is very old news. But his eyes are distracted behind his glasses; he is thinking. “You also chose several letters over the last few weeks involving the problems of pregnant women. So we have depression and pregnant women.”

The pink glasses were a pointless defense. I could wear a sack over my head and Grayson would look to see how my breath moved the material and if my head was bowed and whether he could detect a sigh, or a sob, or a giggle.

When I broke up with Grayson I told him that it was because I didn’t want to be in a relationship anymore. That was true, but the larger truth was that I had just found out I was pregnant with his baby. He never knew about it. Lila was the one who took me to the clinic, waited for me, and drove me home. She was the only person I told. I never thought of that pregnancy as having much of anything to do with Grayson. I thought of it only as a mistake. Maybe that is why I have never been comfortable with the idea of losing Grayson entirely. He is my link to that experience. And now that I am pregnant again, I can’t help but look at the past in a different way. I don’t owe Grayson that truth—I will never tell him about my abortion—but I do owe him something. As my belly grows, I’m afraid all my cards will be laid on the table.

I fiddle with my glasses in my lap. Which time is it? Time to hold my cards, or time to fold and make a run for it? What if all of the truth, not just part of it, comes rushing out?

Grayson meets my eyes, and I squirm. The air in the room is so heavy I feel like I could swim out the door. He sees the truth; I watch his brain click on to the answer.

He says, “You’re pregnant?”

There’s no reason for me to respond.

He guessed it, but there is still shock in his eyes. “You’re keeping the baby?”

“Yes.”

“Was this planned?”

My face is burning. “No. Joel and I broke up.”

He leans back in his chair. He is a small man with glasses and curly brown hair. He runs in the early mornings, and he has a runner’s tight, compact body. “Charlene told me that someone I was close to was pregnant, but I didn’t pay attention to her.”

Charlene is the gossip columnist for the paper. She is the worst kind of gossip, mean and nosy. I do everything I can to avoid her. “How the hell would Charlene know?”

The answer comes to me almost immediately. Joel must have told Charlene, or maybe it was Weber. That fat jerk. He’s probably working his way through the phone book making sure all my ex-boyfriends hear the news, having the time of his life. I say, “I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

Grayson’s hand is in his hair now, tugging at the curls. I used to tease him that he should break himself of that habit, because there was no way his Jewish hair was going to straighten out. He is staring at me, and I wish he would stop. He says, “Do you want to get married?”

“I told you Joel and I broke up.”

“Well, yes.” I can see how my news has caught him off balance. He is thinking out loud, something he never does. “But you could marry me.”

I shrink back until each rung of the chair digs into my spine. My voice comes out thin. “Do you think that’s funny, Grayson? That’s your idea of a joke?”

“No.”

“I don’t need pity. I’m going to be fine.”

“How are you going to be fine? You don’t make enough money. You’ll have to get a higher-paying job, and no one will hire a pregnant woman. Besides, what else are you qualified to do?”

I am close to tears. I can hear Gram in my head:
Calm down, Gracie
. I hear her say:
I will take care of you and the baby
. I say, “Back off, will you?”

“Why do you want to have this baby?”

“Stop it,” I say. “Stop interviewing me. I don’t have to answer your questions. I don’t have to explain anything to you. I’m going to have this baby. We’re going to be fine, just the two of us. You’ll see.”

I stumble on my way through the door. My legs have gone numb while sitting in the chair. I lurch into the hallway, my lower half full of pins and needles.

“You’ll need help,” Grayson calls after me. “You won’t be able to do this alone.”

I LEAVE Hackensack by way of Route 17. I pass the huge new mall, then the older smaller mall, and turn off at the exit for Ramsey. I am not headed home. There are only three places Joel goes in the course of a day, and I know all of them. At night he’s drinking beer at the Green Trolley. In the late afternoon he’s at the firehouse. During the rest of the day he’s doing spy work for Mayor Carrelli.

I drive in circles around the Municipal Building, slumped behind the wheel. I don’t see anyone I recognize. How dare Joel tell anyone my news? How can I be expected to walk around my own life if I have no idea who knows what? Gram is talking again, telling me to calm down. She calls getting upset “losing your head,” and she thinks I lose my head too often. She’s right. She must be right.

I drive a little faster now, turning the corners surrounding the Municipal Building so fast my tires screech. I go around six times, until I’m dizzy. I never see Joel. I see my father on the sixth go-round, sitting on the front steps of the building. I hear the bark of the mayor’s old Chow. I see a flash of red that could be Margaret’s hair. She and Charlene are best friends. She surely knows already. I cannot stop what’s already in motion, and I don’t want to get in Margaret’s way. What if she does hit Joel? She loves him; what would she do to me?

When I am forced to stop at a red light directly in front of the Municipal Building, I slump down further in my seat. A single fat bead of sweat runs from the nape of my neck underneath the hook on my bra, down to the waist of my pants. My back aches, and I keep shifting so the bottom of the steering wheel doesn’t push into my abdomen. The light stays red forever.

I hear a noise; there are footsteps beside my car. I look up praying feverishly that I am still alone and that no one has seen me. But I’m not alone. There is a three-year-old girl standing in front of the open car window in a lime green dress. As unbelievable as it sounds, I know immediately that this is my unborn child. I recognize her. She is looking at me with her head tipped to the side.

I can see that she is about to ask,
Mommy, why are you hiding?
And I can also see that there is no suitable answer to that question. I am not behaving like a mommy.
Go away,
I hiss at her.
I’m not ready for you yet
.

Beyond her, on the steps of the Municipal Building, my father looks unhappy. I have the sense that he is thinking of me. His face is so sad, tears push at the back of my eyes. I can feel in that moment my child and my father worrying over me. Their worry bores into me like a drill. I am not strong enough. They both see my weakness: I don’t know who I am.

The light finally turns green, and I slam my foot on the gas. I need to get away. My head is splitting when I finally nose the car into a straight line. I drive across town and don’t stop until I reach Sarachi’s Pond. Once there, I pull into the dirt parking lot where the teenagers drink and neck after the sun goes down, and turn off the car’s engine. I am alone. There are no other cars. Sarachi’s is a pond surrounded by heavy woods. There are picnic tables scattered near the water’s edge. On weekend afternoons couples bring their young children here to feed the ducks and geese.

My family came here only once that I can remember. I was thirteen and Lila was eleven. We came here for a picnic, and it remains the only picnic I’ve ever been on in my life. We are not big on the outdoors in our family. We don’t like bugs or sweating or sitting on the ground. We sunburn easily. This one picnic was an exercise in forced spontaneity. My dad bought fancy sandwiches at the gourmet supermarket, and Mom pulled an old blanket from the upstairs closet. Lila was assigned to bring her Frisbee and I had my Monopoly board. Mom and Dad had told us their plan in the middle of the previous week so we wouldn’t have a chance to back out. When we asked why we were going on a picnic, they answered that we just were, and that was that. It had seemed like a strange thing to do, and a strange time to do it. Lila and I hated each other at that age. We couldn’t have been more different. I had just fallen for boys, and I couldn’t think about anything but how to get one, and once I got one, what to do with him. I slept with my hair in curlers and anti-wrinkle cream smeared under my eyes. I spoke with a horrible English accent that I thought made me sound sophisticated.

At eleven, Lila was a friendless, straight-A student who was obsessed with reading the newspaper. She read my parents’ copies of the
New York Times,
the
Star Ledger,
and the
Bergen Record
every day and focused on the really bad news. She cut out articles on plane crashes, shootings, abandoned children, and freak fatal accidents. Whenever Mom gave her almost daily plea for someone to please talk about something at the dinner table, Lila would pull one of the articles out of her sock, where she stored them. My sister was a weird kid, and I wanted nothing to do with her.

I can see now that the picnic was an attempt on my parents’ part to pull our family together. I’m sure it was my mother’s idea. She didn’t recognize or particularly like the two daughters who were pulling away from her. She would try to brush my hair and tuck me in at night, and I bristled under her attempts to make me stay a child. Lila and I were more relaxed with Dad. We mystified him, but he still enjoyed our company. Mom would be the one to think a picnic would be a great quick fix.