Pictures of the Past Read Online Free PDF

her lap, not dangling where it might be caught. And then he would skip around to the driver’s seat and take his place. He would look at her as if she were his precious prize. It was his routine to hold her left hand in his right, and steer with his left hand. He called her princess, and treated her like royalty. And then when they reached their destination—he was equally courtly. She had to remind herself to wait for him to come around and open the door—to conform to what was expected of a well-mannered girl. Hippie dress, music, love, sex, and drugs may be the rule of the day, but good manners never went out of fashion.
    For the first time in her life, she felt reckless. And she loved it. She loved the wild feeling of the convertible ride, though she always kept her hair restrained by a peasant scarf so the wind could blow across her face without allowing errant strands to whip in her eyes. From their first afternoon together, she knew that he would want to kiss her, that he was winding his way north on Sheridan Road to Gilson Park in Wilmette, a place she had heard about that was famous for “parking.”
    First, they watched the players on the tennis courts and the children and families at the playground. Then they sat on the beach and were lulled by the rhythmic swells of the waves. The moon climbed from the east and the sun set behind their backs. They ended up back in the car, top up now in the dark parking lot, and there they kissed. This ritual was repeated three times that first week they were dating; each time he lured her to become increasingly intimate. He was gentle, never forcing himself on her, but he was helping her to discover the needs of her own body as well as his. She didn’t want to appear “easy,” but his kisses were better than chocolate to her. As his hands worked their charms to tease her with caresses of her body, she felt an intense physical desire for his touch. After two weeks of being together, she was no longer a virgin, and she felt glorious and proud of her new womanly being.
    She was surprised to discover that he didn’t know she was Jewish. Certainly, she’d known immediately that he was not. But perhaps in his world, where you are not a minority, where you are not continually looking to define yourself among strangers, there was an awareness of only the most elemental stereotypes of Jews. It was on their second Saturday afternoon outing—lunch at the Pancake House—when he ordered for both of them.
    “Oh, I don’t eat bacon,” she said.
    “You don’t eat bacon?” he asked.
    “I don’t eat any pork.”
    He looked at her quizzically. “What are you Jewish or something?”
    Looking back, perhaps she should have followed her instincts. There was something unattractive about the way he said it.
    “Well, yes, actually, I am—of course—I assumed you knew that.”
    “Well, no offense.”
    “Well, of course, no offense,” she responded. Living in Rogers Park with its proud Jewish heritage, she didn’t know why anyone would be offended. Even at college her first year, certainly where the greater student populace was not Jewish, she had found her comfortable niche in the world of the “Jewish dorms,” and the Jewish fraternity and sorority social scene. She had never personally encountered anti-Semitism.
    And then, as the summer drew to a close, only a week before it would be Labor Day and the return to school, she told him she was pregnant. She had not even completely sorted out her own feelings on the predicament. But she felt so close to him, so in love with him, that she knew it was something they would face together—she never thought she would need to handle the problem alone.
    He said nothing for the longest time and when he finally spoke, he did not look at her, but surveyed first the cloudy sky and then the small patch of grassless dirt on which he was standing. “I explained to you,” he said firmly. “My family—it’s different from yours—we have a