The day after her seventeenth birthday, while she's working on college essays and humming along to a Frankie Valli record, Angela gets the call.

Her sister is on the line, crying and she's saying she's sorry and Angela doesn't understand at all. She tells her to slow down, calm down, and explain what's going on. Her sister only sputters "I'm at... I got... I need a ride home" and manages to give the address without hiccuping back tears. Angela hangs up the phone and gets the car keys as fast as possible, because her little sister is obviously in trouble.

She goes ten miles over the speed limit the entire way, but when she gets to the address and realizes where she is, she wishes she had gone ten miles under.

She parallel parks the car in front of the clinic and tries to swallow the lump in her throat, but it's useless. Her mother had told her there were only two reasons to go to this clinic, and only one of them was befitting of a good Christian woman: to protest. She knows that her sister isn't here to protest. She's here for that other reason, the one that everyone at church warned them about. "Trouble" was what some of the older ladies (who couldn't bear to speak of it) called it while they shivered at the thought.

Angela tries not to think about it as she waits in the cold car. She tries to focus on the frost on the windows and the snow on the ground, tries not to panic when she thinks she sees someone from church. She stiffens when she sees her sister's tiny frame exit the building and descend the stone staircase. Her hands grip the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turn an even brighter shade of white.

Her sister slides into the passenger seat and cries as she buckles her seatbelt. She's only sixteen and just wants a hug, but Angela's gaze is fixed on the road and her hands are locked on the steering wheel.

Angela wonders what she should say, but ultimately decides to say nothing. She doesn't talk to her sister for the rest of the day, doesn't talk to her for the rest of the week, doesn't talk to her for the rest of the month... eventually she graduates from high school and goes away to a Christian university without saying a word. Years pass and she doesn't talk to her sister. She tells her parents and anyone who asks that she can't remember why they don't speak anymore because that's easier than the truth. A part of her is glad that she said "I love you" before she hung up the phone that day because another part of her knows that she'll never say it to her sister again.

Sixteen years later, Angela finds a Frankie Valli record in her attic and she puts it in the trash.