At least, not to Claudia. On Facebook she posted constantly: umpteen photos of Nicolette’s pregnant belly, a sonogram image bordered, literally, with hearts and flowers. Her captions were full of exclamation marks. (My grandbaby!!!!) Her online persona was, to Claudia, confounding: breathless, effusive, nothing at all like the stolid, taciturn woman she was in real life.
From what seemed a great distance, Claudia followed the saga of Nicolette’s pregnancy. The prenatal checkups, the gestational diabetes—for Deb and Nicolette, yet another experience to be shared. For years Deb had kept a container in the bathroom to dispose of her own syringes, a plastic sharps bin she’d swiped from work. When Claudia was growing up, this had seemed normal. In Clayburn, everyone was diabetic; shooting insulin was a badge of adulthood, like getting a driver’s license. She learned later that this wasn’t unique to Clayburn; it was true wherever people were poor. At work she encountered diabetes all the time, in shockingly young patients from Dorchester or Chelsea—urban food deserts where moldering produce was shrink-wrapped and sold at a premium and shitty fast food was practically free.
Nicolette’s food cravings, her backaches and heartburn. Claudia read the posts grudgingly, sourly, filled with childish aggrievement. Later she saw the feeling for what it was, a kind of sibling rivalry. By getting knocked up in high school, Nicolette had accomplished something Claudia had never managed. She had made their mother proud.
Their mother. Nicolette wasn’t her sister, but she was—Claudia saw it clearly—Deb’s daughter. She had followed in Deb’s footsteps, made the exact same choices, while Claudia had done the opposite. For as long as she could remember, her mother’s example had informed her every decision. For Deb, getting pregnant at seventeen had been determinative. For Claudia, dealing with unplanned pregnancies—prevention, remediation—was more than a career. It was her mission, her life’s work.
Nicolette’s pregnancy was, for Claudia, a surreal reversal. She felt wounded by her mother’s joy. At the time it felt like a personal rebuke, a resounding judgment on the life she’d made for herself, Deb flipping the bird at all she’d done and all that she was.
As (a reasonable person might argue) Claudia had always done to her.
Nicolette’s baby was born on May first, Deb’s birthday. It was—Deb wrote on Facebook—the best birthday present of her life. That was . . . four years ago? Five? Claudia couldn’t say exactly. It was the defining feature of a life without children: the ability to ignore the passage of time.
THE TRAILER FACED WESTWARD, A MAGNET FOR SNOWDRIFTS. THE place looked deserted. Under the carport were fresh tire tracks, but no car. In the front yard was a large plastic nativity scene, with figures the size of first graders: Mary and Joseph, baby in the manger, shepherd and camels in supporting roles. The rickety porch was laden with junk—a child’s bike with training wheels, a hibachi, an electric bug zapper, remnants of a long-ago summer now encrusted in snow.
Claudia parked on the road and picked her way through the snow. The curtains were closed, the front-facing windows covered in plastic sheeting—“winterized,” her uncle Ricky used to say. When she was a kid they’d done this every year, in October or November, to cut down on drafts. Claudia’s job was to hold the plastic tight against the window frame as Ricky duct-taped it into place. Seen through plastic, the outdoors had appeared remote and indistinct. For half the year, the universe narrowed to the dimensions of the trailer. In May the plastic would be peeled away, and the world would come back into focus.
The porch steps were unshoveled, the railing strung with tiny lights. Illuminated on a snowy night they may have been beautiful, but in the bright sunshine they looked like what they were: cheap plastic destined for the landfill.
The door was hung with a pine wreath, decorated with a printed ribbon: JOY TO THE WORLD! THE LORD IS COME. When Claudia knocked, a shower of dry needles fell to the floor.
“Nicolette?” she called. “It’s Claudia. Are you home?”
A curtain moved in the kitchen window, or maybe it didn’t. Her mother’s wind chimes, rusted now, tinkled in the breeze.
She knocked again, listening for movement.
“Nicolette, I’m coming in.”
Her key slid into the lock but wouldn’t turn. She saw, then, that the door handle had been replaced.
Nicolette had changed the locks.
WELL, NOW WHAT? SHE’D DRIVEN THREE HUNDRED MILES ON winter roads to be locked out of an empty trailer. She dialed Nicolette’s number, but still no one was answering. She had no idea where Nicolette was, how long she’d been gone or when she would return.
She got back into the car and started the engine, cranked the heater to warm her hands. She was about to head back to Boston when the porch light came on. A moment later, Nicolette opened the door.
“Claudia?” she called. “What are you doing here?” She looked sleepy, disheveled, older and heavier than Claudia remembered. It seemed inconceivable that Nicolette was half her age.
“I was just about to leave,” she said, stepping out of the car. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer.”
“I was sleeping.”
Claudia thought, It’s one in the afternoon.
“I came to check on the place,” she said, climbing the icy porch stairs. “I guess you made it through the storm okay.”
Inside, nothing had changed. Deb had been a lackadaisical housekeeper, and Nicolette was no better: dirty dishes in the sink, the carpet dusted with potato chip crumbs like some persistent dandruff. The place smelled the way it always had, like cigarettes and air freshener. Nicolette plugged them into every spare electrical outlet, filling the trailer with the unlikely scent of potpourri.
“The power went out.” Nicolette ran a hand through her lank hair—bleached blonde, but not recently. The dark roots extended nearly to her ears. “I had a bunch of meat in the freezer. I had to throw it all away.”
“That’s too bad,” Claudia said.
“Twenty bucks’ worth. I just went to the store that morning.”
As always, Claudia had the distinct impression that the girl was trying to shake her down for money. A few months after Deb’s funeral, Nicolette had called Claudia to complain that the lights wouldn’t work. When asked if she’d paid the electric bill, Nicolette seemed taken aback, as though she were owed free utilities in addition to free rent.
Nicolette sat heavily at the kitchen table. The other chair was piled with magazines and junk mail, so Claudia remained standing.
“How’ve you been?” she asked.
“All right, I guess.”