Mercy Street(70)

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.”

What was going on in her life, Claudia had no idea. On Facebook she posted jokes and prayer chains, images of sunsets with inspirational slogans: A smile can change the world. Hope is the heartbeat of the soul. Mostly, though, she posted photos of her daughter—a plump, serious-looking child with a bowl haircut—dressed in elaborate outfits: mermaid, Disney princess, a miniature Scarlett O’Hara with ruffled petticoats and an actual parasol. The costumes were weirdly revealing, in ways unflattering to a chubby child, her plump thighs squeezed like bratwurst into lacy stockings. The little girl seemed to know this. She wore an expression of profound dismay.

From the next room Claudia heard a child coughing, a deep, guttural hacking. “Yikes, that doesn’t sound good. Has she seen a doctor?”

“It’s just a cold,” Nicolette said, lighting a Virginia Slim.

You shouldn’t smoke indoors, Claudia thought. But she wasn’t Nicolette’s mother or sister or even, technically, her landlord. How Nicolette raised her child was none of her business.

“You changed the locks,” she said.

Nicolette’s eyes flickered. “There was a break-in up at Roy Bishop’s. I was just being careful.”

Claudia said, “You should have talked to me first.”