text alert. She jumped from the couch, checking the screen.
“Oh, God,” she said, touching her forehead, where a deep crease had formed. “Melodie says the traffic report is bad. I need to get going.”
She rose from the couch, and as she did, Murphy’s hopes dissolved.
“… should be enough meals in the freezer,” Mom was saying, bustling from the den to the kitchen. “I left twenty bucks on the fridge for one pizza night. I want you girls to treat yourself. And … am I forgetting anything?”
When she returned to the threshold, her face was pinched, like she’d been told the exact time of her death. Murphy was used to this expression. When Mom was home—and that wasn’t a lot—she wore it constantly. Perpetually worried. Looking, not seeing. Hearing, not listening.
Tears wobbled under Murphy’s eyes. She wiped the right but kept the left one wet. Maybe she wanted Mom to see she was sad. Maybe she wanted anyone to see her, period.
Claire watched her mother, resentful of everything: the sweepstakes, the Lean Cuisines in the freezer, the predictable rain pattering on the roof. In New Haven, she was sure there were no rainy Christmases, but pristine, snowy ones. She’d thought she could escape dreary Decembers for good. She’d been wrong.
Claire felt chilled to the marrow. Mom was leaving them for Christmas—such a Settler thing to do. Claire could picture Mom sunning herself on white shores next to waters that needed #nofilter. Not that she’d know how to take a good Instagram shot.
Mom hadn’t even earned this vacation. She’d won it in the Local Market sweepstakes: a five-day, all-inclusive Bahamian cruise for two. When she’d gotten the call, Mom had jumped and screamed like an animal, and since she couldn’t choose just one daughter to go along, she hadn’t chosen any of them. She’d asked her work friend, Melodie. Melodie from Walgreens. It was unjust.
“How many of the meals contain wheat?”
Claire had followed Mom into the kitchen from the den. She watched, arms folded, as Mom rolled a suitcase toward the carport door.
“What?” Mom looked up. Then realization flooded her pinched-up face. “Oh no. Claire. I’m sorry, I forgot your new … thing.”
“It’s not a thing. I have a sensitivity. That’s why I’ve been having those stomachaches, I told you.”
Mom was riffling through her purse on the kitchen counter. “Well, we don’t know for sure,” she said, distractedly. “You haven’t seen a doctor. This is from your Internet videos.”
Claire dug her nails into her palms. Eileen and Murphy had joined her in the kitchen, Eileen loudly chewing a piece of gum.
“I haven’t seen one,” Claire said, “because you won’t take me.”
“Sweetie, I told you, with the insurance—we can book an appointment starting next year, but the out of pocket for tests—”
“And they’re not just Internet videos. There are plenty of books, too. Everyone knows about gluten.”
Mom stopped riffling. It seemed as though she were steadying herself, possibly counting to ten.
“I get that, Claire,” she said, slowly. “And I’m sorry I forgot. The pizza place has gluten-free crust, though, don’t they?”
Claire felt the need to scream. Mom was being kind, but she wasn’t getting it. That’s the way it had been for years: Though Mom was here, she wasn’t here. She’d given them presents and cocoa and tried to make things nice, but in the end, she was leaving them, at Christmas, for a cruise. And the most unjust part was this: Mom, a Settler, was getting her dream come true. And Claire’s dream? It had been dashed to pieces. That was something to scream about.
Screaming wasn’t Exceller behavior. Harper Everly had taught Claire that, long ago. But this once, Claire broke down.
“Okay, go, then,” she said. “You obviously don’t want to be with us for the holidays, so leave. Sunbathe and drink your piña coladas with Melodie. Be the Settler you are. Just go!”
Claire had detonated a bomb, and she wasn’t going to stay for the aftermath. She stormed away to her bedroom and slammed herself inside.
“Oh, God,” Mom said hoarsely, shutting her eyes. “I don’t want to leave her this way.”
Her shoulders slumped, toboggan gone askance. She looked drained of life.
Don’t leave this way, Murphy thought. Don’t leave at all.
Mom’s phone went off, blasting a polka-style tune. Murphy saw that the screen read MELODIE.
“I … really need to go,” Mom rasped, ignoring the call. “There’s no telling, with the traffic in Portland, and … girls.” She looked pleadingly to Murphy and Eileen. “It’s just gluten, right?”