“I learned to shoot when I was six,” Nathan says.
“How old are you now, Nathan?”
“I’m eight. I got a shotgun for my birthday. Do you want to see it?” He beams. “I got a smaller gun, too, for my seventh birthday. I could go out back and shoot a squirrel if you want.”
“Finish your lunch first, Nathan,” Nicky says.
“Is that even legal?”
“Colorado is pretty libertarian about these things,” says Steve. He takes a delicate bite of quinoa bread and then examines the piece in his hand as if he’s never seen it before in his life. “We think it’s great for Nathan, teaching him gun safety and instilling our values.”
Nathan moves around his dandelion salad in a way that Sonia recognizes as a way to make it appear he’s eating. She envisions giving the poor kid a greasy piece of pizza, a bunch of Oreos.
“He’s a good hunter,” says Nicky.
Now, Sonia always knew that Nicky had become a full-on Western woman. She’d seen pictures of her on the occasional Christmas card, wearing a cowboy hat. Right now, she hears from another room, Good Lord, new country music playing softly. “Wow. That’s pretty amazing.” Sonia says. “My kids think guns only exist on television.”
“We’re going out bowhunting after lunch if you’d like to join us,” says Steve before quickly correcting himself. “I guess in your condition that you might not want to.”
“Steve, even if I wasn’t pregnant, I would not go out bowhunting, but thank you anyway.”
“I can’t use the bow yet,” says Nathan.
“It’s too heavy for him, but not for long,” says Steve. His pride is touching. He really loves his boy, Sonia can tell. She’s trying to focus on things like that, instead of the fact that she finds fathers bonding with sons over killing things not only alien but unsavory.
“So, Sonia. Do you have an art show here or something?” Nicky asks. Of course Nicky can’t imagine that Sonia would just come and visit her sister, and that’s understandable because under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t. But she’s not normal right now. And the way Nicky said “art show” was typical Nicky, her disdain for Sonia’s artistic ambition was a given. Sonia, the New York City artist. Except she’s not really an artist, but even if she tried to explain that to Nicky, it wouldn’t matter. Nicky’s opinions have more to do with these set, cliché ideas in her head and very little to do with reality. In fact, she’s never been to New York, so her idea of whatever it means that Sonia lives there is pretty much based on incorrect ideas that she holds dearly to herself. Not the most flexible person, her sister. Nor open-minded. Nor a good listener. But here they are.
“No, I wish.” There’s a silence then and Steve seems to get that Sonia wants to be alone with her sister. He and Nathan excuse themselves to prepare for the hunt.
“Let’s go into the den,” says Nicky, and Sonia follows her into a small room with a well-used beige couch, a rather dainty television set, a stereo, and an armchair in a Southwestern fabric, very Navaho-like. The walls are covered with pictures of Steve and Nathan smiling over the carcasses of dead animals. Sonia sinks deep into the armchair and her sister folds herself up on the couch.
“This room is great. So homey,” says Sonia. “I’m loving my hotel, but it’s not a home.”
“What’s going on, Sonia?”
“I left my family. Sort of abruptly.”
“That’s nuts.”
“I feel nuts. This pregnancy is to blame.”
“You’ve always been a bit nuts so I wouldn’t blame the pregnancy entirely.”
“I just needed to flee. So I did. I don’t know. I’ve been frustrated with painting. Basically I haven’t been painting.”
“You have the rest of your life to paint, but your children are only young once.”
Nicky never held back with her opinions and perhaps that was the one thing the two had in common, the often uncomfortable frankness of opinion.
“I know, I realize that. It’s just that I’m happier when I’m painting. I think it makes me a better mother, when I’m happy with my work.”
“Why the third baby then? I stopped with one and I don’t even have a conflict with my ‘art’ or ‘career’ or anything.”
“Like I said, it was an accident.”
“So why didn’t you get an abortion and then get your tubes tied? I mean, Sonia, leaving your family?”
“Well that didn’t happen and here I am,” Sonia says. “I was in South Bend before this. I stopped by the house. I saw Larissa and Larry, Dan’s brother. Oh, and I stopped by the old house.”
“How long have you been gone?”
“I’ve sort of lost track of time.”
“It’s the first week of January.”
“I forget when I left. The end of November. Around there.”
“Holy shit.”
Steve and Nathan come in to say goodbye. Both of their faces are painted in shades of green and a terrible smell enters with them.
“You guys look like you’re in Apocalypse Now and what is that smell?” asks Sonia.
“Oh, we rub elk urine on ourselves to attract the animals. Anyway, great seeing you. Will you be here when I get back?”
Nicky says, “Stay for dinner, Sonia.”
“Um, that’s nice of you,” she tries to breathe through her mouth. “I might be here. Have a great time trying to kill things.”
“I’ll shoot a squirrel for you when we get back,” says Nathan.
“That sounds great, Nathan,” says Sonia. “See you later.” A lingering odor remains after they leave and Sonia continues her mouth breathing.
“My life in New York is really different than this,” Sonia says to her sister.
“I have no idea how you live in that hellhole,” says Nicky, shaking her head in disbelief. “The taxes, the immigrants, the noise and filth. It makes you hate humanity not to mention how completely out of touch with nature you are. I think I’d die.”
“I loved it at first, as you know,” says Sonia.
“So you finally realized you’re living in a den of horror,” says Nicky.
“No, I wouldn’t say that,” says Sonia, thinking again of Steve’s and little Nathan’s painted faces and the stink of elk urine and thinks of Apocalypse Now and ‘the horror,’ “but it does wear on you, city life. I have no problem with paying my taxes or immigrants — which by the way, Nicky, is sort of racist and fucked up of you — but the noise and filth are harder to ignore than when I was younger.”
“I’m not racist,” Nicky says, and Sonia waits for the self-deluding qualifier, and is not disappointed. “It’s just,” Nicky says, “the taking away of jobs that should go to Americans.”
“Listen to yourself. Our mother was basically an immigrant. Let’s just not go there right now. How is mom by the way? I have to call her and tell her I’m pregnant. I think she’ll be happy for me.”
“Just don’t tell her you left your family and still didn’t manage to visit her.”
Sonia had thought of this. “I know, it’s been ages since I visited them. With two little kids, traveling is really difficult.”
“And now with the third, it’s not going to get any easier. But anyway, she’s doing well. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.”
Sonia wants to say something dismissive here, but weirdly, and somewhat out of character, bites her lip. She’s always been envious of the easy nature of Nicky’s relationship with her mother. Sonia’s always felt her mother preferred Nicky, and why not? She knows she was a more difficult daughter.
“So, what are you going to do now? You must be close to your due date. Are you going to have the baby alone?”