I moved the kittens off Polly’s lap and down to the floor. I patted her back like she was a baby. I handed her a tissue.

“I’d like to promise you,” I said, “that no one in my family will ever say something like that again. But I have no control over them. In fact, if I tell them not to do something, it usually backfires. I think they’re just genetically predisposed to saying stupid things. What did we used to call it in high school—having diarrhea of the mouth?”

Polly wiped her eyes, blew her nose. “I can stay somewhere else. I just need a little bit of time to figure out where.”

Polly was an only child and her much older parents were both dead. She’d grown up a few towns away. When her husband left her for another woman, she’d given up her middle-management job on the other side of the country and moved back. I didn’t get the feeling that she’d kept in touch with any of her old friends. And even if she had, what do you do, private message them on Facebook? Hey, I’m ba-ack. Want to have coffee sometime? By the way, I’m single and pregnant, and no, I don’t want to talk about it.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “You’re staying here. As long as you want, but at least until after the baby is born and you’ve got the hang of being a new mom. And until my family has driven you so completely bonkers that you can’t wait another minute to get out of here.”

Polly smiled, wiped her eyes again. “At least let me move into the trailer. I’ll be fine out there. It’s just—”

“Knock it off,” I said. “You’re not staying in the trailer.”

I jumped up. “Come on, let’s get your stuff moved.”

Polly followed me up the stairs. I waited and let her open the door to my sister Carol’s old room.

The bed was neatly made, something Carol had certainly never done back when she was living in there. All the baby hand-me-downs Gloria, our teacher friend from Bayberry, had given to Polly—car seat, changing table, basinet, clothes, toys—were stacked against the walls.

“Wow,” I said. “I’d forgotten how tiny this room is. It always seemed bigger to me growing up because I was so thoroughly pissed off that Carol had her own room and I didn’t.”

I picked up a bag of baby clothes in each hand. “There’s still room in the attic—do you want to move some of the baby stuff up there?”

“Thanks, but I like looking at it. It makes me feel like this baby is really happening, you know?” Polly grabbed her purse, her pillow, the car seat.