The Chicken Sisters(26)

Tomorrow?





She tucked the phone in her pocket, not waiting for a response, then headed toward the house, which was set farther back from the street than Mimi’s. Amanda could wait. All night, in the back of her mind, Mae had been stewing over her mother. How could Barbara leave before she got there? Her mother wasn’t one to leave anything to do with Mimi’s up to anyone else, and Barbara had been skeptical about Food Wars when they spoke, so Mae doubted she’d just let them film without her without a good reason. It must have made sense to her mother somehow, but Mae was damned if she could see how. Not that she always got what Barbara thought was important. But this was weird—and not in the usual way.

Curious, but not exactly worried, Mae stepped up to the door. The lights were off, and the house quiet, but Barbara always kept the front of the house dark when the restaurant was open, to discourage people from heading this way, so that meant nothing. Mae lifted her hand and, mindful that Amanda and Andy could possibly hear her, gave a soft but sharp rap on the door. Mae waited, but there was no answer. She knocked again, still cautiously. She wanted to see her mom tonight, especially given her unexpected disappearance from Mimi’s. But her great-aunt Aida, who lived with Barbara, was almost certainly asleep by now, and Mae didn’t want to wake her. There would be plenty of time tomorrow for Aunt Aida. Suddenly from within, she heard a low, growling bark.

Patches. Her mother’s dog. She’d never met the mutt and wondered now—did Patches’ presence suggest that Barbara was home, or not? Mae had no clue, but the low bark settled one thing: she wasn’t opening the door. Mae didn’t know much about dogs, and she didn’t want to. Patches, she knew from pictures, was not a small dog and didn’t look friendly. Mae had no desire to find out if she would instinctively recognize family.

She wasn’t setting foot in the house anyway. If Barbara was home, they’d talk in the garden, or walk out behind the house. Mae had decided a long time ago that Mimi’s was fine, but she was never going in her mother’s house again.

There was no reason Mae could imagine that her mother wouldn’t open the door to her. Either she hadn’t heard the knock or she wasn’t home. But where would she go? It was nearly ten o’clock. The only thing open was the Dillons, and even that would close in half an hour. More likely Barbara was simply not answering the door. It had always been her cardinal rule: don’t open the door to anyone; don’t let anyone into this house. The succession of older family who lived with them—long ago, her great-grandmother Mimi and her great-great-aunt Mary Cat and now presumably Aida—followed it too: no outsiders in the house.

Mae only broke the rule once—although once had been enough to change everything, at least for her. Barbara had taken Mary Cat to gloat over an old friend who, at eighty-nine and a full decade younger than Mary Cat, had fallen and broken a hip. Mae, six, and Amanda, almost five, promised they would not touch the stove. They would not wander off. They would stay in the house with their coloring books on the cleared-off part of the counter and they would not use glue, and they were proudly living up to their new responsibilities when the doorbell rang.

The doorbell never rang. Once, maybe twice ever, and her mother had opened it and stepped out and come back in quickly, shaking her head. Mormons, she’d said. Mae figured she could do the same, and hesitantly opened the door. She had no idea what a Mormon was, but when Mae saw the tall man standing there, he was so unlike her mental image of a Mormon (which looked something like a Munchkin) that she forgot to step outside and shut the door but instead just stood there.

The tall man knelt down in front of her and put out a hand. Mae took a step back, almost into the house. “Mae?” he asked, and she nodded and took his hand. It was dry and hot and rough on the edges, and he shook her hand hard.

“Do you know I’m your father, Mae?”

She shook her head vigorously. She did not know this. She was not sure she believed this. Of course she had often asked Barbara why she and Amanda did not have a father. “Because he’s a fool,” her mother would snap. “A fool and a weakling. Some people you’re just better off without.” And the old ladies, Mary Cat and old Mimi, her sister, would agree, if they were around. This man did not seem like a weakling—he was big and tall and a little scary—and just as suddenly as he’d knelt to take her hand, he stood up, dropping it and staring past her into the house. He said a word she did not know, and she could tell by his face that he was surprised, and not in a happy way. Too late, she went to close the door behind her, but he leaned over her and held it open.

“My God,” he said, and pushed harder on the door. “Frank, look at this.” Out on the sidewalk Mae saw a man she recognized. He owned Frannie’s, she thought. And he had a big car, a big red car with no top that he drove everywhere all summer long, and a little boy who was in Amanda’s kindergarten who rode in back and always got ice cream. That man came and looked in behind the first man, who was pushing on the door and trying to get past her.

The door didn’t open any farther—Mae could have told him that. There were boxes behind it, and a big piece of countertop leaning on them. Sitting on top was a doll Mae didn’t like, with arms and legs and a face made of ladies’ hose stuffed with something and tied with thread to create fingers and a nose, chin, and toes, wearing a feathered hat. There was tons more, too, but that was mostly what kept the door from opening.