The Chicken Sisters(27)

She tried to block his way, but he pushed past her, and when she turned to try to get in front of him she saw that Amanda had finished coloring and was trying to push her barstool back and climb down.

“Manda, wait,” she called.

“I’m coming,” said Amanda, and shoved herself back as hard as she could. The barstool tipped backward and Amanda shrieked, but instead of hitting the ground, the stool was caught by the box stacked on the end table behind it, and Amanda rolled off over the box, over the arm of the sofa, off the sofa, and onto the floor. The man had pushed Mae aside and tried to rush to Amanda, but he tripped and nearly fell on her instead, and Amanda began to scream.

“It’s okay!” the man shouted above Amanda, reaching for her. “Are you okay? Where does it hurt?”

Amanda rolled onto her back and kicked up, catching the man sharply under the chin so that he screamed too, a sort of strangled argh sound as he collapsed onto the sofa. Amanda, surprised by the success of her move, paused in her screaming, but the room didn’t quiet, because Barbara, still young then, still thin, still angry, slammed the open front door into the stack of boxes again.

“Gary?”

Her face was pale, and as the other man, the convertible man, tried to come in behind her, Barbara elbowed him in the gut.

“You get out of here, Frank Pogociello. I know your daddy sent you, but you’ve got no right to be in here, no right. This house is not for sale.” Mae could tell her mother was mad. Madder than she’d ever seen her, maybe, and seeing this, she ran around the fallen man, grabbed Amanda, and stood in front of her little sister like a shield.

Barbara didn’t scream at the man in the house. Her voice got real low, real quiet. “Gary Logan, you get out. You get out right now, before I have to figure out what I’m going to do if you don’t.”

“I just want to talk to you. I want to see the girls.”

“You don’t just show up here trying to talk and see. You don’t just show up anywhere. Right now, I want you to get out. If that’s all you want, if you just want to talk, then you call me, and then we’ll see. You don’t go sneaking in here without me.”

The man stood up. “I thought you were here,” he said. “Hear that, Frank? She wasn’t here, and this child opened the door right up for us. Couple of strangers.”

“Oh, I was here,” Barbara said. She was talking fast now, right over him. “I was here. I was out back, and I heard you come sneaking in.”

The man edged past Barbara, squeezing through the boxes, and looked out the front door. “That car wasn’t here before,” he said. Mary Cat was coming slowly up the walk.

“It was.” Barbara crossed her arms. “I don’t care if you didn’t see it.”

He looked back at Mae. “She wasn’t here, was she, Mae?” he asked.

Mae was a fast thinker, and she knew her mother. If Barbara lied, she would lie. She crossed her own arms. “She was.” Mae heard Amanda get up behind her. Amanda was a truth teller, every time; she could not be made to see that sometimes it was better that grown-ups and other people not know everything. Mae knew what she had to do. She bent her leg and kicked backward, hard as she could, and felt her foot make contact. Amanda screamed again and fell over, holding her arms wrapped around her stomach and rolling from side to side, and Mae turned around and made her fiercest face at her sister, hoping she would understand so Mae would not have to kick her again. Their eyes met, and Amanda shut her mouth up firm and lay still.

“I was in the back,” Barbara said. “Gardening.” Now that she was between the man and the girls, she started walking toward him, willing him out the door.

Mary Cat stood aside as if to let him by. She seemed to know who he was. “Gary,” she said. “I take it you were just leaving?”

The man ignored her and turned back to Barbara. “This place is a shithole,” he said. “It’s— What is all this?”

Barbara Moore’s house might have been a mess, but she herself was not. She brushed off the front of her blouse casually, as if to suggest that no speck of dirt would last anywhere near her, and said firmly, “We have just inherited a few things, and I have not yet unpacked. But you will not be here long enough for it to bother you.”

Gary Logan kicked the stack of boxes nearest him, and the doll perched on top fell over. “That was your mother’s,” he said. “She died five years ago, Barb. Seriously, what is all this crap?” He turned to look down the hallway, and Barbara seized this opportunity to take him by both shoulders and march him out the door, following and slamming it behind them. The windows that would have shown Mae what happened next were covered, but she could hear her mother shouting.

Amanda sat up. “Is he gone?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You kicked me. And she wasn’t here. You know it.”

“I know.”

“She lied. You lied.”

Mae shrugged. She knew that, too, and while she didn’t know why she’d lied, she knew she’d been right to do it. When they heard Barbara coming back inside, the girls rushed back to the counter and resumed coloring, heads down.

“Who let him in?” Barbara’s voice was low and fierce.

Mae kept her eyes on her coloring book. “I— Amanda fell off the stool. I opened the door and Amanda fell off the stool and he came in.” Mae knew that Amanda wouldn’t say anything now, even if she’d seen something different. She wouldn’t lie, but sometimes she could keep her mouth shut.