The Chicken Sisters(77)
“Weaving and mountain climbing. Got it. That will be a change for you.” Or wheelchairs, she thought but didn’t say. Mae looked around the kitchen, trying to envision Barbara, debilitated, piloting her way through the narrow corridors among the boxes and furniture. It was hard enough to navigate this mess in perfect health. A wheelchair, a walker, even an unsteady gait—did Barbara know how much she was going to need Mae to clear the path in front of her? This would all have to go, and now Mae knew she would take her mother, hale and healthy and hoarding, over any changes that came like this.
“You can read it all. Or not.” Barbara put the papers back in the bag and carefully set it down on the floor. “Anyway. It’s fine. I mean, I’ve thought about it. I’ll manage. I’ll run Mimi’s as long as I can. And then Andy will take over, because there’s no one else.” And there it was, the unsung chorus that had been playing ever since Mae first walked into Mimi’s earlier that week, what she knew her mother wanted, and had wanted all along. She just hadn’t known why.
“It would be easier if I lived here, wouldn’t it?” Mae asked.
Her mother didn’t answer, but Aida did. “Your mom doesn’t want you to give up anything for her, Mae. She just wishes you wanted to come home, right?”
Barbara nodded, still looking away from them, and Mae realized her mother was crying. The only other time she had seen her cry was when Amanda was in the hospital with food poisoning, and the nurse, who had known Barbara for years, had been very direct about what had probably led to her sister’s illness: bacteria in food that was too old, or stored wrong, probably old chicken her mother brought home from the restaurant and maybe left on the counter. That had been the last time Amanda ate chicken, Mae suddenly realized, and unwillingly her mind drifted to her sister. “Amanda doesn’t know, does she?”
Her mother shook her head. “We don’t—” She took another breath, a sharp one. “We don’t talk a lot.”
“You should,” Aida said angrily. “I’ve always said this feud thing is ridiculous. What does it matter, a little fried chicken? It shouldn’t get between families.”
“Of course it gets between families,” snapped Barbara. “She married Frannie’s great-great-grandson! It’s my job to keep Mimi’s going, Aida, and that means protecting it from people who want to change it or shut it down, and the Pogociellos have been trying to do that for years. Just because you bailed on Mimi’s doesn’t mean I’m going to.”
“Lightening up on Amanda isn’t bailing on Mimi’s, Barbara. It’s your business. You can choose how to run it.”
“Amanda—she chose her side,” said Barbara, as if it hurt to say Amanda’s name. “It’s our business. Yours, mine, and Mae’s. But it won’t be for long, if we don’t win this thing.” She looked at Mae, then turned away. “Maybe it’s time to just let it go.”
“Let it go?” Sitting there in her mother’s hot, overstuffed kitchen, windows closed, shades drawn, as they always were, Mae actually felt a chill like the one that sometimes came when Mimi, or Mary Cat or Mary Margaret or whichever wicked old lady had stuck around, moved through her space. But this wasn’t Mimi; this was her, Mae, hearing words her mother had never said and a possibility she had been trying to ignore. Mimi’s had always been here, would always be here, because Barbara would always be here.
Barbara. Who might have Parkinson’s, and who was now, uncharacteristically, dragging them toward talking about what that might mean. “But you’re fine now,” Mae said, a little frantic. “And you have Andy, and Mimi’s is doing fine, and we’re going to win. But even if we don’t”—if hoarding house trumped recipe theft in some grand Food Wars rule book somewhere—“there are so many customers, Mom. People love Mimi’s. You love Mimi’s. It’s part of Merinac. You can’t just—why would you even say that?”
“There’s a mortgage, Mae. A big mortgage. And people love Mimi’s and yes there’s Andy, but it’s not enough. It’s never quite enough. And when I die”—Mae and Aida started to protest, but Barbara kept talking, rolling right over them both, as though now that she had started, she couldn’t stop—“when I go, you’ll never be able to pay the death taxes. My mother was dead before she got to my age, Mae. She just dropped dead. Her mother, too. They went quick. I could go quick, and then, you don’t know what it’s like, Mae. When I came home and you girls were tiny, they took everything, all the cash plus money from everything I could sell, just to let me keep the place.” Barbara sniffled, loud and hard, and put her hand into the bottom of an empty Kleenex box, then took a paper towel from the roll on the counter and wiped angrily at her face.
“They were always on us. Frank Pogociello wanted to buy the place and his friend owned the bank and I had to do a new mortgage, and every month it was Can you make the payment? It will be the same for you, Mae. I don’t know how to make it not the same, I can’t pay it off, and if anyone comes to inspect it for a new mortgage, the building isn’t up to code, the house isn’t up to code, you’ll never be able to do everything that has to be done.”
Aida, who must have known all this, sat quietly. Barbara turned away from both of them, pressing her hands up over her lips, staring out into the room as if she were looking at the past, while Mae felt pieces of her own past clicking into place. The scrimping and saving every week, her mother’s hatred and almost fear of the Pogociellos. Even the piles of stuff that hemmed them into the increasingly tiny kitchen made more sense now. Maybe if you felt like your home could be ripped away at any minute—maybe if your whole world had already changed in an instant—maybe it made more sense to just hang on to everything.