The Chicken Sisters(89)

“Mimi loaned Frannie money,” Amanda said slowly. “She wasn’t mad. And Frannie—she died, you know. Before Mimi.”

“Mimi gave Frannie the recipe,” Nancy said. “And you can show that to Sabrina, and that’s it. You’re off the hook.”

Amanda stood, turning the paper over in her hands. Nothing about this made sense. “But why would it change? Why did our chicken suddenly taste like Mimi’s when it didn’t before?”

“Because I didn’t have it,” Nancy said. “When Frank—my Frank—died, there was a big mason jar of just the spices, all mixed. I didn’t know what was in it. I just guessed how much to throw in with the flour each time, and then when it was gone, I didn’t know how to make it. I kept trying—I did guess nutmeg at some point—but I never got it right. I kept playing with it, adding things. Cinnamon, even. Dill, which was awful. That’s why it changed all the time.”

That didn’t answer her question. Not even close. “But where—”

“Friday, when you were talking about the chicken always being the same—right after they asked about the biscuits—and Tony Russell was complaining that it wasn’t, Gus was right there. He started joking, afterward, about Tony not knowing where the recipe was hidden. I realized that Gus knew where it was.”

“I never knew Grandma didn’t have the recipe,” Gus said. “I just assumed she did. So I showed her, and we made the chicken together for Saturday morning.”

“That’s why the chicken wasn’t the same before, and why it was different Saturday,” Nancy said. “This is the old recipe, what Frank used and everybody else used. It’s been here since Frannie left it. And Frank being Frank, my Frank, he would have thought it was funny to show a little kid and never show me. He never would have thought anything might happen to him. He thought he’d live forever.”

Then it was here all along. Amanda stared at the paper in her hand. “So you just made Mimi’s chicken? Didn’t you think someone would notice?”

“I thought the recipe was Frannie’s. I didn’t look at the back until we were done, and by then—no. I didn’t. At a certain point, isn’t fried chicken just fried chicken? I’ve been messing with it for years, and Tony Russell is the only one who said anything.” She sighed. “They’re not really here to pick the best chicken. They’re here to pick us apart, and I should have seen that from the beginning. Instead—I played right into their hands, and I’m sorry.”

Gus looked from one of them to the other, his excitement fading. “But we can still show this to Sabrina, right? And Aunt Mae. And everybody. Because Sabrina asked everyone about this, Mom, and no one believed her, but—this just proves it.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” Amanda said, and she laid down the page on the counter again, more gently this time, and put a finger on the final line. Owe Mimi $1,400, October 29, 1889.

Gus spoke. “Do you think Frannie ever paid Mimi back?”

“I don’t think so,” Amanda said. “I think—that’s where this all started.”

Mimi had shared her recipe—probably the family recipe; after all, they were sisters—and they’d just coexisted, here in town, two chicken places with plenty of trains bringing in plenty of customers, and the coal mine, and the mill. There had been no ill will. The whole feuding-sisters story . . . it wasn’t true.

Until something went wrong, and Frannie was gone, and there wasn’t anyone left to care about Mimi. Had she asked the man she had so criticized to make it right, or had she been too proud? She, too, had died young, and for generations, Frannie’s grew, and Mimi’s struggled, first under Mimi’s daughters, the old ladies of Amanda’s very early childhood, and then Barbara’s grandmother, and her mother, and then Barbara, all bitter, always at least a little behind on everything, always mistrusting the bank and Merinac. When Amanda was little, when Barbara first took over Mimi’s, the Pogociellos had run this town.

Nancy had seen this. Seen it before anything had really gone wrong, before the chicken tasting, before Mae accused her of stealing, before Amanda had told about Barbara, before the whole scene at the house.

Before any of it. Nancy knew—and didn’t tell her. Didn’t tell anyone.

“I wish I had said something,” Nancy said. “I think you know how much I wish I had said something the minute I turned over that paper. But I wanted to believe it couldn’t be true. That they paid it back, that all the rest of this whole feud was just Mimi’s. Your mother, holding a grudge.” She took a deep breath. “But I think you’re right. And the truth is that Frank—my Frank, your Frank—they must have known. Or guessed.”

Amanda started to speak, then swallowed her question. Nancy felt bad enough already. Sometimes people let you down—and sometimes you let yourself down. Instead, she reached out and put one arm around her mother-in-law and beckoned Gus in with the other. He looked at them both uncertainly.

“You think Grandpa—and Dad—I mean, that’s not that much money now, but it was. You really think that all along they knew Frannie’s started with Mimi’s help, and they just never said anything?”

Nancy looked somber. “I don’t want to believe it, but I do.”