“Why do you ask?” She poked her head out from behind the fridge door. Her reading glasses were jammed on top of her head and she was squinting over at me as if it would help her see better. “Did you think of something I forgot?”
“I never got to see the whole thing. How would I know what’s missing?”
“Just wondering.”
Ripping open the inside of the bird, she took the serrated knife from the counter and dug a slit up the back end. “Can you get me some spinach from the crisper?”
“What the hell are you making?”
“Chicken ballotine. Or some variation of it.” She gestured in the air with her knife, drawing a heart. “It’s French. Found the recipe on the back of the Ritz box.”
“If it’s got bacon in it, I’ll eat it.” I pulled out the spinach, noting all the wrinkled apples at the bottom of the drawer that needed throwing out. “Why do you still buy the Red Delicious if Dad was the only one who ever ate them?”
“You don’t eat them?”
“You know I don’t. The skin’s too tough. It’s like gnawing plastic.”
My mother flipped the chicken over and began smashing it with the rolling pin. “Lolee likes them.”
I snatched a piece of bacon. “No, she doesn’t. The last time you gave her one, she licked all the peanut butter off and stuffed the piece under the couch cushions.”
“You wanna grab some red wine? I think there’s a bottle of something in the cabinet.” She pointed with the rolling pin. A bit of raw chicken was stuck to the end and flung off onto the floor.
“I’m gonna throw those apples out.”
“Leave them. Lolee does like them.”
That memory of the apple made me feel strange, as if time were slipping past in an oily ooze. I tried to remember what I’d felt at the time; I’d been angry because I sat on the couch and the pieces of apple had stuck to my pants. I’d yelled at Lolee until she cried. Then she’d tried to wash the pieces in the sink, assembling them into an apple shape before slipping them back inside the fridge. She’d written us all apology notes, drawing us as a stick-figure family. Our smiles were so big they’d outsized the circular faces. She’d even included Sir Charles in the drawings. Brynn had already been gone for a year, and Lolee had stopped putting her in any of the family art she created. I’d looked at that apology note and been so sad I thought my chest might cave in. It seemed I was the only one who remembered Brynn.
I unearthed a bottle of merlot left over from the ill-fated party. I uncorked it and took a whiff, grimacing at the vinegar smell. My mother was still bent over the bird, deboning it, yanking at the thigh.
Her back was turned to me as she peeled out the rib cage. I set the bottle of wine down beside the invitation, looking at the gallery’s name and Lucinda’s name next to it. Spun it in a circle until all the writing was upside down, then right side up, then upside down again. Lucinda’s name in a loop until none of the letters looked real anymore.
“Do you know how that fire started?” I asked, pushing the card back and forth along the counter. It made a swishing sound along the Formica.
“I think you know who did it.”
“Oh God,” I said, picking up the bottle of wine. “You want some of this?”
“Yes, please.” She yanked out the wings and flipped the bird over again. I watched her pound at the flesh with the rolling pin, muscles and tendons lining strong down her forearms.
I took a drink from the neck of the bottle. The opening was gunked and left grime on my tongue. “So Lucinda did that? To her own gallery?”
“I guess so.”
“Her and her Donna. Probably.”
I took another swig, then wiped the lip and pulled a couple of clean coffee mugs from the drainer in the sink, doling out half the bottle in one go. I handed one to my mother, who immediately took two long swallows.
“She told you about it?” I said. “About her and her wife. Needing the money.”
“I didn’t have to ask.” My mother took another sip and then held the mug out to me, dangling it from her chicken-slippery fingers. I filled it up again and drank some more of my own. “I also don’t think she was married anymore. Or at least she didn’t want to be.”
She stuffed the insides of the chicken with the spinach leaves and little pinches of salt and pepper. The cheese she’d already shredded in a pile next to the big bowl of bread crumbs.
“She sent me some money. After.”
“Money from what?” I knew the investigation into the fire was still ongoing. I wasn’t sure what would happen, if anyone would be prosecuted. “Insurance? How could they possibly pay out that quick?”
“Advance against a claim. Your father looked into that once for our shop. Just in case anything . . . happened.”
That was news to me. But hey, I learned new things about my family all the time. Daily reminders that none of us were who we thought we were. God only knew what I’d have uncovered in a month’s time. Or a year’s.
“Aren’t you mad? She destroyed all your work.”
“I was. At first.” She sucked in her lip for a second, then blew out. “But then again it wasn’t really about keeping those things. It was about making them in the first place.”
“Still.”
“She destroyed her things too.”
We were both quiet for a while, my mother stuffing in the bits of fatty bacon, rolling up the chicken and pressing it back down against a baking tray that was older than me. “Come help me tie these up, then we’ll throw them in the oven.”
Pushing down against the raw flesh, she tied the string twice around the flattened rolls, knotting it in loopy bows over my fingers. It reminded me of tying my shoes. Of my father teaching me, of me teaching Bastien. I didn’t know who’d taught Lolee. Maybe she’d taught herself.
Looping the string, my mother tied while I helped knot. There were two rolls for each of us: Lolee, Bastien, my mother, Milo, and myself. There’d be a big pitcher of tea and there’d be bread and there’d be a salad that nobody ate but my mother. The same, the same. Even when things changed, everything still went back to equilibrium.
“You’ve been seeing her, haven’t you?”
I pulled my finger from the last roll too quick and the insides spilled on the baking sheet. Bits of cheese and bacon coated a fragile leaf of spinach. She took my hand and pushed it down again, rolling the insides back up neatly.
“Does everyone in this family know my personal business?”
Tie, loop. The rolls pressed together like a savory gift. “Did you think you were being sneaky? You’re not great at hiding, Jessa.”
She put them in the oven and we both washed our hands clean of chicken guts, scrubbing the outsides of our mugs. I poured the last of the wine, splitting it evenly between us. My mother’s lips were already stained with the purple kiss of it.
She called for Lolee and Bastien to set the table. They trooped in from the porch and took Tupperware from the cabinet, cups we’d had since I was a little kid. They poured the pitcher of tea, ice cracking in the still-warm liquid, and grabbed bowls and plates along with fistfuls of silverware. Milo came in from the living room and leaned into the open fridge, scrounging for leftovers even though we were just about to eat.