Chapter 6 - What Was Found in the Fridge
Nina narrowed her eyes at me, but she followed me down the hallway, her high heels clicking loudly against the hardwood floor.
We entered the kitchen. It was still immaculate, warm, and bright.
"Look at what?" Nina asked defensively, glancing around the room. "The counters are clean. Mom cleaned them for you! She worked her butt off all afternoon while you were at work!"
"Open the refrigerator, Nina," I said, standing near the kitchen island with my arms crossed.
Nina let out an exasperated sigh, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. "Fine! If it makes you feel better, I'll look at the damn fridge!"
She stepped over to the large stainless-steel refrigerator, grabbed the long chrome handle, and pulled the door wide open.
The bright interior light illuminated her face. And then, Nina stopped moving.
She froze completely. Her body went rigid, her hand locked onto the door handle, her eyes wide as she stared at the glass shelves inside.
Arranged in perfect, neat rows on the middle shelf were six large, heavy glass storage containers.
Inside the first container was the roasted organic chicken, neatly carved into precise breast and thigh portions. Inside the second were the roasted potatoes, tossed with rosemary and oil. The third held the steamed green beans, dressed with lemon zest. The fourth contained a large glass bowl of rich, brown gravy. The fifth held a homemade lemon meringue pie, with exactly one clean slice missing from the side.
An entire, elaborate, multi-course feast, fully cooked, meticulously packaged, and cooled.
Nina stared at the food. Then her eyes drifted downward, moving past the Tupperware, down to the very bottom shelf of the refrigerator door.
It was completely empty.
Nina slowly turned her head toward the stainless-steel sink.
Sitting directly on the counter beside the faucet, lined up in a neat, perfect row like soldiers on parade, were four plastic baby bottles.
They were crystal clean. Their plastic caps were stacked beside them. The silicone nipples were sitting in a small drying rack.
They were completely empty. Not a single drop of formula, not a single ounce of pumped breast milk sat inside any of them. Clara had washed them, sanitized them, and lined them up on the counter before my mother arrived that afternoon—and there they had sat, untouched, unfilled, and ignored for six straight hours.
Nina stood there in the quiet kitchen, her hand still holding the refrigerator door open, her breathing growing shallow.
She stared at the empty bottles. Then she turned her head slowly, looking past the kitchen island into the formal dining room, where six plates, six sets of sterling silver, and six crisp linen napkins were laid out for a party that was never meant to exist.
A faint footstep sounded behind us.
My mother had walked quietly through the unlatched front door, stepping into the kitchen hallway in her slippers, her face soft and pale under the overhead lights.
"Nina, sweetie," my mother said, her voice smooth, sweet, and vibrating with helpless innocence. "Tell your brother to stop this nonsense. You know how Clara is. She insisted on cooking that entire dinner herself. I tried so hard to stop her! I kept telling her to rest, but she insisted. I was just trying to keep her from feeling useless in her own home..."
Nina didn't move for three long seconds.
She turned away from the refrigerator, her face pale, her lips pressed into a tight, trembling line. She looked at our mother. She looked at the six neat containers of chicken and gravy. She looked at the four empty baby bottles sitting beside the sink.
"You sat here," Nina whispered, her voice trembling with a sudden, horrifying realization. "You sat in this house all afternoon while a girl three weeks out of major surgery cooked a four-course meal for you."
"Nina! I didn't—"
"You made her set the table for six people so you could play hostess!" Nina’s voice cracked, turning into a sharp, loud shriek that filled the house. "She was starving! She was dehydrated! She was making your damn gravy while her baby was screaming for milk, and you watched her collapse onto the floor!"
"I did not!" my mother cried out, her face contorting into a mask of defensive rage. "She fainted! It was a minor dizzy spell!"
"Her blood sugar was forty-one, Mom!" I yelled, stepping between them. "She nearly went into a coma!"
Nina stepped past our mother without another word. She walked down the hallway, opened the front door, walked out onto the wooden porch, and picked up our mother’s burgundy suitcase.
My mother followed her out onto the porch, her hands fluttering near her chest. "Nina! What are you doing? Thank you, sweetie, I knew you'd carry my bag to the car—"
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Nina didn't stop at her car.
She marched straight down the concrete walkway, carried the heavy burgundy suitcase all the way to the edge of the property, and set it hard down beside the black plastic garbage cans sitting at the curb.
