Susan Mallory - Sizzling

Evie walked into the kitchen and smiled at her. "Hi, Lori. Did you have a good day?"

"Yes, thanks. Gloria is doing better and better. I'd been concerned about how she would heal, but she's moving forward all the time. She should be back to her regular life in a couple of months."

"That's good."

Her mother linked arms with her and dragged her into the living room, then forced her onto the sofa and settled next to her.

"Your sister and I have a confession," Evie said, then looked at Madeline and they both burst out laughing.

Lori glanced between them, not getting the joke. "What happened?"

Madeline waved her hand in the air. "It's not a bad thing," she said, barely able to speak between gasps of laughter. "Unless you're the chicken."

That set them off again. Lori tried to be patient, even though she felt a powerful need to scream. What was so damn funny?

"We were supposed to have chicken for dinner," Evie said as she wiped at her eyes. "I came over to help Madeline get things started. We were seasoning the chicken. It was wet and slippery and it went flying across the room."

She started to laugh again and couldn't stop. Lori could see how an unruly chicken could be humorous, but this was a little extreme.

"Okay," she said slowly. "And?"

Madeline pressed a hand to her chest. "I picked it up and when we were washing it off, it got away from us again. That chicken was determined not to go in the oven."

"It's true," her mother said. "We dropped it twice more, but we finally got it seasoned and in the pan. We put it in the oven and came in here to recover. Then about five minutes before you got home we realized- " She erupted in laughter.

Madeline joined in, then gasped. "We forgot to turn on the oven."

This set them off again. Lori tried to figure out the humor of forgetting to turn on the oven. Apparently it was one of those moments that had to be experienced in real time.

"The thing is," her mother told her. "You would never have forgotten. That's what I was telling Madeline when you came home. You were always the solid one, Lori. Not flaky like your sister and me."

Lori held back an automatic protest that her sister wasn't flaky.

Her mother's laughter faded. "Oh, Lori, you were such a good little girl. I could depend on you to take care of things. In my sober moments, I used to think that wasn't a good thing. Not that I blamed you. You're the only reason we all survived. But with you around, I didn't have to worry about what was happening at home. It was all taken care of."

Lori didn't know what to say to that. Her recollections were similar but she'd never thought of them in the context of holding the family together. She'd done what needed to be done because her mother was always drunk and Madeline was busy with her life.

"I remember Lori nagging me to eat," Madeline said. "Or at least eat better than I was."

"She did the same with me," Evie added. "I can see that sweet little girl, standing in the kitchen, holding a big pot and yelling that we were all going to sit down and eat together, even if she had to physically make us."

Lori felt a rush of memories, most of them bad. She pushed them away, as she always did, but her mother kept talking about how much Lori had done.

"I would have been lost without you," Evie said. "Have I told you that? It's true."

Lori felt incredibly uncomfortable. She and her mother didn't get along. Bonding wasn't allowed. "I didn't do that much."

"Of course you did. Part of recovery is acknowledging what the alcohol did to your family. In your case, Lori, my drinking forced you to grow up too soon. You became the mom. I never wanted that."

Lori squirmed in her seat. "It's fine," she murmured, wishing they could talk about something else. She didn't want to hear any of this.

"It's not fine," her mother said. "I wish things had been different." She frowned. "Where are your glasses? Did you get contacts?"

"She had Lasik surgery," Madeline said, sounding smug. "Isn't she beautiful?"

"She'll never be as pretty as you," her mother said.

The comment made Madeline grimace, but helped put Lori's world back in perspective.

"Eye surgery?" Evie asked. "I didn't think you'd want to do something like that."

"I can't wear contacts," Lori said. "I tried and there's just no way. Now I don't have to worry about glasses."

"Is there a man?" her mother asked bluntly. "Women always do stupid things for a man."

Lori distinctly remembered wishing for a change in topic. Now that it was here, she was having second thoughts.

"I didn't do it for a man," Lori said firmly. "I like being able to see without glasses."

Her mother looked unimpressed.

Lori hated sounding like she'd changed herself for Reid. He'd been the catalyst but not the reason. "Okay, fine. I am kind of seeing someone. It's nothing."

"It's not nothing," Madeline said. "It's fabulous and so is he. Remember Reid Buchanan? He's that hunky baseball player who blew out his shoulder last year and had to retire."

"I don't remember that," Evie told her. "But wasn't there a mean article about him in the paper recently? Something about him not being…" Her mother's voice trailed off.

Lori didn't know what to say. This was a true definition of damned if you do and damned if you don't. "It wasn't true," she said at last. "Not any of it."

"I see."

Evie and Madeline exchanged a look. Lori didn't want to know what either of them were thinking.

"He's great," Madeline said. "He adores Lori."

"I'm glad." Evie smiled. "It's time you found someone."

Lori supposed life was never all one way and neither were people. Evie was trying. Failing, but trying.

LORI SCOOPED some orange chicken onto her plate. "This is really good," she said. "Where's the takeout place?"

"A couple of streets down. I'll show you. It doesn't look like much on the outside, but the food is great."

She and Reid sat on the floor, backs against the sofa in his living room in Gloria's house. The coffee table was covered with open takeout containers. Reid had provided dinner and a chilled bottle of Chardonnay. While Lori was confident they would move into the bedroom later, it felt good just to hang out. More normal, maybe.

"It was strange last night with my mother," she said, returning to their previous topic of conversation. "I know she's trying to reach out and I'm beginning to believe she feels badly for what happened all those years she was drinking. I know forgiving her is the right thing to do."

Reid looked at her. "You will when you're ready."

"Maybe."

Sometimes she wanted to forgive all and get close to her mother and sometimes she was so angry, she wanted the other woman punished forever.

She still remembered being ten years old and breaking her mother's favorite glass. It had been tall and slender, perfect for mixing drinks without too much ice getting in the way of the alcohol.

Lori had been washing the dishes and the glass had slipped, breaking into dozens of sharp shards. Her mother had been drunk and angry. When Lori had confessed, Evie had started screaming.

"You're useless," she'd yelled. "I'm sorry you were born. You're nothing but an accident. An accident I didn't want. I have one perfect daughter- why would I want a horrible girl like you?"

The pain still cut as easily as those pieces of the broken glass.

"I know when Madeline's gone, she'll be the only family I have left. That should mean something. I keep thinking if I tried harder, I could get over everything."

"No one is saying you have to," he told her.

"I know, but I feel guilty for not accepting her changes and moving on. It's weird. We were talking about the past. I realized we all remember different situations or the same incident, but in a different way. I guess that's about perspective. I saw what mattered to me, Madeline saw what mattered to her."