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Now my three older sisters all worked for Mom and Dad. I was the sole holdout, the only one who’d gone out to make it on her own.
A lot of people might assume I was being greedy when I decided not to carry on the family business. After all, I was probably going to only get a one-fourth share of it when our parents passed.
The truth was, I just didn’t want to spend my life doing what my parents did. Yes, it was fine for them, but I was always more fond of the accounting aspects than the actual physical labor.
I tipped the cabbie lavishly, a testament to my good mood, and entered the apartment through the ground floor access door. One trip up a steep staircase later, and I found myself enveloped in the smell of Mom’s lentil soup. My belly rumbled when I realized she’d made her take on Red Lobster cheddar bake biscuits. Trust me, the ones my Ma made were way, way better than the original.
I rapped on the door, then twisted the knob. The smells and the heat of the kitchen intensified as I stepped through.
“Hello,” I called. “It’s just me, don’t call the cops.”
My sister Irene looked up from her phone and waved a happy hello. Her husband Jeff and their son Christian were in the living room, playing video games with motion-active controllers. It looked like the ten-year-old Christian was beating both his father and grandfather.
My other sisters, Iris and Isabelle, hadn’t arrived as of yet. I joined my mom in the kitchen only to find that she had pretty much everything ready.
“Mom, I told you to wait for me. At least let me set the table, geez.”
Mom looked over at me from the stove and waved off my concerns with an oven mitted hand.
“Don’t be silly. You worked all day, you don’t need to do a damn thing but sit yer ass down.”
“I’m setting the table.” I took a stack of plates out of the cabinet. My mother took them right out of my hands. “I’m setting the table, Ma.”
“How are you gonna do that when I’m holding the plates?”
That’s when it hit me. The plates were way too lightweight. I mean, I was used to the heavy-duty China my mother always broke out for family dinners and holidays. These were okay, but sort of basic, like they’d grabbed the first box at Ikea and walked out of the maze with it.
“Mom, what’s with the plates?”
“Whaddaya mean, what’s with the plates? I told you, sit down, I’m setting the table.”
“No, I mean, where are the regular plates? How come you replaced them with those ugly-ass things?”
Ma heaved a long sigh and took her oven mitts off. She wandered over to the door separating the kitchen from the living area and closed it gently. Normally she keeps it open because there’s better ventilation that way. The kitchen quickly became stifling, and I don’t just mean from the heat.
“Ivy,” she said with a sigh. “I was hoping to avoid this conversation until after dinner, but it’s like this: we sold the family China on the internet.”
“You what?” My face twisted into a scowl. “But why? You loved that set, Ma.”
“I did, but we needed a new furnace, and they don’t come cheap.”
“Why didn’t you ask me for help?”
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
I felt betrayed, and more than a little angry.
“So you were going to wait to tell me until after you, what, had to sell the business?”
“Shh.” My mom said, putting her finger to her lips. “Don’t say that so loud. That’s the last resort, something we really don’t want to do, but—to be honest, it might come to that.”
“Ma…” I settled down into a chair, numb and senseless. Well, I was sitting down, just like she wanted. “I can’t believe it.”
“We had some rough months there, like most people in the industry, but we’ve been bouncing back—or we were, until the furnace debacle. The fact is, we maxed out all of our cards taking care of that, on top of selling the China, and a few other things.”
“Like what?”
“Like your father’s Mickey Mantle baseball card.”