When the call connected, Brenda panicked.
She grabbed Megan's hand, and the ten of their fingers locked together.
On the other end, John Swanson's voice came through.【Hey, what's up? You taking care of the dog at home…】
He never got to finish. Brenda lunged forward and snatched the phone out of my hand.
【Johnny! My boy!】
She wailed into the phone the second it touched her ear.
【Your wife's bullying me! Come home and see for yourself, your mother can't take this anymore!】
I reached for the phone, but Megan shoved her pregnant belly in front of me, blocking the way.
She murmured at me, low.【Go on, step right over me if you've got the nerve. Come on!】
Brenda kept howling.【All I did was eat a little of her food, and she's pointing in my face calling me names!】
【You have no idea how vicious she got! She even said she'd throw me out of this house!】
【Johnny, your mother's an old woman now. I come stay with you a few days, and this is the kind of grief I have to put up with?】
She wailed and wiped at her eyes, the lies coming out so convincing it was a performance.
【She's got your sister so worked up she's passed out! Come home now, or your sister and the baby in her belly aren't going to make it!】
By then I was sobbing too hard to speak.
I could only rasp into the phone.【That's not true, she's lying, John, she's lying! Seven little lives, seven of them…】
Cotton's sweet little face kept flashing through my mind.
That round belly, the happy wag of her tail when she welcomed me home.
The pregnancy left her worn out, but every day she fought through the exhaustion to stay up with me while I worked late.
Cotton, I'm so sorry. I never imagined they'd do something like this.
I dropped to my knees on the floor in agony, tears splattering across the boards in an instant.
In one small wet patch, it was as though I could see Cotton's sweet face again.
But John wasn't listening to a word I said. He just blew up on the other end.【What?! Bullying my mom?】
【I left you home to take care of my mom and my sister, and you've got the nerve to bully them?】
【So they ate a little something, so what? Are you even human?】
【I'm telling you, in that house they eat whatever they want. You try stopping them and see what happens!】
Brenda and Megan exchanged a look, both of them grinning so wide they shook with it.
I took the phone Brenda handed back to me, the heart gone out of me.
It took me a long moment to steady myself before I spoke.【So that's, that's what you said. They eat whatever they want…】
The tears wouldn't stop, and no matter how my voice broke, my new husband felt nothing for me.
He spat the words out through his teeth.【That's right! I said it. That's my own mother, my own sister. What the hell are you?】
【If they want to eat bear paw today, you make them bear paw. You hear me?】
Oh. Okay. I hear you.
That $35,000 golden arowana coming home tonight, I'll cook that up for them too.
After hanging up, Brenda yanked open the fridge.
She bent down and rummaged through it, muttering.【Where's the bird's nest? That box her mother brought over the other day, where'd she put it?】
Megan waddled over with her belly and pointed at the top shelf.【Mom, up there. She hid it on the top.】
Brenda fished out the bird's nest, stacked jar by jar, six of them in all.
She carried them over to the coffee table and turned back to smile at Megan.【Your brother said it himself. In this house, the two of us eat whatever we want.】
And just like that, the pair of them settled comfortably onto the couch and polished off every last bit of the tonic my mother had sent me.
