The Chicken Sisters - K.J. Dell'Antonia Page 0,107

But she’s ready now, she says.” This time, she turned to face him, wanting to be sure he heard her, but his face was turned away, pressed into Ryder’s shirt and the scent of lavender from the sachets Mae kept in their suitcases.

Why hadn’t she seen before that in Jay, messed up by his parents in a totally different way when they’d split him from his sister and raised them in two separate but equally weird households, she had found someone else who could at least understand how deep the wounds your parents left you with ran? The grown-up Mae knew it wasn’t Barbara’s fault, exactly, especially now that she understood more about how her mother felt about the house, about Mimi’s, about her tenuous hold on the things that mattered most to her.

But that didn’t mean some part of Mae didn’t share Amanda’s resentment, or that she didn’t still wish that Barbara, so strong in so many ways, could have just gotten her act together on this one. She had spent too long keeping those feelings tucked away all neat and clean inside.

She waited until Jay looked up again, and then, as their eyes met, she let her anger from the past come through to the person she knew he was inside, once a kid like her, equally confused and betrayed by the ways of grown-ups, equally determined to do better. “She wants to make a better home for the dogs.”

He got it, at least. She knew it instantly. There was the Jay she married, her Jay, right there with her. His eyes widened and she saw, at the corners of his lips, the hesitant start of a smile. She was so relieved that she smiled back, first a little, then fully, knowing she was giving him permission to express what she herself was feeling.

“Your mother is cleaning this up”—he looked around, back into the sliding door, through the kitchen windows, at the boxes and bags and piles at his feet—“for the dogs.”

“For the dogs, yes.” Mae kept her face straight but let her eyes speak to his, and Jay laughed, and suddenly Mae could laugh, too. This was what she had been missing, someone to share this with, someone to see what was funny on top of tragic and push her to see it, too.

Jay set Ryder down on a table someone had carried out, and Madison tugged at her father. “I want to show you the puppies,” she said. “I’m getting the girl one, she has spots but she is mostly white like snow and I’m calling her Elsa.”

Ryder stomped, causing the table, which was none too stable, to wobble. He grabbed at Jay, who scooped Ryder up and held him. “No,” he said, pushing his hands on his father’s chest and struggling to get down. “Boy ones. Blackie and Spotty and Potato Chip. I’m having five.” He, too, took his father’s hand and started pulling him.

Would Jay know she’d never say yes to a dog at all and certainly not without his agreeing to it? He seemed unworried by this unplanned addition to his household, but Mae was far from ready to relax. Jay got what she was saying about Barbara, but could he see how much she wanted him to get her as well?

Jay, too, didn’t seem ready to walk away from this moment, but between the cameras and the kids, they were fully stymied. “Hang on,” he said again to Ryder and Madison, and although neither let go of his hands, they did lessen their tugging. As if Mae had conjured her, Jessa emerged from the front of the house.

“Want to go with Jessa, guys?” Mae suggested. “Maybe get the puppies ready to see Daddy?”

Madison looked scornfully at her mother. “You can’t pick them up. Only touch them. Okay, Daddy? Gentle touch.”

Jessa held out her hands. “But we can go make sure Patches is taking good care of them,” she said. Neither Madison nor Ryder budged, and Jessa caught Mae’s eye. Mae shrugged. They could all recognize kids who weren’t going to be persuaded, and there was no point in causing a scene—well, more of a scene. The echo of her shouted fight with Amanda, witnessed by Jessa and Jay and everyone in the known universe, lingered. Enough scenes, then. “Okay, Daddy will go with you. But can I give him a hug first? I missed Daddy, too.”

Did Jay believe her? She still didn’t know why he had appeared, or how much of a