The Magnolia Cafe(50)
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“Mother.” Keely pushed through the front door of their house.
Her mother sat on the couch working on a crossword puzzle, pretending she hadn’t just pulled the rug out from under Keely. “Hello, Keely.”
“Seriously, Mother. You pull all the money out of the account without telling me? Did you even think of the consequences? Checks to vendors bouncing? Messing with our shaky credit?”
“I think I would like to look over all expenditures now before they are paid.”
“Really? That’s where we are now? I’ve spent my whole life running the cafe for you, trying to make it profitable, working every single day. This is how you want to play it now?”
“I just don’t think you girls are making good decisions.”
“Which ones? Katherine helping with the bookwork? The patio? The few updates we’ve done to the inside? Getting a liquor license… we are getting that aren’t we? You haven’t messed with that, have you?” Keely’s heart pounded in her chest.
“I don’t see why we need to become a bar.”
“We aren’t becoming a bar.” Keely wanted to stomp her feet and throw a tantrum like a two year old. Her mother was going to drive her right over the edge. Not that she’d a very good grip on that edge anyway these days.
“Well, I don’t like to encourage that kind of thing.”
“Mother, you have a glass of wine with dinner almost every night.”
“Yes, well, that’s in my own home.”
Keely stood at the end of the couch, uncertain what to even say to this woman. She would never understand her mother, much less be close to her. Her mother was a total enigma.
“I don’t like the changes you’re making. Things are fine the way they are. You are just wasting money.”
“Things aren’t fine how they are. We’re barely making ends meet. People are leaving because there is no place to wait if our tables are full. Which they are on the weekends, so we’re just throwing business away. If they have a nice place to wait, or a place to go sit and have a glass of wine after dinner? That’s a good thing. I’ve kept to a strict budget.”
“You don’t have enough help as it is.”
“If business picks up, I’ll be able to hire the help I need.”
“I just think I should be back making the decisions.”
“Mother, you haven’t been involved in the day to day running of the cafe for over fifteen years. I’ve been running it. Doing everything possible to keep it afloat.” Keely stopped and looked at her mother. “But nothing I do will ever be good enough for you will it? You’ll never forgive me. Never be proud of me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You blame me for Dad’s heart attack. You blame me for Kat’s accident. I can’t ever make that right for you.”
Her mother looked down at her crossword for a brief moment, then back up to meet Keely’s eyes. “You did play your part in destroying the wonderful life we had. If you hadn’t left to go to that class, maybe everything would have been different.”
“Mother.” Katherine rolled out of her room and crossed over to the couch. “You didn’t just blame Keely for Father’s heart attack.”
“If she wouldn’t have insisted she needed to go to that class. Put herself first.”
“How about if Dad had taken the medicine he’d been prescribed for his high blood pressure? Changed his diet like the doctor said? Started exercising. Don’t you think that’s where the responsibility lies?” Katherine swung her chair to face their mother.
“What are you talking about?” Keely was at a loss.
“Father. He’d been to the doctor and knew he had high blood pressure. High cholesterol. He’d been put on a diet. Told to exercise. Didn’t you know this?”
“I had no idea.”
“Well, I did. Mother did. You were so busy with trying to keep the cafe going when I got hurt, that you were barely at home. But, yes, Father was told to do all that. I even nagged him to take his meds, but he just… didn’t.”
“Your father didn’t like to take medicine. Never did.”
“Well, Mother, that is what killed Father. Not Keely going to class. He chose not to listen to his doctor. He chose not to take his medicine. His choice. He left us behind because of those choices.”
“Katherine, I will not have you blaming your father.”
“But, I do.” Katherine’s voice was low. “I miss him so much. He could have had a chance to be here with us. I just don’t understand his choices.”