Mabe's Burden by Kelly Abell Page A

wine. “I’m okay. It was a tough blow at
first, but I’ll get through it. I’ve got three really good reasons
to.” She looked at each sister in turn and then at the door to the
home where her precious girl lay sleeping. “It just
sucks.”
    “ I know it does, honey, but
we’ll get through it together. You’re going to come out on the
other side stronger than ever. Your daughter’s going to learn how
to be a survivor,” Mabe reminded her sister.
    “ I hope you’re
right.”
    “ I’m always
right.”
    Mara rolled her eyes. “Let’s just try
to figure out what we’re going to do about Shenanigans.”
    Mabe sighed. She leaned back
in the swing, pushing it slowly with her foot. “I can’t sell it to
that shark. I just can’t. You two weren’t here–” She held up a hand
when both sisters started to protest. “Hold on, I’m not blaming
anyone. But you didn’t see what I went through to keep it going all
through Da’s drunken binges...all the gambling fiascos. One time he
won big. I forced him to pay off the mortgage on the place and buy
life insurance, so I could keep the place running in the event he
died or couldn’t run it any longer. Then he goes and loses half of
Shenanigans to some mobsters. God, if he were alive, I swear I’d kill
him.”
    “ I know what you must have
gone through,” Mara commented. “I lived through it after Mom died.
Trying to keep him out of the bottle just became too much for me.
He never loved me like he did you or Meg. He always thought Mom had
cheated on him, gotten pregnant with me. You two each favored one
of them. I was the odd kid out. Trying to explain genetics to an
uneducated immigrant is futile, so I gave up and went to New
York.”
    “ How did you even survive up
there all by yourself?” Meg wondered.
    “ I’d saved my tips from
Shenanigans. I had enough to find a room to rent. I worked various
diners, deli’s, and dives, until I met Jacques. He rescued me in a
sense. I’ll be forever thankful. I’m not proud of living with him,
but he gave me an option when I had none. I’ve learned a great deal
from him.”
    “ Do you love him?” Mabe
asked.
    Mara climbed back into the wicker
rocker across from the swing. She took another sip of wine. “I’m
not sure. I’m fond of him. I’m more than grateful to him, but I
wouldn’t say I love him. I’m sure he wouldn’t be pleased to hear
it, but if I’m totally honest with myself, that’s what I’d have to
say.”
    “ How old is he?” Mabe wanted
to know. “You’re what, twenty-nine?”
    “ Yes. He’s
sixty.”
    Meg sat straight up on the swing,
making Mabe wince when her cast tapped the arm. “Sixty!”
    Mara rolled her eyes. “Okay,
okay. I knew you’d be shocked, but he’s good to me. He rescued a
poor hungry girl who needed a way to make a living in a big city. I
was cooking in a restaurant one day because the owner was sick. He
stopped in and tried my food. He asked to meet me, offering me a
scholarship to learn to cook at his school. He was Jacques
Bernault. He’s quite the who’s who in New York. Everyone wants to study under him.
I’m very lucky.”
    “ Sounds creepy to me,” Mabe
muttered.
    “ What?”
    “ I said he sounds like a
dirty old man. Here you are, this gorgeous girl, against a lonely,
horny old man. I mean why wouldn’t he want you? Let me throw out an
opportunity for this young damsel in distress, plus I get her in my
bed.”
    “ Mabe,” Meg chastised her
sister.
    “ It wasn’t really like
that,” Mara replied, unperturbed. “Jacques is French, so yes he
probably did see an opportunity, but I trained under him for over a
year before we slept together.”
    Mabe shuddered. “Eww. He’s
sixty.”
    Mara waggled her eyebrows. “And very
experienced. And did I mention he’s French?”
    Mabe laughed, her sisters joining
her.
    Headlights approached from the
direction of the courthouse. The car slowed as it reached the
house. A gray BMW pulled into the