All This, and Christmas, Too

***

Bette looked at the burnt remains of what had been two Cornish hens with a frown. How had she managed to get it so wrong? She poked experimentally at the blackened skin of what was supposed to be her family’s dinner with a fork. Maybe if she cut the skin off…

She was carefully trying to cut away the burnt bit of the leg when her daughter Angelica wandered into the kitchen.

“Hi, sweetie,” Bette said over her shoulder with a somewhat sheepish smile. She moved over a little, attempting to shield the charred main course from Angie’s line of sight.

Angelica wrinkled her nose. “What smells in here?”

“Oh… these hens your mom left in the fridge… she left instructions, but…”

Angelica peered around Bette’s elbow and snickered. “Mom’s going to be mad you ruined dinner again.”

“I didn’t ruin it. I’m just going to try scraping –”

“All of it? Into the garbage?” Angelica suggested with a sweet smile and faux helpfulness.

“You’re getting more like your mother every day,” Bette muttered.

“Mom does all the work, we’re just supposed to heat it up.”

“Yes, Angelica, I know.”

“You might as well let me do it, ’cause this is the second dinner you’ve burned this week,” Angie said practically.

“That was an accident.”

“You always say that when you put the oven up too high,” Angie continued.

“The chicken is fine. What did you want in here, anyway?”

“I smelled smoke,” Angie said, trying to keep a straight face.

“You did not!” Bette pretended to bop Angie upside the head, and the little girl giggled.

“Well, it doesn’t look that bad,” Angie said diplomatically. “I would rather eat this than more pizza,” she said, making a face.

“What’s wrong with pizza?”

“We just had it on Monday. I don’t want to get fat.”

“Artisan pizza is a legitimate meal…” Bette started to say, and then her ears registered what she had just heard Angelica say. “Wait a minute, did you just say that you don’t want to get fat?”