Margaret, Mother, Murder -- flash fiction

"Margaret, did you feed your fish?"

Margaret looked away from the TV. "Yes, mother." Her favorite television show was coming on. The only time she got to watch it these days -- during public television's fund raising. And, then not on all the fund raisers. Cooking with Julia apparently wasn't as popular with the donors as Celtic Woman or Yanni.

"Margaret, what are you watching?" her mother called from the kitchen where she was making herself an egg sandwich.

"Julia Child."

"I always watch Dancing with the Stars."

"That's not on tonight."

"Are you sure?" her mother asked coming into the room and putting her plate on the end table.

"I'm sure."

"Margaret, isn't this that show where she makes the fish stew."

"Bouillabaisse." Margaret watched Julia Child walk through a fish market in Marseilles, examining the piles of dead fish and explaining how to tell if a fish is fresh.

It was difficult to hear Ms. Child over her mother's off-key humming and her rummaging through the umpteen magazines she wouldn't let Margaret throw out.

"Sit up straight, dear. Slumping like that will upset your digestion."

"Yes, mother."

"Why've you got the TV so loud? Are you deaf?"

"No, mother. It's just hard to hear with you moving your chair like that."

Margaret's mother stood up and shoved her chair back to it customary position. She stepped between Margaret and the TV, hands on her hips. "Well, excuse me! But I thought my keys had gotten under there."

Margaret sighed and leaned around her mother to see the TV.

"Were your keys under the chair?" Margaret asked.

Julia Child looked into the camera then patted a very large fish lying on the work table in her TV kitchen, which was always spotless.

"No. Do you know where they are?"

"No, mother. Do you need them right now?"

"No, of course not." Margaret's mother sat down and took a bite of her sandwich. "I'll need them in the morning." She carefully balanced the plate on her lap and opened the newspaper, rattling the pages until she found the Life Style section.

Margaret turned the volume up.

"Would you look for them?" her mother asked raising her voice to be heard over the TV.

"Right now? Mom, I'm watching TV."

"Well, of course, if that TV is more important...."

On television, Julia Child raised a meat cleaver high over her head. The light gleamed off its stainless steel blade, her eyes open wide, focusing on the hapless fish.

Margaret turned the television off and stomped out of the room into the kitchen. It was a disaster. Butter spattered the stove top. Egg shell sat amidst egg white on the counter, not three feet from the trash can. The mayonnaise jar had not been put back into the fridge and the bread bag sat there, open. A nearly new loaf left to dry out and be good for nothing but toast.

How in the world could anyone mess up a kitchen like that for one insignificant and probably over-cooked egg for something so uninspiring as an egg sandwich?

She didn't see her mother's keys anywhere. The handle of the meat cleaver protruding from the knife block caught her eye.