Ellie had been calling me V ever since she was a little girl. When she first started talking Olivia flowed through her mouth like a bag of marbles, so she started calling me by the one letter she could pronounce clearly. Nowadays, though, I think she referred to me as V because it was short for vagina. Either way, I couldn’t have known what to expect upon my return, nor what I would have done if the roles had been switched; but I know my sister’s first reaction was not what I had expected.
“What’s up with the fucking headband?” She scowled; her eyes pinned on the hard-plastic band I had placed over my ironed-out locks. I’d hoped it would keep the oncoming frizz at bay.
I ignored her, turning my attention to the poor woman who had the misfortune of witnessing my homecoming. She was surrounded by spirits, a couple of them with wings. Judging by the laptop and stream of consciousness she’d been typing, I had to presume that most of these energies had been writers in their past life—their arrival connected to inspiration. Either that or a longing for lost words to have a place in the physical world. One of them seemed adamant that the writer hear him; even over the disturbance created by my existence he was crouched down beside her ear, whispering frantically.
“Don’t listen to the witches, listen to me. Listen, girly. I’ve got the secret twist you’ve been needing for the plot to thicken.” Upon catching my gaze, he flinched, jumping up and pointing a stretched out, translucent knobby finger in my direction. “Leave us, witch! She needs her privacy to create my masterpiece!”
I rolled my eyes and excused myself from both Ellie and the young woman, stalking off towards the kitchen. After the shitty ‘conversation’ I’d had over the phone with Tyler’s sous chef about our daughter—because goddess forbid she be allowed to stay with me at the retreat when it was Tyler’s turn to take her, and goddess forbid my husband tell me that himself—I was not in the mood to be berated by my sister. As I walked away, Ellie’s energy followed close behind, like a bomb about to detonate. All it made me want to do was to irritate her further by exuding a calm demeanor.
“V? Why are you here?” Puddin was still clamped against her chest.
“Absolutely nothing has changed,” I observed, ignoring her question while cocking my head around the corner to where my office had used to be, right next to my mother’s.
I’d overseen events when I’d worked here. It had been my idea to start hosting weddings at the retreat—who knew they would grow to such popularity. Then again, the rumors surrounding this place had caused it to become a tourist attraction. In fact, I bet that writer over there had come specifically because of the many artists who had become famous after visiting our forest destination.
“V? Hello?”
I pushed past Ellie and her continued digs at my arrival, taking in the lost scents of the shop that had used to be just as much my home as the house I’d lived in down the road. This was where I’d grown up and always thought my kids would grow up too.
My sister’s anger transformed into a low gurgle as she seethed in my direction. “This is so you, V. You come home after eight years, and instead of talking to your sister, you look around for the nearest ghost to chat up.”
“I’m not looking for ghosts,” I retorted.
“Then why don’t you turn and face me, you coward?”
The muscles in my upper back stiffened. Lowering my suitcase to the kitchen floor, I took a very deep breath before squaring my shoulders with hers.
“Ellie,” I began, but she cut me off before I had a chance to go on. Before I had a chance to tell her there was nothing I could do or say to make this situation run smoothly.
She sneered. “What the fuck are you wearing?”
I looked down at my clothes. “Slacks and a shirt.” Then, narrowing my eyes on her, I returned the crude remark. “What are you wearing?” She looked like more of a punk than usual.
Ignoring my jab, she retorted, “You look like a moron. Seriously, what’s up with the plastic headband? We stopped wearing those when we were five.”
I slicked a hand down over my ratty locks; I’d inherited our mother’s broom head. I’d hoped it would calm down now that I was away from the coast, but there was a slight humidity to the air, even here. “I like headbands, is that all right with you?”
“Nothing about you is all right with me right now, V.” Ellie sat Puddin down on the floor and put up the baby gate so the animal couldn’t run out and scare our guest again. Then she laid her hands on her hips, cocked her head to the side, and jutted out her chin. Carbon copy of Maddie and her adolescent attitude, except Ellie was thirty-two. “You can’t just come waltzing in here in your—those things on your legs—”
“Slacks.” I raised an eyebrow.
“With your stupid slacks and dress shirt—and what the shit is on your feet?”
“They’re penny loafers. I find them very comfortable.”
“Ew.”
“Look, Ellie, some of us have professional careers and need to dress the part—”
“Oh whatever, you don’t even own a diploma from a community college. You gained your ‘experience’ from a ghost. Maddie told me all about it.”
I took a deep breath and pumped my hands down by my sides. “Listen, you have every right to hate me—”
“Damn right I do.”
I continued to shake out my hands, wringing them out in front of my stomach. “I would hate me, too. I can’t undo what I’ve done, but the truth is that I’m not here to try and make you love me again. I’m here for Mom.”
She made an annoyed sound in the back of her throat and her gaze fell to rest over my hands. “What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to stun me into forgetting that you’re a big, beige wearing, deserter? Cause it’s not gonna work. There’s not a spell powerful enough to do that.”
There weren’t enough meditation exercises in the world to try and make this intervention bearable. Still, I worked on taking rhythmic breaths in and out of my nose, just like Gerald had shown me. “I’m using a technique to calm myself, because being here is not easy for me. And no, I would never stun you—I hardly even practice magic any longer.” Other than rescuing my daughter from evil that was.
Ellie’s face contorted into an expression one might wear after eating mushy Brussel sprouts. “But you’re a witch, your energy is made from magic.”
I finished shaking out my hands and reached for my suitcase. “I would appreciate it if we could speak about all this later. I would like nothing more than a shower.”
I hadn’t even had a chance to breathe yet. From the second Rowena had walked away it had been one long stride of packing, spinning a little bit more of my rusty magic to get Maddie and I booked on the soonest plane out of there, and wrestling with Tyler’s stubborn ass via whoever he could persuade to talk to me instead of him. I was drained, dirty, and my head hurt.
Repeating my words back to me, Ellie said mockingly, “You would like nothing more than a shower? Are you fucking kidding me? You know what—no.”
I tucked my chin. “Excuse me?”
Shaking her head, Ellie puckered her lips, and lunged forward so quickly I didn’t have a chance to defend my being. “This shit” –-she plucked the plastic band from my head— “has got to go.”
“Hey!” I said, reaching up and smoothing out my hair. “What’d you do that for?”
“I can’t look at you with this stupid shit in your hair. The V I knew wore ripped jeans and Birkenstocks, and her hair was curly because she never blow-dried it.” She backed up and waved a hand over my body. “This person is not my sister. Ironed hair, slacks—and what are those earrings—pearls?”
“People change, Ellie.”
“You haven’t changed, you’ve reinvented yourself into some sort of Martha Stewart looking—whatever, you look dumb.”
“All right, that’s enough. Look, I know you’re upset and you have a lot going on right now, with Mom and Joe—”
“Fuck off, you’ve never even met my wife.”
“Really nice, Ellie. Great educated vocabulary you have there. You know what, I’m gonna go. I’ll be back when you can talk like a grown up.”
She began to retort but the sound of footsteps interrupted her, followed almost immediately by my cousin Patrick’s voice.
“Hey, I just remembered I stowed the gorgonzola in the other fridge, so I didn’t need to go out after all—oh shit.” I turned around just in time to find him with a look of horror plastered on his face. Recovering quickly, he slapped on a silly grin. “Hey there, cuz.”
“Hi Patrick,” I said as casually as I could.
“Uh, long time no see, I guess.” He pulled me into his chest, patting my back a little too hard. I could hear him mouthing ‘what the fuck’ to my sister.
I pulled away and bent down to gather my suitcase. Ellie had her arms crossed over her chest, still clenching her fingers around my headband, and Patrick was staring from her to me and back to her again. I needed to go somewhere and catch my breath before I could continue with this reunion. I’d come here to speak with my Aunt Lana about what had gone down earlier in the day. Not to get harassed by Ellie.
“I know Lana is living in my old house, but she doesn’t seem to be home. Is Dad around? I was hoping to stay with him while I’m here.”
Ellie refused to respond, and the way she was grinding her teeth together as she faced me was getting creepy. Thankfully, Patrick stepped in.
Wrapping a hand around my shoulders, he ushered me out of the kitchen. “Yeah, Ronno’s home. I’ll walk ya over.”
“Thanks,” I said, glancing back at Ellie. “I’ll come back after I get settled. Maybe we can talk over dinner, or a glass of wine. Er, that is if you still drink. I know Joe is recovering.”
She twisted her mouth to the side and snapped my headband in half.
Okay, I deserved that. “We’ll talk later.”
* * *
When I walked up, my father was sitting on the front porch with a glass of iced tea. He didn’t flinch or even blink twice when he saw me. Judging from the empty glass next to him on the table and the empty shooter of whiskey, he had been warned of my arrival.
Picking up the empty glass and sniffing it after a less than affectionate embrace, I asked, “Where’s Lana?”
“Had to go out,” he answered, leaning back on his heels and stuffing his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “She’ll be back for dinner, I ‘spose. Where’s Maddie?”
I wasn’t shocked at all that this was how my father had taken to my abrupt arrival. Even if he hadn't been prepped by Lana, this is how he would react. He was a quiet man, contemplative. Then again, he’d been surrounded by witches for more than half his life now. In the end, it’s all about survival.
“I dropped her off at her and Tyler’s apartment.” The emphasis over apartment was so he would understand that Maddie and Tyler’s new living arrangements were news to me. Up until quite recently, as far as I had known they were still living here, in the house he and I had built together. “Did you know they were building a house next to that new restaurant of his?”
He dug a toothpick from his pocket and bit down over it, continuing to rock back and forth on his heels. “Um hm.”
“I see.” It was all I could say.
He looked down at his feet, nodded, then reached for my suitcase. “Yep, well, let’s get ya settled.”
I stared at his back before following him inside, trying to assess how much he wished I was a different person in that moment. I wasn’t the one he’d wished had come home.
As soon as I stepped foot inside, the familiar scent of the house nearly knocked me down. Incense, dried acorns, cherry tobacco, and old books . . . magic. She wasn’t dead, but I could already feel my mother’s ghost haunting the walls.
“Dad, don’t you want to know why I’m here?” I asked.
He was already heading up the stairs. “I know why yer here.”
“Oh really—why’s that?”
“Yer mother.” He paused from where he was standing on the fourth step and looked down at me. “She’s been waitin’. That brief stint of yours a few months back, you showin’ yer face for that short moment of time—that wasn’t it. This is it.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked. But he didn’t seem to hear me. If he did, he pretended as though he hadn’t.
I remained planted just in front of the stairs, listening to his footsteps moving around on the second floor. Eventually I made my way towards the living room, scoping out what my mother had done to the place over the past eight years. It wasn’t all that different, but there were subtle changes that seemed a lot bigger in the grand scheme of things.
“I thought Mom didn’t want a television in here,” I said as soon as my father had come back downstairs, my gaze fixed over a sixty-inch flat screen in the corner of the room.
“She changed ‘er mind. Maddie got ‘er into one of those video games with dragons and such, so we got ourselves a small picture for in here, but then she decided it wasn’t big enough.” He chuckled. “Yer mother. Any who, we stuck that in our bedroom and got this one here so she can play her Skyrim, or whatever it is. She plays a wood elf, or something of that nature.”
I snickered at the idea of my small, gray-haired mother, sitting cross-legged in front of that giant flat screen playing video games.
“We got some new furniture, too. I like that chair over there.” He lifted a finger and pointed to an oversized brown recliner. Corduroy. It was sort of awful.
“It’s nice,” I said.
It was quiet for a few more seconds. The silence was nearly unbearable. It wasn’t worth waiting for him to tell me that I was an asshole, that I left my husband and the one child I had left, because he wasn’t going to. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t thinking it.
“How have you been, Dad?”
His hands back in his pockets, his bite occupied by the toothpick, my father simply continued to stare straight ahead, nodding. “Dinner’s at six.”
He turned and made his way back to the front porch.
“Dinner?” I asked, causing him to pause.
“Yep. Reckon you wanna see yer aunt. Her and I have a dinner date at the restaurant at six. The word is Patrick is cookin’ up some steak. He’s been gettin’ real fancy after working with Tyler. That husband of yers has been doing some radical things in the kitchen—workin’ with that Joe. Betcha that new place of his is gonna be a real hit.”
“You know, Dad, he’s not really, like, my husband anymore.”
Again, he turned and settled his gaze so that it was directly in front of him. One sharp chin dip. “Yep. See ya at six.”