Pitch

Dad was the one who had initially cut ties and moved us away from my mother. Knowing the truth, I never expected him to have been the first to give her a second chance, but he did.

His optimism surpassed my own by miles. It was odd how I shared a pessimistic worldview with my mother but couldn’t bring myself to forgive her like my father. I loved her as much as Dad, but I couldn’t overlook her catastrophic nature. There was no trust.

Walking inside that afternoon was like a tens game of hide and seek. Dad’s house wasn’t the biggest on the block, but there were enough rooms to make searching for my mother feel eerie.

My heartbeat played in silence behind my stressful search until I heard her in the kitchen.

I approached slowly, as if she were a masked gunman. Mom was going through the refrigerator, throwing out old food, when I spotted her from across the room.

“Your father hasn’t learned to cook anything new?” she said.

Of course, she knew I was there. No one could sneak up on my mother. I suppose that was a skill she, my father, and I all shared in a way. I was a rabbit, but we all had perfect ears.

“What are you doing here?” I asked and crept into the room, keeping my distance.

“You don’t call. You don’t text. You don’t write. I didn’t know what else to do to see you,” she said softly, but I knew there was something behind her polite tone whether she held it in or not.

She turned around, and with careless magic, she shut the refrigerator without touching its door. Spells that didn’t require words were rare, but magic that could be done with the wave of a hand was even more so. My mother knew so many spells. She was basically a witch.

“You’ll be happy to know I’m still seeing doctor Dan,” she said.

There was a nonchalance to the way she sat at the kitchen table sipping from a can of soda while I was noticeably on edge.

“Your grandmother thought life’s problems could be solved with a tall glass of something strong. Therapy was never an option for my sisters growing up or me,” she added.

I leaned against a wall, feeling as if it were my only defense against her overpowering presence.

“Talk to me,” she demanded as she set her drink on the table and kicked out a seat for me to take beside her.

I swallowed my anxiety and sat down.

“You’re not supposed to be in the house without dad around; he told me that,” I said.

“Your father will live,” she replied playfully.

I looked away and laughed sarcastically under my breath. She had no respect for boundaries, not even the ones set by courts.

“Talk to me, Pitch. What’s been going on in my beautiful fluffy boy’s life?” She asked.

Her hand reached across the table to hold my own, but of course, I pulled away.

Dad wouldn’t be home for hours, and I didn’t have it in me to tell her to leave. I doubt she would have listened, but had she, it would not have been good. In the end, I played along as best I could. While I maintained my love for my mother, I grasped the dangers of her presence.

“I got into an internship with a friend,” I said begrudgingly.

“That’s wonderful,” she said.

Her aura literally glowed with excitement, but I kept my same disinterested look as usual.

“You don’t seem happy,” she deduced out loud.

“My friend Wes invited me somewhere too. I can’t do both,” I replied.

She chuckled, and it broke through my weak defenses.

“Those are better problems than your father and I had at your age,” she said.

“Sorry I was such a problem-child,” I remarked.

“That’s not what I meant,” she defended.

“Is it safe for you to be here? I know you haven’t stopped.”

“I have, and I’m doing better every day.”

“Where did the car come from? You didn’t have it last I saw you.”

“The car isn’t magic,” she said.

My mother’s addiction was never to magic, but the act of taking what wasn’t hers. Whether she stole a spell book or a car, it proved she was the same.

“Did you steal it?” I asked, with a demand in my voice.

“I can help you,” she said, ignoring the question.

She tried to change the subject, but in doing so, she gave me a definitive answer.

“With what?” I asked.

“Your problem. You don’t want to choose between your friends. I can give you something so you don’t have to.”

I laughed.

“I don’t need magic if you stole it.”

“It’s an old spell I’ve long returned by now, but you know photographic memory runs in the family,” she said to persuade me.

“I don’t need it,” I protested and got up from my seat to push it back under the table.

“You want it, and there’s a way for you to have it. Just ask Mamma,”

“No, thank you,” I said coldly.

“Why not get yours where you can?” she said, not giving up.

It was elementary school all over again. At least I was at an age where I could understand the repercussions of taking my mother’s help.

“You know dad thinks you’re changing, but I don’t see it.”

I turned to walk away, but her voice clutched my body still.

“You’re just like your father.”

“Better than my mother,” I said.

It was the wrong thing to say. She used some sort of spell to pull me back into the room and flung me against the fridge.

“Mistakes or not, I am still your mother.”

I scrambled to get back to my feet.

“You need to leave,” I exclaimed.

“You think I’m a monster? I made the decision to take what my family needed. You think anyone with power hesitates to take more however they can get it? I did the bare minimum. I took what I wanted without hurting anyone.”

“You hurt Dad,” I said.

She went silent.

“You hurt me. Every time you get in trouble, they come looking for us first,” I said.

She stood up from her seat, and I stumbled backward, almost tripping over as I feared her next step. As she approached, I found myself boxed in between the kitchen counters. And then she stopped. I was stunned as she pulled a piece of paper from the hidden pocket of her leather jacket and wrote on it. She sat the piece of paper on the counter beside me, and after a moment of tension, she walked away.

“You’re like your father, Pitch. He even takes my help sometimes. That spell is how he took care of us when you were a baby, how he worked four jobs when we moved out on our own. You can use it to go two places at once,” she explained as she left the room.

“I’m not using this,” I exclaimed, but she was already gone.