Fire

Family

Words had completely deserted me, and all I could do was stare at her, this woman who claimed to be my mother. She had the same slight build as me, and she was dressed in a black skirt and leather boots, her white jacket had a heavy ring of fur around the hood. She looked like someone I would have made fun of only days ago. Someone who’d been born into money.

She was still talking, telling me how good it was to see how I’d grown, how she’d dreamed of meeting me for years. Her words were suddenly hollow, echoing in my ears as thought they came from miles away. The rushing noise of my blood in my ears was overwhelming as hot fury hit me from all sides. My fingers curled into fists and my jaw clenched painfully.

How dare she babble on about it, like we’re distant relatives of some kind, like it’s no big deal she abandoned me. Does she think everything is going to be great now? That I’m going to start calling her mom?

Her words trailed off. Something in my face must have alerted her that her perfect family reunion wasn’t going so well.

“Jessica, is everything alright?"

"No, it's not alright!" I exploded, "how can you possibly think anything is alright? Why should I pretend to be happy to see you? Why should I act like you didn't ruin my life?"

The shocked look on her face was gratifying, filling me with a kind of savage pleasure, so I continued my attack, "You must have had some idea what dad is like, considering you two obviously spent some quality time together creating me," the idea was gross when I thought about it, but I was just getting warmed up, so I didn't let it derail me, "you had to have known about his temper, about how violent he gets when he drinks. Or if he didn't drink until you left, apparently you people have been keeping tabs on me, so why the hell would you let a little kid live in a place like that? Why didn't you take me away from him?" 

I didn't say what I really was thinking. That back when I was little, hiding in the dark corners of the house from the raging acholic that was my father, I had dreamed of something like that happening, about my mother swooping in and taking me away. Or even some kind hearted stranger passing by on the street. In my imagination they would hear the shouting and crashing, the sound of bottles breaking, and they would storm inside and punch dad in the face and then carry me away to live happily ever after with a new mother and father. Of course, it never happened.

The only thing that did happen was a few trips to the school shrink, and a visit or two by a pair of grim social workers. Dad would always manage to pull himself together for those visits, and as a kid I was almost as afraid of them as I was of him, so there was no help from anywhere.

The woman in front of me, my mother, looked deflated suddenly. Her smile drooped and her shoulders hunched a little, as if I was physically attacking her, "Jessica, I'm sorry." She gestured at the arm chair by the fire across from hers. "Please, sit down. We have so much to talk about. There is a reason I had to leave you there, though it may  not be a good one."

I walked over and sat down across from her, eyeing her distrustfully.

She sunk back into her chair with a sigh, "let's start over. My name is Kari, and yes, I was with your father for years," Kari edged forward in her seat, eyes searching my face anxiously, "but I was being irrasponsible, running from my destiny, from my people. They needed me, and I cast them off for a human."

I glared at her, "so then you had so much resposibility that you couldn't have a little kid getting in the way, right?"

She flinched, "No, it wasn't that. I would have gladly taken you with me if I could have. The problem was that if I had, I would have put you in grave danger. The King and Queen very much want me dead, and anyone around me comes under fire because of this. Jessica, don't you see? It would have been miserable life. A life of constant running and hiding, dodging soliders and fighting battles..."