The floodgates opened. Jackie sobbed. Tears shot out of her eyes faster than she could wipe them. As they dripped from her face she reached to catch them, missing several, and as she watched them disappear into the hazy greenish brown magic, she couldn’t count how many more fell after them.
“Damn it! Daaaaammmmnnnnn iiiiiiittttt!” She smashed her face to Daniel’s chest, bunching his shirt against her eyes. “And for making that happen, you get this, too.” She blew her nose.
It wasn’t nice, but she couldn’t even begin to imagine what might grow if that landed on the floor.
“Aren’t you leaving? Aren’t you going somewhere? Don’t you have to go prove someone isn’t your kid?” She shoved her way out of Daniel’s arms and began the descent to the kitchen.
“What? How do you know?”
“And why aren’t you leaving? It sounded like that was pretty important. I thought you needed to get there right away. I’m sure you don’t want to have to pay child support for some kid that isn’t yours.” She dropped onto a branch, then swung down to a lower one, which interestingly bobbed up to her feet. “Thank you, Mr. Tree.”
“Were you eavesdropping?” Daniel followed Jackie’s steps, only his movements were more practiced. He moved with such ease, he overtook her in seconds, dropping to the floor to stand below the tree.
“As if this has not been the worst day of my life. As if I have not been tortured enough. As if realizing that you have a baby with some woman isn’t, isn’t icing on the freaking cake!” She reached for a different branch, circling to the back of the tree. “I don’t need you judging me for eavesdropping. A witch has to figure out her purpose in life!” Jackie jumped down with the intent of a soft landing on the couch.
The couch slid away and Daniel appeared, arms open.
“I wasn’t judging. I was pointing out the obvious.” He caught Jackie and held her firmly against him. His heart thundered in his chest, which matched the booming of his voice. “The last time you eavesdropped on one of my phone calls you misinterpreted everything you heard and walked out on me.”
“Yeah, well, after hearing about your kid no woman on the planet would blame me for walking out again,” she snapped back.
“That kid is not mine and you damn well know it,” he said.
“How am I supposed to know what you’ve really been doing all this time? You could have a full litter of pups! A zoo!”
“We’ve already talked about how babies come about, and you know that kid can’t be mine.” His voice bordered on a shouting growl.
“Well, you lied about loving me no matter what your parents or anyone else on the planet thought so maybe you lied about the puppies!” Jackie shouted.
“I never lied about anything. You assumed and ran and ruined our lives!”
Chapter Ten
The phrase “saved by the bell” happened to be one of Jackie’s favorites. For some odd reason over her entire life she was always saved by some bell.
The recess bell saved her the time she inadvertently sprouted Bella Donna from her hair. It also helped that the teacher with recess duty was a warlock with kids in the same school. He teleported across the playground, kicking up a windstorm that sent all the other kids running into the building, giving him time to “do away” with her “poison berries, which is why everyone is always worried about you.”
Then there was the fire alarm that occurred when she and Daniel had gotten caught doing things that were inappropriate for students to be doing under the bleachers.
Oh, there was the telephone ringing on the night her parents tried to stop her from leaving town. As it happened they’d been waiting for an important call from Italy about Jackie’s grandmother.
It might have seemed heartless that she snuck out while they raced to the phone to make sure Nonna Sopressata was safe. But, the truth of it was Jackie knew Nonna was fine. She’d have never ditched that night if her grandmother was ill.
Tonight’s awkward moment, made possible by Jackie’s inability to control a magic she wished she didn’t have and horrible desire to know and to not know about Daniel’s love life without her, was interrupted by ringing chimes that grew louder and deeper with each dinging dong.
Ding. Dong. Ding. Ding. Dong. Dong. Dong.
Ding. Dong. Ding. Diiiing. Dooooong.
Daniel stared down at Jackie. “How is it possible?”
She shrugged. “Not sure. But I can say I’m grateful.”
“We’re not done so don’t think we aren’t discussing that night.” He stepped around Jackie, vaulted over the couch, and went around the tree. “Or this night. We’re discussing everything so don’t try anything to get out of it.”
Ding. Dong. Ding. Ding. Dong. Dong. Dong.
Ding. Dong. Ding. Diiiing. Dooooong.
“That’s quite a dong you’ve got there,” Jackie called.
“Very funny.” Daniel opened the door. “Oh, shit.”
“Is that any way to greet your mother?” The voice asking the question was not Daniel’s mother. It was not Daniel’s father either.
Worse than either of those options, the voice was Jackie’s mother.
“Oh shit,” Jackie whispered.
“I heard that,” Antonella Maria Cinzia Louisa Sopressata Tortellani said. “Give your mother-in-law, who is practically your mother, a kiss.”
“Hi, Mom,” Daniel said and bent for the commanded kiss.
“Where’s my girl? Where’s my girl?” Jackie’s father shoved Daniel aside. “Where is she?” He barreled into the house, making a beeline for Jackie, and she couldn’t have gotten out of his way if she’d wanted to.
Antonio Michele Bernardino Tortellani, generally known as Tony, was built like a bear with the speed and agility of a gazelle and the cuddliness of a puppy.
Jackie braced herself. “Hi Dad.”
“There she is.” He scooped her up, crushing her in a bear hug and spinning her around. “My girl. Oh, she’s home.” He peppered kisses over her face and squeezed until Jackie thought her ribs would crack.
“Dad! I can’t breathe.”
“Maria, here she is. Our girl.” Tony carried Jackie to her mother, sobbing into her hair. “Oh, she’s perfect. Just as beautiful as when she left. Look at her.”
So, yeah, this was where the shit got really weird. Tony cried over his family, and Maria, well, there would be tears after the made-to-inspire-epic-levels-of-guilt greeting occurred.
“I see her. She looks fine. Not so good as she did when she lived at home and ate good food, but she’s fine. Maybe not as healthy as she would be if she lived near her mama who would take care of her, but she’s not dead.” Maria surveyed Jackie, keeping her lips in a firm line and her eyes narrowed as if she were part hawk and on the hunt for a nice bloody piece of road kill.
“Oh, Maria. Look at her. She’s perfect.” Tony grabbed Jackie’s face, squeezing her cheeks together and forcing her lips into a pucker. “So beautiful. And she’s finally home.”
Maria stood eye-to-eye with Jackie. It really was like looking into a mirror. They had the same dark, curly hair. The same big brown eyes. Their noses were the same shape, even with the slight bump in the bridge. They each had a cleft in their chins and bodies with curves in all the right places.
If genes were any predictor of the future, Jackie was going to age quite well. Well, that went without saying. There were some perks to being a witch.
Tony kissed Jackie again and again, then grabbed Maria and smashed them all together in a hug. “My girls. My beautiful, perfect girls. Oh Maria. Look at our baby. So wonderful. Just like you.”
Remaining perfectly stiff in a hug when she was not pleased about something was a specialty of Maria’s. Not that it stopped Tony from hugging, but Jackie figured this was probably what it felt like to hug a tree.
“I see this.” Maria tugged at Jackie’s shirt, inspecting the very fabric itself. “This is interesting.” She moved onto Jackie’s hair. “I see you don’t comb this anymore.
”
Maria inhaled a sharp, deep breath, then closed her eyes for an extended second. When she opened them, she did not look directly at Jackie. Oh, she faced her daughter, but those sparkling brown eyes took in every detail of the house.
“This is where she comes first?” Maria disengaged herself from the hug. “Here? To some man’s house?” She stepped around Tony and surveyed the living room. She didn’t bother trying to hide the inspection, running not one but three fingers over an end table and studying her hand.
“Hmm. Clean enough.” Maria turned toward the kitchen and shook her head. “Here. To some man’s house is where our daughter, the child I labored thirty-eight and three quarter hours to bring into this world, that child, that one, the only…” Her index finger shot into the air. “I tore. Oh, the pain I withstood to bring that girl into this world.”
Maria’s hands came together at her chest and she dropped her face as if she was about to pray. Jackie knew better. She knew the show was just getting started.
“Hemorrhoids,” Maria whispered. “Hemorrhoids so big the doctors couldn’t believe it.”
Jackie slid out of Tony’s embrace and together they inched sideways toward the couch.
“The pain. Oh, I couldn’t sit for months. Months.” Maria shook her head. “What a mother goes through to give birth…to bring a precious life into the world.”
Jackie and Tony slumped onto the couch. Daniel tiptoed around the tree to the kitchen and occupied himself with his cell phone.
“Blood, sweat, and tears. She gives it all. Her own life she would give for that baby.” Maria looked up at the ceiling. “It’s the most important day of her life. The day she welcomes her offspring, the fruit of her womb, the blood of her blood, the baby she’s dreamed of for all her life…that sweet pink…” Maria’s gaze dropped to Jackie. “In your case bright, bright, bright red.”
After an extended pause Maria glanced upward again. “…that sweet, pink, perfectly innocent baby’s arrival into this world after all the effort her mama makes to get her here, oh, that is the day that brings meaning to a woman’s life.”
Maria pounded tight fists onto her thighs. “All the sleepless nights cradling the helpless baby, walking her, changing her dirty diapers, feeding her, making sure she has every little thing…food and toys…a clean home…safety, oh, what a mother won’t do to protect her baby.”
Her head jerked up, and after very quickly eagle-eyeing Jackie, Maria turned toward the kitchen. “She’d kill for that baby, kill anyone who hurt her flesh and bone.”
“Dad, make her stop,” Jackie whispered.
This evening’s performance might have been Maria’s best. Even Jackie was impressed at the endurance.
“I’m not sure anyone can stop her,” Tony said, only he didn’t bother to whisper. He wrapped his arm around Jackie and hugged her close. “She’s held this one in for twelve years.”
“Are you saying she’s gonna blow?” Jackie rested her head on Tony’s shoulder.
“Yeah. That’s what I’m thinking.” Tony kissed his daughter’s head. “We’re in for a long night.”
Maria marched to the kitchen island, stopping when she stood directly across the counter from Daniel. Her hands fisted on her hips. “And, she’d kill anyone who drove her baby away! A mother shouldn’t have to lose the only child she created because of some man.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow toward Maria and leaned toward her. “And some man shouldn’t have to search the world over trying to find the only woman he’s ever loved because she ran away like a big chicken.”
Chapter Eleven
“My daughter is not a chicken.” Maria’s voice echoed in the house.
“Yes, she is.” Daniel placed his cell phone on the counter, placed both palms flat on the granite countertop, and met Maria’s stare.
“No. Absolutely not!” Maria waved a hand before her, and an apron appeared, tying itself around her neck and waist. “I did not raise a chicken.” She grabbed the pan of cooled grease and the plate with only one remaining egg and scurried to the sink.
“Chicken? Who do you think you are calling a chicken? She never runs away from a fight. She has a brave heart, a good, kind, loving heart. She comes from good family.” Steam rose from the sink. Jackie guessed the temperature of the water was rising to match Maria’s irritation.
At the rate this was going either the pans would be sterilized clean or they’d melt into the sink.
“I’m calling her a chicken. She ran when there was no fight. We never even discussed it. Ooof.” Daniel grabbed the pan Maria thrust into his abdomen.
“Dry that.” She threw a kitchen towel at him. “Then put it away. Goddess only knows how some man organizes his kitchen.”
“Goddess and you both know, but fine.” Daniel dried the pan as he walked across the room to the cabinet that apparently housed the pans. “As if you haven’t rearranged this kitchen more times than I can count.”
The sink filled with bubbles so high the mounds stood taller than Maria. She returned to the sink with the remaining dishes and pan, then scrubbed in silence for nearly ten seconds.
“You’re the chicken,” she said, slamming a casserole dish onto the counter. “And where’s the drying rack? Who doesn’t own a drying rack?” Bending to look in the cabinet beneath the sink, she said, “Some man does not own a drying rack, that’s who doesn’t own a drying rack.”
Jackie sat bolt up, hands open. Some things a girl knew to expect.
A pen and a pad dropped into her open hands, and she added the first item of what she feared would be many to Maria’s shopping list.
Drying rack.
“Dishtowels. Some man needs more dish towels.” Maria shot a glance over her shoulder, and Jackie wrote dishtowels on the list.
“Do you own a scrub brush? What about cleaning supplies? Lysol? Mr. Clean? Any bleach in this house? When was the last time you cleaned this house, Some Man?” When Maria turned from the sink to stalk toward Daniel, Jackie noticed the bright pink gloves she now wore.
“You don’t expect my daughter to live in a dirty house, do you? Who takes care of this place? Do you have a maid? Does some strange woman come here to clean? What else does she do?”
“I didn’t say I was living here,” Jackie piped.
“Don’t bother, sweetie. You’ll only regret it.” Tony pulled Jackie against him for another hug, then kissed her head. “You’ll get run over by the train called Maria.”
“And the caboose named Daniel,” Jackie whispered.
Another cabinet in the kitchen opened, pots clanged when Daniel threw one in and slammed the door shut. “What? I don’t have a strange woman cleaning my house. This is my house. If I want to live in a dirty house, I will.” He had the nerve to look indignant.
Jackie cringed. When confronted by Maria, it was never good to wear that particular expression, the one that appeared to be a cross between outrage and embarrassment. He might as well wave a red flag in front of a bull.
“He’s not the brightest bulb, is he?” Tony put a foot on the coffee table, but before he could bring the second one up to cross them at his ankles, Maria whirled around. “Get your feet off the table!”
Tony jumped. “Geesh!”
“What are you, an animal? We don’t put our feet on the table.” Maria rushed over, conjuring a dust rag and some furniture polish as she came. With the gusto of an Italian woman on Saturday morning she polished the coffee table until Jackie thought she might remove the finish and show the bare wood. “This isn’t even your house. You know better than to treat our son-in-law’s house like it might be ours, like he might be our son.”
“Oh, Goddess, help us,” Jackie prayed.
“She’s not listening,” Tony said, twisting to the side as Maria leaned between he and Jackie to dust the floor lamp behind the couch.
Across the room a broom swept the floor, followed by a mop. Down the hall a vacuum hummed to life and the distinct sound of water sloshing in a toilet
bowl came from the bathroom off the kitchen.
“Gioacchina…”
Jackie rolled her eyes at the sound of Maria saying her legal name, a name as old as time and equally as ugly.
“I saw that,” Maria said in spite of being crouched across the room, picking up dead petunia flowers. “It’s a beautiful name. Gioacchina Anna Georgina Assunta Gloria Tortellani. Such a pretty name.” She stood up just in time to see Jackie fake a dry heave.
“Really?” Jackie said. “Really? You think that’s a beautiful name?”
“What would your grandmothers think to know you don’t like your name?” Tony asked.
Jackie’s heart leapt then pounded with the ferocity of a runner’s after a sprint. Though she loved that her father had the gift of being able to summon anyone related to him and that he used it quite judiciously, thus taking the brunt of the last twelve years, it meant she’d soon be spending time with the two women after whom she’d been torturously named, which also meant she’d soon be spending time with her parents’ mothers while her own mother had not completed her guilt-building session.
This could go in either of two directions—either they’d take pity on Jackie and save her from the torment or they’d pile on and make this the ultimate guilt fest.
It was moments like this that made Jackie wonder why she ever returned. But she quickly stopped wondering, remembering she had only returned by force.
Daniel smirked. “Assunta.”
“Shut up Daniel Rupert Ridgeback.” Jackie stuck her tongue out. “The Third.”
The air shifted. Electric currents sizzled along her skin, and several hairs rose up on end, which, if she were telling the truth, she’d have admitted she loved. Turning her head to model her new do, she said, “Well, I’m sure whatever my grandmothers think about anything will be clear to all of us soon.”
Maria glared at Tony. “You did that on purpose.” She waved a fist full of crispy petunia plant at her husband, who shrugged. “I am not done with these two.” She pointed the plant between Jackie and Daniel. “This house is not ready for company.” She waved her hands in the air. “Tidy once. Tidy twice. Make this house clean and nice.”
Magic and Mayhem: The Witch, The Weeds, and The Were (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Spaghetti Romance Book 1) Page 5