“The drive was fine.” She puts her purse on the counter. Or, rather, shestartsto put her purse on the counter, but pulls a few components from said purse and does a spell she’s done so many times I’m pretty sure she doesn’t realize she’s doing it: Detect Germs.
I’ve seen a lot of badass magic casting in my day, but watching my mother do a spell that makes germs glow green in an apartment owned by two university students, one of whom does sports, is a whole new level of courageous. Then again, she’s a nurse who raised four kids, so whathasn’tshe endured.
The radius on the spell only covers the kitchen and a little in the dining room, but the counter lets out a faint green glow in a few places, as do the stove and floor. For the most part, though, everything looks pretty clean.
Mom sighs, pulls a sanitizing wipe from her coat pocket, rubs the counter, and finally sets her purse down.
“Ghorza,” Mom says. “We can’t leave the place like this. They’ll get mice.”
Ghorza takes in the area in one swoop and clucks her tongue. “Nothing we can’t tidy up.”
I give an apologetic cringe to Orok, but he’s unbothered.
Mom takes off her coat and hands it to me as she rolls up her sleeves. “We’ll have this place set to rights in no time. With you coming home for the holiday, it isn’t sanitary to leave your home in such a state.”
What state? Did they not see thethrow pillows?
“I’m not coming home.” I hang her coat by the door.
She digs under our sink for a sponge and soap, still not making eye contact. “Run upstairs and pack while we take care of this. Ghorza, can you handle the living room?”
But Ghorza’s already there, refluffing the pillows Orok set out.
Orok takes an uncertain step toward her. “Mom, you don’t have to do this. I’ll grab my bag and we can head out, okay?”
“We’re in no hurry to get back in the car,” Ghorza tells him. She picks up the stack of unopened mail and flicks through it without hesitation at the privacy invasion. “Oh! Orok, you haven’t opened your mail?”
Any bills or important things get picked through upon arrival; the rest—letters, mailers, and university notices—gets dumped for sorting at a later date that to this day has not arrived.
Ghorza plucks out an envelope. “This is the Simpsons’ holiday card!Orok,you haven’t even opened it.” She throws a not at all thinly veiled glare—at me. “Let me guess. Sebastian is in charge of organizing your mail? You didn’t know you’d gotten a card from them, did you?”
Orok sighs. “Seb didn’t hide it from me.”
“I wasn’t implying he did.”
Yeah, sure you weren’t, Ghorza.
She holds the envelope out and Orok crosses the room to take it from her, obediently opening it while she watches on with a placated smile. It is, indeed, a holiday card; from where I’m still in the kitchen, I can see a picture of a smiling family all wearing matching red sweaters.
My mom is now fiddling with our wonky plumbing to get the hot water running. It chugs once, burbles, then spits out something I know will only be passably lukewarm.
She exhales in that passive aggressive way that says more than words ever could.Oh, why would my youngest child choose to live in poverty? What did I do to make him hate me so much?
But she gets to work scrubbing our countertops.
I give up, find another sponge, and join her. The faster they’re done, the faster they’ll leave.
“And here’s one from the Horknuths!” Ghorza presents another envelope. We seem to have forgone cleaning in favor of shaming Orok into opening holiday cards from people who go to his parents’ church. “Have you sent out your holiday cards yet, Orok?”
He fumbles opening the one from the Horknuths. “Uh—”
“You don’t want to let it get too late. People will think you’ve forgotten them. You wouldn’t want to upset the congregation, would you?”
“Our matching sweaters haven’t arrived yet, Mrs. Monroe,” I say as I throw half my body weight into scrubbing out a green glow by the fridge. “I got him one with Urzoth’s symbol on it, and I got myself one with a symbol for Galaxrien Vossen. He was important to Urzoth, right?”
Galaxrien is a demon lord who’s the sworn enemy of Urzoth. Urzoth famously locked him in a pit in the Demonic Plane, but Urzoth’s devotees still get touchy when Galaxrien is mentioned.
Ghorza’s face pales.
