I open my eyes hesitantly at the high pitched shrieks coming from my ever angry, ever exhausting harpy mother, Jennifer Vitanna.
I groan and wipe my eyes as I sit up in my small bed.
"Emelia Evangeline Bellomi, you better get your lazy ass out of bed and ready for school before I go over there and drag you out!" She shrilled as she stomped out of the room.
Her hair was deep brown now, matching her eyes and mine. She left my dad a couple years after my first memory. We snuck out in the middle of the night with backpacks on and walked to the end of the road, where a black car was waiting. We got in and a man in all black was sitting in the front seat. My mom slid in the seat next to him and gave him a fat white envelope whispering, "It's all there" He nodded and drove us to a hotel.
My dad found us at that hotel. Then the next one. The next one resulted in sitting in the hospital with my mother as cops gave us cookies and donuts and asked us questions about living with my dad and my mom's bruises. He disappeared after that, and my mother wouldn't talk about him. Whenever we would ask where he was she would just look dead behind the eyes, muttering, "We're safe, he's gone now. He can't come back." She would get really quiet after that.
She got a job at her Step mother, Gladys' bar, she owned with her new husband Bob. We stayed with them in their house next door to the bar for a couple months.
I liked hanging out in the bar in the morning and afternoon. I liked running across the black and white checked dance floor. I liked standing on the small stage (reserved for local bands) and pretending I was a rock star or a county singer like my hero Shania Twain.
Mother would leave after we were in bed and come home in the morning to make us breakfast. She was often giggly and giddy and reeking of alcohol and cigarettes. But she seemed happy so we didn't mind. One morning she came home with a man we had never seen.
He was tall like my father, but much heftier. He was funny and brought my brother and I gifts whenever we saw him. He seemed to adore my mother and want to be family with us. He was also an partial owner of his father's herbal supplement company.
I was around ten when we all moved in together. We moved to a nicer area in town, to a nice little cobble stone house in a suburb. There was a nice little fenced in yard with a flower garden in the back.
When my mother was with my father, she was thin and timid. She always seemed to be biting her nails. She wore a lot of makeup to cover her bruises, and a lot of pants and sweaters. She was terrified of another man noticing her body or speaking to her in anyway. My dad didn't like that much, especially when he was drinking.
She was different with Sylvester. She wore deep, plunging necklines and high skirts paired with thigh high heeled boots. She died her hair. She got her nails done. She drove around in a little powder blue mustang.
She also became a lot more social. My mom and Sylvester went out every weekend night, often not hobbling back in until seven or eight in the morning.
I zombie walked to the kitchen to grab my morning pop tart just as my mom's newest best friend and "adopted daughter", Regina came in.
She lived across the road from us and was at our house often, especially when Sylvester was gone. She helped my mom run the small witchy, shop "The Rosy Quartz" that my mom now owned and ran out of a small building next door to our house. They were also currently planning my mom's wedding.
I liked when Regina came over, my mom pretended to be nicer when she was around.
They lit a lot of incense together, did a lot of Tarot readings (not that I knew what that was at the time. I thought they were just playing cards), and tried to conduct seances to communicate with the dead. My mom was desperate to reach her mom, Evangeline, but she never thought she was successful. I saw her though. She was often in the corner of the room, in a light floral pink dress that looked like it belonged in the 1920's or 30's, her beautiful red hair braided and pulled over on her shoulder, her hazel eyes filled with sorrow as she stared at her daughter.
She only spoke to me in dreams. We would often be in a small kitchen, seated at a small table by a large window, drinking tea and talking about things that bothered me. She was nurturing and kind. But, she never answered my questions about my mother.
Back then I still told my mom about my dreams and seeing Grandma Eva. She seemed to believe me but also resent me a little for it. She would often say something along the lines of "Why would she only talk to you?" disdain and venom seeping into her words. I don't know why, but she seemed to hate me.
No one acknowledged us or said goodbye as my brother and I went out the front door to wait for the bus. My brother often threw rocks at me and laughed. I was his favorite toy to break.
By the time the bus came I was often in tears and frustrated. My brother just told his friends I was crazy. Everyone seemed to think it was funny. I sat at the front of the bus, he sat at the back. Fine by me.
I loved school. They liked me there and I got to do art projects. I had a couple of friends, Nina and Eliza, and I loved to learn and do homework. I craved order in the chaos.
School was pretty uneventful that day. My brother Jerry (real name Jarred Junior, after my dad), and went inside for our afternoon of eating snacks and fighting over the tv, until we noticed something strange.
The green throw rug in our living room was rolled up and shoved off to the side, along with the mahogany coffee table. It was odd they were here, my mom's mustang was still parked at her store next door.
There was a huge star with a circle around it burned into the center of the floor. My mother, Regina, her sister Collette, and her cousin Arista were in the middle of the pentagram, wearing white nightgowns, their hands linked in a circle, blood dripping from their wrists into their linked hands, as they chanted into red candles lit in the center of circle.
Open up my third eye so I can truly see
Open up my chest so I can truly breathe
Allow the powers of the ancestors to return to me,
Make us one.
So mote it be.
They chanted this over and over again. I swore their eyes glowed.
They didn't notice us. Jerry and I looked at each other as we silently went outside to play. Whatever mom was doing, she would be mad if we interrupted.
We didn't talk about what we saw. We just waited on the porch for the door to open and our mother to invite us inside.
It was just starting to get dark when the front door opened and Regina, Collette and Arista walked out, all of them wearing their normal clothes and carrying small black velvet purses with them. They were all laughing and chatting excitedly.
"See you later Jenny, hi kids!" they said in unison as they went down our front steps and down the driveway. Regina went to her house across the street. Aunt Collette and Arista went next door to their cars parked next to my mom's and got in.
We were getting up to go inside when my mother came out to greet his. Her hair was black now. There was something different about her. She seemed happier, but also...dangerous somehow.
"Hi my babies!" she said loudly, pulling my brother into a hug and patting my head (she never hugged me), "Did you guys have fun playing? Why didn't you tell me you were here?"
"You seemed busy." Jerry said solemnly.
"Whatever do you mean Jere bear? When has mommy ever been to busy for her little angels?" she teased pinching his cheeks and ushering us inside.
Sylvester came home from work shortly after, carrying gifts for us all and beaming from ear to ear. He got my mom a necklace with a ruby and diamond heart shaped pendant, my brother candy and nerf gun, and me a box of candies and a fluffy white teddy bear I would later name Fluffy.
He told us that his dad announced his retirement that day and he was about to take over the company. He took us out to a fancy Italian restaurant to celebrate. We wore our best clothes and ate pasta and they drank lots of wine. He sat at the table with my mom in his lap, constantly kissing her and stroking her while he loudly whispered "It worked Baby, you did it." to her over and over again like a prayer.
At one point he and I made eye contact and he made a comment that I was growing up so fast and developing into quite the beautiful young woman. I smiled and politely thanked him, heat rising to my face. My mother looked at me like she wished I would disappear, my stomach sank into my butt.
Life became strange after that.