I shed all my winter stuff by the door, still feeling cold and wet, but followed them to the dining room where my sister, Laura, sat and completely ignored me. Rosemary and turkey flavored the air of the dining room, a reminder of endless strained holiday dinners.
Why had Xavier insisted I see them? The purview of gods and all that. If left to my own devices, I’d have ignored the holiday altogether. We passed dishes around in stiff silence. The table spread with bowls, platters, pies, and the cake I’d brought.
“What happened to the accounting job?” my dad asked.
“It wasn’t a good fit,” I said, trying to keep everything neutral.
“It’s probably because he’s a demon now,” Laura said, pointing her fork at my arm.
“I’m not a demon.”
The silence after my protest was deafening.
“Laura has news,” Mom said after a few long, strained minutes of plates scraping.
She patted her completely flat stomach. “I’m fourteen weeks along. Due in the spring.”
I blinked, processing those words and a dozen other things. “Uh, congrats. Where’s Steven?” I assumed the father was her boyfriend of three years, but as I couldn’t recall him ever coming to a family holiday, I hadn’t noticed him missing.
“His mother wanted an immediate family only dinner,” Laura said as if it didn’t bother her to be excluded.
“I’d think if you’re pregnant, that would make you immediate family,” I pointed out, thinking it was a big red flag. “Since you’ve been dating for years.”
“His mother is having issues letting go of her baby boy.”
Said ‘baby boy’ was in his thirties, but I pushed my green beans around on my plate rather than commenting, not that I ever brought anyone to meet them myself. The mashed potatoes swimming in gravy reminded me of the waves in the painting, and I wished I were home.
Dad didn’t look up from his plate. “Your mother has already turned the spare room into a nursery.”
“My old room?” The words came out quieter than I’d intended. I set my fork down carefully, the weight of their decision settling between my ribs. The thought of having ‘no home to return to’, burned in my chest.
“You seem to be doing well,” Mom said. “We didn’t think you’d mind.”
I sat back in the chair, trying to sort through the emotions and steady myself. “I get it. Makes sense to use the space.”
“Your stuff is in the garage,” Dad said. “We didn’t throw anything out.”
“We could have. He obviously doesn’t want it anymore,” Laura said. “Since he left it all here.”
Old posters. Trophies. Art books filled with dreams broken. Dried-up paints. Did I need any of it? Or did I only wished it still had value to anyone?
Mom hurriedly passed the cranberry sauce. “Luca, your boss must be very important to get cakes like that. What exactly does his company do?”
“Acquisitions,” I said, which wasn’t entirely a lie. Xavier did acquire things, usually dangerous magical artifacts andoccasionally wayward shifters like me. “He handles a lot of high-profile negotiations and business dealings.” Like with the Fae.
“Sounds dangerous,” Dad said. “Accounting was more practical.”
“It’s probably how he got his variance,” Laura said.
The dining room lights flickered. Outside, the wind howled like the winter itself was angry on my behalf.
“I got a cold,” I corrected her. “A perfectly normal, human cold. Sneezing, coughing, fever, all the same stuff that could happen to you any day or time. I woke up one morning with fur and claws instead of skin and hair.” My panic over the change that first day couldn’t be articulated to anyone who never experienced it. And while learning how to change hadn’t been difficult, the anxiety over unregulated stress causing me to shift, had become a self-fulfilling prophecy that cost me the accounting job and put me in Xavier’s path, since he’d picked up my cat form from the office after it’d been called in to the Supernatural Enforcement Division.
Silence fell heavier than the snow outside. Dad viciously attacked his turkey. Mom stared at her plate like she could escape the conversation through a magic portal beneath the stuffing. Laura rubbed one hand possessively on her stomach.
And I wasn’t hungry. Why had I come here again? I got up from the table, taking my plate to the sink to clean. “I should get going, before the weather gets worse again.”
“Probably for the best,” Laura said. “I don’t want my baby to be exposed to this.”
