by Obert Skye
The three of them sat.
“It’s been too long,” Candy said. “You should have visited sooner. Look at your clothes. Is that how you’re dressing in public?”
Rin bristled. “You know that I am.”
“And that hat? I didn’t raise you to be the kind of person who keeps his hat on indoors.”
“I didn’t care for a number of ways you raised me.”
“Is that a jab?” Candy asked. “I always want to describe you as clever. I suppose it’s well that I don’t.”
From inside Ozzy’s pocket, Clark guffawed.
“Have you seen your father?” she asked.
Rin nodded. “We visited him a while back.”
“I suppose he’s still poor and principled?”
“He’s doing remarkably well,” the wizard lied. “He owns half of Albuquerque.”
“What’s that worth? A fraction of Portland? Water is life,” Candy insisted. “And we have the water. It’s quite a blessing. I see your sister, Ann, from time to time.”
“Me too.”
“I know.” Candy sighed as if the entire world was picking on her. “She always fills me in on your disorder.”
“It’s not a disorder.”
“Really?” Candy obviously disagreed. “A grown man walking around and telling people he’s a wizard isn’t a disorder? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. We’re all supposed to accept any label anyone wants to be called. Maybe I’ll be a chair someday.”
Ozzy looked at Rin in confusion. The woman sitting in front of them was as horrible as any monster he had ever met in a book or in life.
“Can you turn me into a chair?” Candy asked. “Is that something a wizard can do? You know, I always feel so badly that you don’t stop by more often. But then when you do, I wonder why I ever felt that way. I’ve offered to get you help. I’ll pay for the whole thing. We’ll get the deluxe package with the padded walls, the straitjacket, the works.”
Candy laughed at her own joke as if it were funny.
“Maybe they can clean you up a bit,” she went on. “A grown man with a beard? What’s next, a face tattoo? How can you have employment when you have hair growing out of your face? It’s a health issue.”
Clark began to squirm, and Ozzy put his hand on his pocket to keep the bird calm.
“Do you want me to die disappointed?” Candy asked Rin. “Is that what you want? I’m just trying to help. You’ve made bad decision after bad decision. A teaching degree, your marriage. At least you figured a way out of that.”
“Stop,” Rin insisted.
“She wasn’t right for you or the family.”
Rin stood up.
“Calm down,” Candy said. “People today are so thin-skinned. You give them a little of the truth and they fly into a convulsion.”
“Patti wasn’t bad for our family,” Rin argued.
Candy smiled so smugly all three of them wanted to throw up.
“Of course she was,” Candy insisted. “You know what I thought of her. And I say thought, because I no longer think of her. I mean, imagine Henry Owens swooping in and buying up all that beachfront property in Otter Rock. We weren’t the only family who had been waiting for that opportunity.”
“Stop,” Rin said again. “We’ve been through this enough. None of those ‘other families,’ including ours, had the foresight to ask to be notified when the owner decided to sell. Patti’s father did.”
Candy made a rude noise. “He never, and she never—and you never—did understand how money and privilege work. You don’t just do what he did and not have consequences. I still don’t see how it was that you ended up marrying his daughter.”
Rin made an exasperated face. “You know who this is,” he said, motioning toward Sigi.
“I know who it is,” Candy said coldly. “She looks much like her mother—and her grandfather.”
“Don’t start,” Rin said angrily.
“Wait,” Sigi said. “Is she talking about me being black?”
“Please,” Candy said haughtily, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body. Adults are talking, child. Adults who know their place.”
Rin sat back down and put his hand on Sigi’s knee to prevent her from jumping up and attacking her grandmother.
“Who’s the boy?” Candy asked, switching subjects as casually as someone switches forks. “I don’t remember you having another child. Although he appears to be more from our side of the family. That’s something.”
Ozzy looked at Rin and asked loudly, “Why are we here?”
“Yes,” Candy said, “the boy makes a good point. Why are you here? Are you finally going to get what you’ve never retrieved? Or did you come to show off the leftovers of your failed marriage?”
Sigi jumped up, shaking. “You’re a monster.”
Candy looked unperturbed. “I am a mother,” she said calmly. “Sit down.”
Sigi remained standing.
“Either way,” Candy said. “I am a mother and as a mother I will always put the well-being of my children first. You can’t blame me for wanting to help Brian make the right choices in life.”
“His name’s Rin,” Sigi said angrily.
Despite all the hostility in the room, the wizard smiled slightly at Sigi’s defense of his wizardly name.
“You need to learn some manners,” Candy said. “You don’t shout at grownups. But I suppose the upbringing that a wizard father and your mother provided doesn’t amount to much.”
“I didn’t know there were such hideous things in Portland,” Sigi said. “I’m just embarrassed that our lives have any connection at all.”
Candy laughed. “Embarrassed by the one thing you could be proud of.”
“What are you doing?” Ozzy demanded.
“Excuse me?” Candy said.
“Why are you acting like this?” The boy was so baffled by the horrible behavior he couldn’t tell if it was real or an act.
“I’m not acting,” she insisted. “Sit down.”
“No,” Ozzy said, continuing to stand next to Sigi. “I’m not sure why Rin brought us here. You’re terrible. You’re the kind of person that needs to pass on so that greener things can grow.”
Candy stood and brushed at the sleeves of her shirt. She appeared to be done with the conversation, but for some reason she didn’t leave.
“My mother was taken from me when I was seven,” Ozzy continued. “I’ve wished every day that she would come back. But you’ve shown me that just because something’s called Mom that doesn’t mean it has the attributes that come along with the label. Patti is one of the most impressive people I know. And Sigi is something your horrible life missed out on. I don’t care how rich you are, or how clean you can get things. This house is grotesque and nothing but a monument to a human being who doesn’t know how to actually be one.”
Candy looked as if she wanted to speak but kept still.
Ozzy turned to Rin. “Why did you come here?”
“She has something of mine,” Rin answered. “It’s in the safe behind that painting.”
The wizard pointed to a small painting on the back wall. It was a picture of a bowl of fruit with a vase of flowers behind it. The image was framed in gold and worth more than most people’s homes.
“Get it,” Ozzy said.
Rin walked over to the painting and pulled it off the wall. Behind it was the safe that had always been there. Candy just stood there, watching it all happen and not making a move or a sound.
“Do you know the combination?” Sigi asked, still angry about everything that was happening.
The wizard nodded.
Rin pulled open the safe and reached in. He shuffled through a few papers and coins until he found what he was looking for.
The woman with the red glasses came into the room. She took one look at R
in by the open safe and grew frantic.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I’m getting my stuff,” Rin answered. “My mother has held onto it for long enough.”
“Your mother?” Glasses asked. Her voice made it sound like she had never thought someone like Candy could be a mother. “Is that true?” she asked Candy.
The wizard mom nodded and smiled awkwardly.
“Well,” Rin said happily, “we’re done. I’ll leave the safe open. My mother said she thinks you deserve a bonus.”
Candy stood there looking stiff and immovable—only her head bobbed up and down as she approved the bonus.
“By the way,” Rin said. “I’m not shaving the beard.”
“And I’m never coming back,” Ozzy insisted.
“You may not think you are, but among a whole lot of other horrible things, you’re a racist, Grandma,” Sigi added.
The three of them left the bragging room. As they stepped out, a small black object shot out of Ozzy’s pocket and raced toward Candy. Clark smacked the back of her knees, making her legs buckle and forcing her to fall backward into her seat.
“Sit down,” Clark tweeted.
He then zipped out of the room and joined the others.
As they sped away from the horrible home and the far-less-charming-than-it-had-once-seemed street, they all kept quiet while trying to make sense of what had happened in their own heads. Clark was the only one to speak.
“Candy,” he said with disgust. “She’s as mislabeled as a kitchen.”
Rin took out his list and checked off another item.
“Don’t check and drive,” Sigi said nicely.
The wizard smiled. “What would I do without you?”
Emotionally drained from their visit to Candy’s house, Rin, Sigi, Ozzy, and Clark decided to get a hotel room in Portland for the night. They weren’t sure what to do next and they wanted to take a night to figure things out. Rin sprang for the Marriott hotel in downtown. He got two adjoining rooms with a connecting door. It cost more, but it meant that all four of them had their own bed.
“Finally,” Clark said as he began to peck and tug at the blankets on his bed. “This is how it should be.”
It was three in the afternoon and not another word had been mentioned about what had happened at Candy’s house. The situation felt just ugly enough that everyone was afraid to bring it back out into the open. After Ozzy and Sigi had gone down to check out the pool and Rin had ironed his robe while Clark built his nest, they decided to make themselves feel better about things by ordering a bunch of overpriced room service.
The hotel restaurant didn’t serve breakfast all day, which prompted Rin to leave a negative review on Yelp and forced them all to have to order food items more suited for the non-magical person.
When the food arrived, they all sat in Ozzy and Clark’s room, eating while watching a show on mute about maverick chefs.
“Doesn’t all this cost a lot?” Ozzy asked Rin, submerging the end of his French dip sandwich into a cup of au jus. “The rooms? The food?”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Sigi said. “But I was too hungry to bring it up.” She finished a cup of clam chowder and picked up her club sandwich. “We don’t usually stay in such nice digs.”
Rin took a picture of his fettuccine Alfredo and posted it to Instagram.
“I wish I were photographing an omelet.”
Sigi patted her father on the back.
Clark, who had been busy finishing up his blanket nest, completed the project and decided to jump into the conversation by saying, “Your mom seems like a horrible person, Riny. Normally, I’d add ‘no offense,’ but this time I mean to offend.”
“I agree with Clark,” Ozzy said, relieved that the sticky situation was being brought up.
“Me too,” Sigi added. “I’m happy you never sent me to spend the summer with her.”
“I would never have allowed that,” Rin said. “She has a hard time accepting anything she doesn’t understand. And she fears anything that doesn’t fit her idea of valuable.”
“Although,” Clark said, “when I die, I want to be buried in that metal box she has on the wall. What did you take out of it?”
“It’s not important,” Rin said. “What matters is . . .”
Sigi interrupted her dad. “I think it is a big deal. Didn’t we go there to get what was in the safe? Wasn’t that what you checked off your to-get-done list?”
Rin nodded. “It was necessary, but . . . this order of fettuccine is wizard-sized.” Rin’s hope was to change the conversation with his tone and topic.
They all stared at his huge plate of cheese- and cream-covered noodles.
“We’re not talking about your noodles, Dad.”
Rin slurped one of the noodles they weren’t discussing and glanced at Sigi.
“I’m really sorry you had to see that.”
“The noodle?” Clark asked.
“No,” the wizard said. “I’m sorry about Candy. You all should have waited in the car.”
“You’re wrong,” his daughter said sincerely. “I wish she was different, but I’m glad I saw her. It would be hard to describe someone as terrible as her. She has to be part of the reason you and Mom got divorced?”
Rin nodded. “That and the fact that your mother didn’t want to be married to someone so magical.”
All three of them took giant bites of the food they had before them and spent a few moments chewing. Clark watched enviously.
“I wish I could eat,” he lamented. “You all look funny doing it, but from the noises you make it must be worth it.”
Ozzy handed Clark a small cup of ketchup the restaurant had included for the purpose of dipping fries in.
“Here.”
The bird pressed his beak in and out of the red stuff, happy to be included. He smeared some of it on his metal underbelly and smiled at the results.
“I’m red-breasted.”
Clark eyed the small cup of mustard near Sigi’s plate.
“Are you using that?”
She handed it over to him and he began to streak lines of yellow mustard on his wings.
“What you took from the safe isn’t important?” Ozzy asked Rin, still wanting to know.
“What I took is something that belonged to me.”
“And the safe still had the same combination?”
“I’m not sure,” Rin said. “She never told me the combination.”
“Then how did you know it?” Sigi asked.
“Lucky guess.”
“If what you took out of the safe isn’t important,” Ozzy said, “then why did we have to go there?”
“It needed to be done,” Rin answered. “I can’t run from what I must face.”
“Because of your knees?” Clark asked, still applying ketchup and mustard to his wings and body.
“No,” the wizard said kindly. “And I should say that I was hoping for a different response.” He glanced at his daughter. “I thought that once she saw the kind of person you are, she would have softened.”
“It didn’t work,” Sigi said.
“Was your mom ever nice? I mean, was she kind when you were young?” Ozzy asked, the subject of mothers being close to his heart and mind.
“Not particularly,” Rin answered. “I grew up in parts of Otter Rock and Portland. I think we moved a lot because other people also had a hard time getting along with her. I remember when I was nine and she told me I had good form while riding my bike. That was nice. Of course, she followed it up by telling me not to look so much like a child when I smiled.”
“How’d she get so rich?” Sigi asked.
“She comes from very old money,” Rin answered. “Her great-grandfather made a fortune in the stock market and that money has continued to
grow into embarrassingly large amounts.”
“How embarrassing?” Clark asked, dipping his left talon in mustard.
“Obscenely embarrassing,” Rin answered. “She acts the way she does because she’s ignorant to anyone else’s condition. She feels invincible because of her wealth.”
Sigi set the last bit of her sandwich down. Her dark eyes flickered with the reflection of the muted TV. “I used to ask about your side of the family all the time,” Sigi said. “But it’s not a subject Mom ever liked to talk about. So I stopped asking. It’s weird that Mom’s never told me how horrible Candy is. Actually, I don’t think she’s ever brought her up.”
“That’s wise,” Rin said. “Patti is remarkably fair. But when I married her, my mother acted like the world had come to an end and as if I had destroyed the family. The truth is, she had destroyed the family years before.”
“When did I last see her?” Sigi asked.
“I think you were one and Patti was done.”
Clark raised a ketchup-covered right wing.
“Yes?” Rin said.
“Did you mean to rhyme?”
“I did.” Rin took a bite of his fettuccini and continued with a mouth full of noodles. “My moom wouldn’t knowledge ing I ever don.” He swallowed. “My marriage was the beginning of my family falling apart. That’s about the time my dad left.”
“Families are complicated,” Clark tweeted.
“I used to blame them both for being such horrible parents.” Rin slurped down another noodle. “But then I grew up, became a teacher, got married, had a daughter, and became a wizard. So, it all turned out in the end.”
“You’re not angry?” Ozzy asked.
“About what?”
“Dad,” Sigi argued, not buying the idea that he was okay with being raised by the terrible woman she had just met, “don’t be thick. It’s okay to be angry.”
Rin looked at both Sigi and Ozzy—he would have included Clark in his glance, but the bird was so covered in condiments that he was uncomfortable to look at.
“I don’t know if you know this,” the wizard said, “but sometimes people laugh at me.” The sauce that Rin had in his beard made it hard for Ozzy and Sigi not to laugh now. “They laughed when I wanted to be a teacher. They laughed when I told them I was marrying Patti. They laughed when we got divorced and things fell apart. And . . . ,” he paused for dramatic effect, “. . . now some of them laugh because they don’t believe I’m a wizard.”
