I was surprised to receive an invitation to a Christmas party at my family home. It used to be tradition in the Jameson family home for us to throw a huge Christmas party for all the witches in the community. But that stopped five years ago after Daddy passed away. I moved out of the house shortly after that.

Pulling my coat closer around my neck and face, I knocked on the front door. I heard shuffling before my mother opened the door. Her smile was big as she glanced at me.

“Vera!”

She gestures for me to come inside. I step inside, shrugging off my coat and putting it on the coat rack.

“It’s cold out there! Come in the kitchen and get a cup of hot chocolate.”

She hurries off for the cup while I glance around at my former home. Nothing has changed and yet everything feels different. Photos from our annual camping trips still sat in their frames on the shelves framing the fireplace. The scent of my mother’s floral scent perfume hung in the air. And yet the absence of Daddy was everywhere I looked! Like how there was no jazz music blaring from the speakers. Or how there was no scent of his fancy cigars in the air. His favorite chair by the fireplace sat unoccupied. It was hard being here! I missed him so much.

Whipping a tear from my eye, I made my to the kitchen. The scent of apple pie hit my nose making my stomach grumble.

“Where’s Treyvon?” I asked as I took the hot chocolate from her.

I haven’t spoken to my brother much since I moved out. There was tension between us since he didn’t like the fact that I blamed our mother for not doing enough to prevent Daddy from passing.

“He’s still upstairs in his room.” she said shaking her head.

“Treyvon, come dow the stairs and say hi to your sister!” she yelled up the stairs.

A few minutes later, he came shuffling into the kitchen. He wore a red suit with a black shirt underneath. The red tie he wore to match hung loosely around his neck.

“Sis!”

He leans casually against the kitchen counter, a bored expression on his face. I look closer at his face. There were dark circles under eyes like he hasn’t been getting much sleep lately.

“Hey!” I gave him a small smile.

Despite how everything’s been between us, I really did miss. We weren’t the close since I was the oldest, but we did use to get along. A part of me we really wished we could get back to that!

“Boy, fix your tie and button up that shirt!” my mother scolded him.

“Why? What does it matter what I look like?”

I stared at my brother in shock. He never raised his voice at our mother. I was the trouble child, always talking back. And he was always the good one, rarely getting into mischief. Which made it clear to me that Daddy’s passing had more of an effect on him than I had realized.

“It’s important for us Jamesons to look presentable.”

“For who? It’s not as if the other witches are here! I don’t even understand why we’re having this stupid party in the first place! What even the point of it if Dad isn’t here?” he finished in a long breath.

A heavy silence fell over the room. My mother didn’t seem to have a response to that. And honestly, neither did I. What was the point to all of this? Daddy wasn’t here! Nothing about our Christmas party would ever be the same without him again. So why was our mother insisted on having it? It didn’t make any sense! After a few minutes had passed, my mother finally spoke.

“Why don’t you two take the rest of the food into the dinning room while I pull the apple pie out of the oven.”

Gathering the remaining food, we headed to dinning room and sat down Trey too his spot across from and sighed. He looked twenty years older than me, anger still visible in his features. I dropped down into the chair, my body feeling heavy. It hasn’t even been an hour yet and I already wanted to leave. We sat in an uncomfortable silence, not really sure of what to say to one another.

A few minutes later, my mother walked into the room with the apple pie in her hands. She sat it down on the table and took her seat. I glanced at the seat at the other end of the table where Daddy used to sit feeling an ache in my heart.

“Why don’t we say prayer before this food gets cold!” she said.

We said prayer and made our plates. I poked at my food while silently listening to the sound of metal scraping plates from them eating. Since no one else was going to talk, I figured I’d try to break the uncomfortable silence.

“So how’s senior year going Trey?”

“Fine.” he said without even looking up from his plate.

Great one word answers!

“Have you decided on where you want to go after graduation?”

He finally looked up at me, annoyance in his eyes.

“You don’t have to do that!” he said.

“Do what?”

“Pretend to give a shit!”

“Language!” my mother yelled at him.

“I don’t even know why you invited her. Especially after the way she acted when Dad died. She blamed you for not saving him. And then she just left like the rest of us didn’t matter!”

“It was her fault! She could of asked the elders to let her use a necromancy spell to bring him back, but she refused. And now Daddy’s dead because of her!”

“You know those kinds of spells are forbidden V!”

“I have cancer!”

We stared at our mother in shock. Cancer! No this couldn’t be happening. We can’t loose her too!