I sit down beside her. “How are you doing? Really?”
She looks away, her breathing shallow and quick as if swallowing back a sob.
I put my arms around her shoulders. “I’m so worried about you. I know how hard this has to be. Finally, you have a real home, grandparents who love you, and now—”
She leans her head on my shoulder. “I’m doing okay. It’s Grandfather I worry about. He and Grandmother are so close. How will he cope when she’s gone? When there’s just me?”
Her voice catches and I sense an undertone of hesitation, of concern. As if she’s afraid once Mom is gone, Dad won’t want her around anymore. I know how utterly baseless that fear is, how much my father loves her, but I also realize my saying that won’t change the way she feels.
I put an arm over Trish’s shoulders. “Go change, honey. Let’s get some dinner.”
She disappears into the changing area and I remain on the bench, gazing at Mom’s suit. I wanted help in making my decision.
I just got it.
As soon as I can, I will talk to my mom.
MOM DOESN’T COME DOWN FOR DINNER.
Her absence casts a pall over us all. After, Dad suggests we go into town for a movie. The kids agree and spend fifteen minutes in good-natured arguing over what to see—a Pixar animated flick or a new action-adventure featuring the Justice League. The superheroes win out. Since it’s an American movie, language won’t be a problem. The film will have French subtitles.
The kids disperse to get their jackets, Dad goes upstairs to tell Mom, Frey and I are alone at the table.
“You’re not coming, are you?” Frey asks.
I shake my head.
“You’re staying to talk to your mother.”
Not a question so I feel no need to reply.
Frey sighs. But then he stands up and pulls me to my feet, too. “I love you,” he says. “I stand behind your choice. But please, Anna, be careful. I don’t want to see you hurt any more than you are.”
I put my hands around his neck and pull his face down so I can reach his lips with my own. The kiss is full of longing, gratitude. “I love you, too,” I whisper, pulling back. “I think I always have.”
Then the kids are racing back down the stairs with Dad right behind them. Frey herds them to the door. No one has to ask why I’m not accompanying them. It seems to be understood. I will stay with Mom.
It’s not without a certain irony—this choice of movie. My family has a real-life justice fighter in their midst and they don’t know it.
Well, they don’t all know it.
I start up the stairs to Mom’s room.
And after tonight, there will be one more sharing the secret.
CHAPTER 18
MOM IS SITTING UP IN BED WATCHING A FRENCH news program when I peek around the door.
She smiles when she sees me and reaches for the remote. “You didn’t go to the movie.”
I step into the room. “Would you like some company?”
She pats the bed. “I’d love some.” She clicks off the television and looks hard at me. “You look so tired, Anna. This should be such a happy time for you and I’m spoiling it.”
Her words bring a rush of anger, and the ever-present urge to scream that it’s not her, it’s the fucking cancer, and that if there were any justice at all in this fucking world, this wouldn’t be happening.
But in my head I see Frey’s gently frowning face and a shaking finger. Not the language to use with your mother, he’s reminding me, in a voice so real, I think he might be standing right behind me.
He’s right. I take my mother’s hand and squeeze it. “You haven’t spoiled anything. In fact, you made me realize how silly it is for Frey and me to wait to get married. And you know me.” I wink at her. “If you hadn’t made the suggestion, Frey and I would have dragged our feet, finding one excuse after the other to hang on to the status quo. I’m such a procrastinator. It would have had Dad climbing the walls.”
She laughs at that. “I can’t believe how silly he acted this morning. You’d think you were a child.”
“To him, I am. But I am sorry to have embarrassed him. I didn’t know—”
“That he was going to intrude on you so early in the morning? Don’t be silly. I told him to leave you alone. That you’d get up when you were ready, but he insisted. He should never have been at that bedroom door to begin with.”
We’re both laughing now, at the memory of Dad’s embarrassed reaction to having heard Frey and me behind that closed door. Still, though, I give myself a mental thump on the head. We are not at home and it could have been John-John or Trish dispatched to fetch us. Frey may be right about forgoing sex until after the service.
Realistically? How likely is that?
Our laughter fades. The silence stretches. Mom turns to me.
“What is it, Anna? What do you want to say to me?”
Her eyes search my face. My heart beats so furiously I’m sure she must hear. I turn away, suddenly afraid, suddenly unsure. What do I want to say?
“Anna?” Her soft voice with just one word pulls me back, insistent, demanding as the magnetic pull on a compass needle.
I meet her eyes.
“You know you can tell me anything.”
“Can I?”
Mom looks shocked. “Why would you ask that?” Her tone is hurt, reproachful.
I’m immediately swamped by guilt. I swallow hard, clench my hands in my lap. “Stupid thing to say. I’m sorry.”
She watches my hand wringing. Her expression morphs to alarm. “What is it, Anna? You’re scaring me.”
Great start. “I don’t mean to scare you. But I’m afraid I’m going to. It’s why this is so hard.”
“Go on.”
“I have a story to tell you. It’s not going to be easy for you to accept. All I ask is that you let me explain in my own way and wait until you’ve heard it all before you react.”
Mom’s eyes lock on mine, she nods. “Go on.”
The words pour out— The beginning. How I was attacked and raped. How my attacker turned out to be a vampire. How he turned me into one, too. What it means—to need human blood to survive. How I survive, where I go to feed, how the human hosts are protected and that it’s not painful for them. That I am the Chosen One, a leader who makes decisions that affect the entire vampire community—and as a result, the human community, too.
I edit as I go—some things I don’t want to share. I don’t tell her that their living in France was my doing, arranged for their protection. Or that Trish is not really my brother’s child. When Mom is gone, I want my father and Trish to find solace in each other. I tell her that Frey knows my true nature and accepts it. I don’t tell her that he and John-John are otherworldly, too. I speak quickly, afraid if I pause, I’ll stop altogether.
Then I explain what I can do for her. That I can make her whole again and immortal. That she can have many more years with Dad and Trish and that it will be tricky, but—I think of Chael’s offer—there are vampires in Europe who could show her how to feed safely. She wouldn’t be a monster. She would be like me.
When I run out of words, the silence is ponderous, pressing in on my heart until I want to cry out with the pain.
When at last my mother speaks, it is so quietly I have to bend near to catch the words.
“I don’t understand.” Her tone is stammering, uncertain. “A vampire? They’re not real. How can you imagine yourself such a creature?”
“I don’t imagine it, Mom. Think. When was the last time you saw me eat food? Touch my skin. It’s cold.” I look around, spy what I’m searching for on the dressing table. I hold the mirror up so she can see only her face is reflected there. “I cast no reflection. I don’t know why these things are, but it’s the way it is. For vampires.”