“Well, your dad, he fed on a lot of people, you know, over the, uh, years.”
He nods and forks in more spaghetti, as if I’m telling him the most interesting part of my day.
“Historically. Meaning, like, in the past ….”
“I know what historically means, Mom.”
He smirks and I bite back a rebuke, annoyed that my anxiety isn’t transferring over to him. That I’m failing at making him worried or scared. Cautious.
“Anyway, a lot of people like your father were killed by people seeking revenge, or who were just generally afraid of, well ….”
“Vampires.”
I study him a moment, and for the first time since I began my little speech, he meets my eye. I’m grateful, because I now see signs of concern there, a lightly buried fear.
“Correct. Now, you and I, we’re not vampires, at least not in the textbook definition or whatever. But you have your father’s blood in your veins, and ….”
I feel the heat in my face and know I’m blushing, then grow furious with myself, which I’m sure just makes it more obvious. I can be so stupid sometimes, I swear to God. Of course, it doesn’t help that I can imagine Nick observing this entire, awkward conversation, smirking, arms folded, watching me struggle through it. I take a deep breath, let it out. I light another cigarette.
“Eat your greens,” I say, buying time.
Jake forks a brussels sprout, waiting.
“Let’s just say some of your father’s blood is in me, as well. I mean, in a different way.”
“He bit you?” Jake asks, chewing the sprout, eyes a mixture of confusion and concern.
“Yeah, but I didn’t turn. I never, you know, died.” I put this last word in air quotes and have no idea why. “But it’s more than the bite. We also … oh Lord, why is this so awkward? We also had sex, of course.” I chuckle, trying to hide my anxiety. “I mean, you’re here, right?”
Now it’s Jake’s turn to blush. What a pair we make.
“Without getting too … technical,” I say, pushing through, “let’s just say there’s a little bit of your DNA leftover from when I was pregnant with you. Get it? And, by default, your father’s DNA is also in my blood. Point being, Jake, is that some folks might see you and I as being … different. Even though we’re not. It’s sort of guilt by association, I suppose.”
I shrug, tap out the ash of my cigarette into an empty juice glass, my pasta untouched.
“We just need to be careful, is what I’m saying. We need to be, what’s the word? Watchful.”
Jake nods, thoughtful. He looks like his father when he gets like that, and it makes me wonder how much he’ll look like Nick when he’s older.
“And now the note,” Jake says finally.
I nod. “And now the note.”
ON THE DAY MY MOTHER dies, I get into my first fight.
But it wasn’t my fault. Honest.
During gym class we each have to climb a rope that’s fastened to a hook from the ceiling, the top easily more than twenty feet from the taped-over tip dangling at knee-height.
We all stand in a group, going alphabetically, each of us watching the others grunt their way up the dump rope. When my turn comes up, I find it easy to wiggle up and up, proud of myself at the ease with which I’m pulling my body weight. I’m approaching the top when Mr. Schumann gets a phone call and goes into his office.
Given the opening, Randy Butler decides to be an asshole.
A basketball had been left rolling around from some random practice earlier that morning, and Randy thinks it’ll be hilarious to chuck it at me while I’m gripping a coarse rope twenty feet in the air, nothing but a two-inch mat between me and the hardwood floor of the gymnasium.
The ball hits me in the back.
It doesn’t hurt, not really, but it surprises the hell out of me. Enough that my hands let go and I fall backward, watching the wire-meshed ceiling lights rise further and further away.
A girl screams. I hear random shouts of panic and concern.
I’m not a hundred percent sure what happens exactly, all I know is that at some point I feel the ground coming, can almost see it closing in on me—faster, faster. I guess instincts take over because at the last moment, easy as pie, I flip my body, throw out my arms, and land effortlessly, perfectly, on my feet, knees bent, eyes dead ahead.
The room goes quiet. I mean … quiet.
I look to my left and see Mr. Schumann standing at the open door to his office, jaw hanging open. I look ahead and see Randy Butler staring at me with something like terror in his eyes.
“You throw that?” I ask.
He nods and swallows. His best friend, Craig Johnson, takes a half-step away.
Me? I take three quick steps and swing a tight fist into Randy’s stomach. He blows out a gust of breath then drops like a sack of wet cement, clutching his gut as if I’d sliced him open.
Honestly worried (I mean, I hit him really hard) I begin to see if he’s okay, but then my vision is filled by the bulging belly of Mr. Schumann’s royal blue Sabbath High sweatshirt. “You! Go sit in my office and stay there until I come for you.”
I look up at the teacher’s red, lumpy, unshaven face. “He started it,” I mumble, already knowing the argument is both infantile and futile, especially given Randy doesn’t appear to be breathing so good.
