“I can stay, give him a bath and help put my baby down to sleep,” Marge offered, still eyeing Jane.
“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “I need to get used to doing things on my own again.”
My mother-in-law edged toward the truck, wearing her suspicious face, but for once in our relationship, she chose discretion over interrogation. Vampirism might have some benefits I hadn’t even considered yet.
“You know, it’s at times like these that I’m grateful my in-laws died a century before I met their son,” Jane said, waving cheerfully as the truck backed out of my driveway. “Next time, marry an orphan, sweetie.”
“No one likes a gloater, Jane.”
3
Vampirism adds an additional layer of challenge to parenting, an already challenging prospect. As your child develops from a baby to a toddler to the child who makes you cringe when he gets near a microphone in public places, so you must develop, too.
—My Mommy Has Fangs: A Guide to Post-Vampiric Parenting
It’s going to sound super-creepy, but I spent my first night with Danny watching him curled up on his bed in his Spider-Man pajamas. I sat on the floor with my hand on his chest, watching it rise and fall. It was as if I’d never seen my son before, and I couldn’t stop looking at him.
Jane was just down the hall, going over some inventory reports for her shop, keeping one ear open for any suspicious “bite-y” sounds. But really, sitting there in the dark, quiet home, listening to my son breathe, it felt like any night before I died. It felt strange to me that my life had changed in such a major way, but Danny hadn’t noticed a difference. I wondered if it was the blessing of being so young or if I had managed to cling to the most stubborn parts of my humanity. I hoped that was it.
What if no one else saw the change in me, either? Part of me wanted that, like somehow I could pretend nothing had happened and keep people from finding out that I was a vampire now. That was reasonable, right?
OK, no, no, it wasn’t. I knew that I was going to have to tell them eventually. But I wanted to get Danny settled into our new routine, get him in school, and demonstrate that I could take care of him even with my new “condition.” So when my maternal fitness inevitably came into question, I would have some parental street cred built up. My son was never going to have a normal life. First he was poor Danny whose father had died. And now he was poor Danny whose mother was a monster. I contemplated starting a savings account for his therapy as soon as there was some extra money in the budget.
Besides, I knew how Half-Moon Hollow residents talked about their neighbors who’d been turned. Like it was something the new vampires brought on themselves. Like it was something that could never happen to them. Frankly, it was the same way my classmates whispered about girls who got pregnant in high school. I didn’t want the whispers to affect Danny. I didn’t want people to stop talking when I walked into the same Walmart aisle.
I supposed there was some advantage to gaining a reputation as a creature of the night. There wasn’t much about my appearance that was intimidating to vampires or humans. My wardrobe consisted mostly of jeans, weather-appropriate cardigans, and Keds. Would it damage my position if the other vampires saw me dressing that way? Would they not take me seriously? I mean, Jane wore pretty dresses, but she was still somehow quite intimidating. And Dick dressed in jeans and smartass T-shirts, but there was still this edge of menace, as if no matter the time of night, he would know exactly how and where to hide your body.
Should I go out and buy leather pants and boots? I didn’t want to be picked off because other vampires perceived me as weak.
No. Moms should not wear leather pants, even when they had a good reason.
I watched my son’s chest rise and fall. Our usual babysitter, Kaylee Dickson, would come over early in the morning as planned to keep Danny all day. I’d left her a note stating that I’d had a particularly bad reaction to a treatment and would probably sleep most of the day. That was the story I planned to stick with for most of the first week. There was no reason to freak her out.
Kaylee was a sweet girl, sixteen and possessed of all the scatterbrained, optimistic charm that involved her not asking a lot of detailed questions about why I only needed her during the day. But she was also fiercely protective of Danny, was an excellent storyteller, and had gone on a vegan health-food kick after reading The Jungle for her advanced English class, so Danny couldn’t con so much as a Fruit Roll-Up out of her. He’d survived the whole summer on Tofurky and carob cookies.
I’d timed my turning carefully, just as summer was ending but before Danny started school, so I would have some time to adjust before his classes began. Kaylee was already coming over in the mornings to help him with breakfast and getting dressed. She’d agreed to keep doing that after school started and then drive Danny to the elementary school.