“I don’t believe it,” Karl said.
“Neither do I.”
“Tell us, Carol,” Chloe said.
“Julien did give it to me.”
“How did you find Julien?”
She had no intention of betraying Inspector LePage. “I remembered their last name is de Villiers and then I remembered that Jeanette once said Julien was back in Austria with their children so I went there and found them listed in a residents’ directory.”
“And why did Julien give you the address?”
“I don’t know.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Karl said.
“That he just couldn’t stand in the way of destiny.”
“I’ll call Vienna. Make certain everything is all right,” Karl said.
“How did you remember?” Chloe asked.
“Therapy. Years of it. Hypnosis, mostly. I had someone who believed in me.”
“Someone knows about us!” Chloe said, looking at André.
“She won’t interfere.”
“Does this therapist know our address?”
Carol hesitated. She didn’t want Rene dragged into this. “She only helped me get back my lost memories. She knows I’m in Montréal, that’s all; you’re not in danger.”
Michael was still staring at her and she looked at him. He’s healthy, she thought. Intelligent, that’s obvious, sweet too. He’s inherited the best of both of us.
“Why did you come back?” Chloe asked.
Gerlinde came in just then with a tray of large goblets. She offered one each to everybody, Michael included. “RH Positive,” she said. For Carol she had a small glass of red wine. “Better drink this, kiddo. It’s gonna be a long night.”
Carol watched her son down the contents of his glass as if it were milk. The red stained his mouth and created a moustache effect on his upper lip. He licked it off then wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve. She didn’t find it repulsive. He’s just a child, she thought. My child.
“Why?” Chloe asked again, bringing her back to the present.
“I came back for Michael,” she said, then decided to tell them everything. It didn’t really matter now.
“I’ve been struggling for years, trying to reclaim the memories. The hypnosis undid what you did,” she told André. His face was a pallid mask she could not read.
One by one they sat down around her, listening to her story. She told them about the therapy. About Rob’s death, her mother’s death, about her loneliness, and how hard it all had been. She looked at Michael. “I spent the last two years searching for you. I always believed I’d find you some day,” she told the boy. “I looked everywhere: France, Spain, Germany, most of Europe.”
“We were in Germany,” Gerlinde said. “Bonn—for five years—before moving here.”
“I was in Bonn,” Carol said. “Eventually I remembered about Austria. When Julien gave me your address I came right here. I did all this to find you, Michael,” she told him.
“He’s at an age when he needs to make decisions which will affect him in a permanent way.”
“I gotta decide on my birthday if I wanna be mortal or immortal,” the boy confided, seeming not too weighed down by the decision.
His eyes are so like mine, she thought. He’s so gentle but so solid. I love him.
“I don’t want to interfere,” Carol told him. She looked at the others. “Really. I just want to be with him.”
“Being with him is interfering,” Karl said as he came back into the room. “It’s not a good time for your influence.”
“There’s never been a good time for my influence!” Carol snapped. “But I’m his mother. I have a right to be with my son.”
“The only rights you have are the ones we allow you, and at the moment you have none!” André stood.
“I want her to stay.” It was Michael who said it. Everyone looked stunned.
After minutes of pregnant silence, Gerlinde said, “Hey, maybe it’s not such a bad idea.”
“Are you crazy?” André turned on her.
“I think it’s the worst thing that can happen,” Karl said.
Chloe was silent.
“Michel should get to know his mom. And it’s not going to affect his decision one way or the other.”
“I want her to stay,” Michael said again.
“I’m against it,” Karl said.
“It can’t hurt,” Gerlinde smiled.
Michel’s father. If you agree that she stays, Carol will have to be your responsibility. And if not, it’s up to you to decide what to do with her.”
“Please let my mother stay!”
André looked down at the boy. Carol saw that the two of them not only had a special relationship but that Michael could melt André’s heart with just a glance, just as she could already feel her son was able to melt her own heart.
André ruffled Michael’s hair and the boy clung to his arm.
Finally he said to his son, “We’ll take a walk and talk about it.”
After they had gone, Chloe left the room saying she was going to phone Julien again and that she would order Chinese food for Carol.
“You’ve had a hard time, kiddo,” Gerlinde said.
“Yes, I have,” Carol admitted. “But I had to see him. He’s so beautiful. You’ve raised him really well and I’m grateful.”
“We all raised him, but thanks. You know, you’re not looking so good. Of course, you’re older. It always wigs me out to see mortals age.”
“I’m only thirty four,” Carol laughed. “But it’s been painful, the last years. I’ve had to work hard to keep myself in as good shape as I’m in.”
“What about the virus?” Karl asked.
“Three years ago I tested positive. I don’t know if that’s changed. I’ve been sick a lot, colds, flu, that kind of thing. I haven’t been to a doctor since that test. I guess I didn’t want to find out anything worse.”
When André and Michael returned, Chloe joined them in the living room for the verdict.
Everyone sat but André. “Michel’s convinced me he does need to get to know Carol. We’ll try it for five nights, then I’ll decide where to go from there.”
Carol and Gerlinde hugged each other.
Carol. “I’ll be responsible for you most of the time; during the day you stay with me. I’ll return the car. Where are your clothes?”
“Mostly just what I have on. I checked out of the hotel.”
Michael came over to Carol. This time she didn’t restrain herself. She reached out and hugged him. He felt warm and soft as she pulled him to her heart. He hugged her back, wrapping his arms around her neck. She touched his hair, it was silky, childlike. She smelled him, remembering the scent. He’s sturdy and fragile at the same time, she thought. Suddenly she realized that all her struggle had led to this moment and she broke down.
“Why are you crying?” Michael asked her, stroking her hair the way a child comforts an adult.
“Because I love you so very much it hurts.”
Later that first night he dragged out his pet iguana and his hamsters and showed them to her. He told her Chloe took him for walks in the woods and up through the mountain and they picked plants and he was memorizing the names of all the trees. He told her he liked to read adventure stories and play computer games and go to the movies with Gerlinde. About the baseball games André took him to and how they went swimming a couple of nights a week and worked out on the weight machines. He told her he had been skiing last winter for the first time and he wanted to learn to play hockey and that he was building, with Karl’s help, a laboratory where he would be able to do chemical experiments. He said he liked rap and hip hop and Lady GaGa and that when he got older he was going to dye his hair orange and get a mohawk. Carol laughed with delight. Everything about him charmed her. She asked him questions about his likes and dislikes and all his interests. They played a game with Gerlinde on the Xbox. Michael was excited as they played and Carol had to
keep herself from hugging him every five minutes. And when the night ended she couldn’t believe how the hours had flown.
“Let’s go,” André said to her. The others went upstairs but she went below ground with him.
“Why do you sleep down here?” Carol asked.
“It reminds me of a mausoleum,” he said sarcastically. He closed the door and snapped a newly-installed deadbolt into place. They were in darkness for a moment before he turned on a soft light above the bed.
While he took his shirt off he said, “You can sleep here with me.”
Carol eased out of her shoes and lay down.
“You don’t have to sleep in your clothes. I’m not going to fuck you,” André said. When he finished undressing, she saw him open the top drawer of the smaller of two dressers and remove something.
“It’s cool here,” she said, feeling nervous about being alone with him. “I don’t want to catch a cold. I get them easily.”
He pulled a blanket out of the closet and tossed it at her.
While she spread it over her body, he got in beside her.
Suddenly André leaned over and she tensed. He snapped one half of a metal handcuff around her left wrist and the other half to a bar of the headboard.
She was shocked. “You don’t have to lock me to the bed. I’m not going to try to hurt you. And I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to be with Michael; I won’t run away.”
He sneered. “Carol I trust you about a tenth as much as you trust me.” He switched out the light.
They lay in silence. Carol had so much to think about, Michael being her dominant thought. But she also had worries, one of which was her former therapist. She hoped Rene wouldn’t try to intervene, at least until a week had elapsed. If she phoned the police, by morning this entire house of creatures would be exposed for what they were. That would be a disaster. They would be dragged out into sunlight—all of them—Michael might be injured by sunlight. At the very least he would be taken away until a court case could determine that she was his mother. And he would hate her for breaking up his home, for betraying them. Carol wished she could call Rene and tell her that things had worked out, at least temporarily. But she couldn’t call Rene without confessing that someone else did have their address. And that would not be wise—at least tonight.
“André, I appreciate you letting me stay.”
“I did it for Michel, not for you.”
“I know. And I can see you love him very much, as much as I do. I’m glad.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
No police showed up at the door the following night, nor the one after that. Carol felt relieved that Rene had respected her wishes, at least for now. But she’d have to find a way to contact her former therapist soon. She was never by herself so that ruled out using the phone, unless she told them, and she wasn’t comfortable with that idea. She just crossed her fingers that Rene would do nothing and kept her eyes and ears peeled for an opportunity to contact her.
The next four days Carol was in heaven. She spent hours each night with her son. Early in the evening, while she ate, someone took Michael out—that was the routine. She figured it was for blood but never felt brave enough to ask how he got it. When he returned, they talked in the living room or watched TV together, played games, built things, all under the watchful eyes of one of the vampires.
He was a creative child, full of imagination, never boring or repetitive. He asked a million questions about everything, from Kanye West’s hair style to how Japanese Samurai warriors could sit down with such big swords to the chemical components of various household cleaning agents. They painted pictures together and worked with clay. He had a guitar and played her songs he’d made up and did a very good imitation of Michael Jackson moon-walking. He’s a genius, she thought. My child is a complete genius. And yet he’s the most normal boy in the world.
On the fifth night, while Carol waited for André to bring Michael home, she said, “Gerlinde, what exactly does it mean, Michael choosing to be mortal or immortal?”
“Well, around puberty—I don’t know why, but this seems to be some crucial time—he has to make a decision. He’ll be nine on New Year’s Eve.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Ah, right. You were there. I forgot. Anyway, depending on what he decides—and it has to be his decision—that effects what he does from then on. Like food. If he wants to be mortal, he can never drink blood again, I mean as an entire meal.” Gerlinde was obviously uncomfortable talking about this. “Hey, kiddo. Wanna see my paintings?”
“Love to.”
They went up to a white-walled studio on the third floor crammed with canvases.
“This is terrific,” Carol said, admiring a half finished portrait of Michael still on the easel.
“Yeah, that one’s pretty good. There’s some others over here.”
Gerlinde had painted Michael alone and with André. There were also paintings of Chloe and Karl, Julien, Jeanette and their children and others who may have been vampires. One woman looked a little bit like Inspector LePage, but Carol didn’t ask about her. Each oil was very realistic. Gerlinde’s style favored bright colors, definite lines and sharp contrasts, but there were also abstracts and a few paintings done in a photo-realism style. You could be a world-class painter.”
“Thanks,” Gerlinde said shyly. “But that’s one thing about being supernatural; you gotta keep a low profile.”
“Hey! You painted me!” Carol said, surprised. Three canvases resting against a wall showed a younger Carol. In one she sat by the living room fireplace at the château in Bordeaux, a melancholy look on her face. In another her head rested against the back of the seat on the passenger side of the green sports car. She looked relaxed, laughing, her hair flying in the wind. In the last Carol and André stood face to face. Both had their hands on their hips and were glaring into each other’s eyes.
“These are from memory, huh?”
Gerlinde laughed. “I didn’t get around to having you pose.”
“Has Michael seen these?”
“Uh huh.”
“So that’s how he knew I was his mother.” Carol moved the canvases back against the wall. “Did you ever talk about me?”
“All the time, kiddo. I told him you were a spectacular mom and a truly great person.”
“Thanks, Gerlinde. It’s too bad the way things worked out.”
“Yeah. Maybe this time there’ll be a happy ending.”
“Maybe,” Carol said, but she didn’t feel convinced of that. Still, she didn’t feel entirely hopeless either. As long as she could be with Michael, she didn’t really care about all the rest of it.
“Gerlinde, I have a request and I really need you to keep a confidence here.”
Gerlinde shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m only asking you because you’re my friend and I don’t want to betray you the way I did the last time. I’ve got to make a phone call.”
“Somebody knows you’re here!”
Carol sucked in her lips and nodded. “My therapist. I just want to call and tell her I’m alright so she won’t worry or do anything. If she hears from me it will be okay.”
“Oh man!” Gerlinde said, holding her head. “I mean, how can I let you use the phone without telling the others?”
“Gerlinde, you’ll be standing right next to me, you’ll hear everything I say. With your hearing, probably everything she says. Please. I don’t want to put any of you in danger and if André finds out... You know how he is.”
Gerlinde shook her head but then said, “Okay, but make it quick. I’ll get my cell phone. I must be cracked!”
Carol punched in Rene’s home number, which she knew by heart. Rene used a machine rather than a service at home. Fortunately, she wasn’t in—Carol was afraid of what Gerlinde might hear Rene say. She left a message.
“Rene, its Carol. I’m just phoning to let you know everything’s alright. Great, really. It’s not like before. I’m staying here, getting
to know Michael. Everyone’s treating me really well. I just wanted to let you know so you don’t worry. There’s no need to do anything. I’ll be in touch in a while. Take care and, Rene, thanks for all your help.”
When she handed back the cell phone, Gerlinde face was creased with anxiety. “It’s okay,” Carol said. “You guys are safe. I’ve fixed it.”
“I hope so, kiddo, I really hope so.”
Late that night, Carol and Michael were in the living room with Gerlinde watching The Wild Ones. Suddenly Michael asked Carol, “How’d you meet my dad?”
Gerlinde lowered the volume on the TV.
“It’s a long story,” Carol said. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Yeah.” He squirmed back from the edge of the couch and shifted a little, closer to her.
Carol wondered where to begin and how to tell him. “Well, it was in France, about nine years ago. I was in a café and André wanted to share my table.”
“You’re kidding?” Gerlinde shrieked. “What a line! The guy’s a hundred years old and he’s so original.”
Michael laughed.
“Don’t laugh,” she told the boy. “I’m putting your papa down.”
“How come?”
“Because that’s the oldest come-on in the book. Anyway, go on, Carol.” Gerlinde turned both the television and the DVD player off.
Carol felt uncomfortable talking about it. She didn’t know how to present what had happened in a way that Michael could understand. And she didn’t want to hurt him or his relationship with André.
“Well, I wanted to be alone so I said no at first, and then yes, when he pointed out there weren’t any other seats.”
“Did you like him?” Michael asked, grinning from ear to ear, seeming to enjoy the story already.
Carol crossed her arms over her chest. “Not exactly.”
“But you did later, huh?”
Gerlinde glanced at the door.
“Well, there were times later when I liked André.”
Michael looked a little bewildered. “But he liked you?”
“I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask him.”
This obviously wasn’t what the boy wanted to hear. He looked down at his fingers and began popping the joints.
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