by Jade White
“No,” Kim answered, hiding the disappointment she felt. “It’s only been three days since I delivered, though...I sent him a text with the due date last month, after he asked about it, but nothing since then.”
Suzanna rested her hand on Kim’s shoulder. “He’ll call.”
Kim smiled sadly. “If he doesn’t, it’s no biggie. It’ll probably be easier without him, right?”
Suzanna shrugged; Kim could tell that her best friend didn’t buy her nonchalant act. “I guess it might be. But it’s always good for babies to know both parents, if possible. As long as one isn’t a creep.”
Evan slept peacefully until Daisy arrived. Her sister-in-law wasn’t the warmest person, but she loved children; she couldn’t have any of her own, and she compensated by running a daycare center across town. Kim told her that she was leaving with Suzanna for a while, and chose to ignore the disapproving look she gave her.
Daisy kept the grimace on her face as she said hello to Suzanna; predictably, her pinched, freckled face broke into a sunny smile as soon as Kim showed her to the baby’s room. It made her look like a totally different person.
“What a little beauty!” she crooned. “Thank goodness. You can hardly tell he’s half vampire!” She was beaming so hard that the gap between her teeth looked bigger than normal.
Suzanna shot Kim a puzzled look as they left. “Does Daisy have something against vampires?” She unlocked her car with a press of a button, opening Kim’s door for her.
Kim laughed. “Daisy has issues with anyone not fully human. And not perfect. And not exactly like her.”
Suzanna giggled as she started the car. “So she thinks she’s perfect?”
Kim rolled her eyes. “She thinks she’s Mother Teresa. I don’t know how my brother stands her.”
“Love is strange,” Suzanna said wisely. “And so is Mark. Hey, where are we going to get food?”
Kim thought for a second, mentally running through the list of food she hadn’t been able to eat while pregnant. “Actually, I think we should get something from the grocery store and cook! I was thinking pasta. We can have spaghetti and meatballs. Maybe feed Daisy after midnight and see if she turns into a monster.”
“Really?” Suzanna asked. “You were dead set on burgers an hour ago. Are you sure?”
“Yeah!” Kim chirped. “I’m really craving pasta right now. I’m not sure why. Let’s go to the market.” She felt as though she could eat a whole pot to herself. She also felt like she could run a mile. Is this some kind of post-pregnancy high?
She was so happy that there was a bounce in her step as she and Suzanna walked through the automated doors of the market. Kim started throwing vegetables into the cart, chatting with Suzanna about mundane things in between jokes about episiotomy stitches. She couldn’t even feel the dull ache that had held her body in its grip since giving birth; she didn’t know if it was the relief of having a healthy baby, excitement at the thought of starting her own little family, or both. Her best friend noticed, too.
“Someone’s chipper!” Suzanna quipped. “What’s got you so happy?”
Kim beamed at her. “I don’t know! Just happy, I guess.”
Suzanna chuckled. “I guess I’d be happy if I’d been carrying around a baby for three months and finally got to meet it.”
They finished shopping and strolled toward the cash registers. Kim stopped just before getting in line; something was tugging at the edge of attention, a nagging feeling that she needed something else. She frowned. I need to go back to the bread aisle, she thought. Then: But why?
“You okay, Kim?” Suzanna asked, concern clear in her voice. “Did you forget something?”
Kim hesitated, not sure how to communicate what she was feeling. “I’m okay,” she said, turning and looking at the bread aisle. “I’m thinking about going back...for another baguette.” She kept her eyes on the aisle but didn’t move toward it. She was uneasy about how strong the urge was – was it craving-driven? Was she still getting those ditzy moments her mother called ‘pregnancy brain?”
“I don’t know,” Suzanna was saying. “We have a lot of bread already. There's this--”
The rest of her words were drowned out, because a man had just come around the corner and walked out of the bread aisle, strolling toward the bakery while rifling through his hand basket absentmindedly. Kim gasped, feeling like someone had just thrown cold water on her face.
It was Luke. Worse, she had to use every ounce of self control he had to stop herself from going after him.
“Kim?” Suzanna was shaking her shoulder. “Kim! Are you okay? Why did you gasp? Are you in pain?”
Kim was still reeling. She shook her head, still gazing after Luke, eyes glued to his broad back. He finally walked around another corner and disappeared; Kim moved her eyes to Suzanna’s, feeling as though a spell had just lifted.
“I’m just more tired than I thought,” she lied. “Let’s check out and get out of here.”
Suzanna looked at her suspiciously as they paid and left. Kim was quiet in the car; she was sifting through the emotions that had surged over her in the wake of seeing Luke. Surprise was there, but also anger, because he hadn’t called; lust – because she remembered their night together so vividly; and, most of all, disappointment that he hadn’t turned and seen her. But would he have come over if he did? Did she really want him to contact her again? Did he plan on it?
He hasn’t called, and you have to be okay with it, Kim reminded herself. You told him you didn’t need him. And besides, it’s better this way. You won’t see him again, and everything will go back to normal – or whatever normal is when raising a baby on your own.
Suzanna was still looking at her closely as they lifted the bags and walked to the apartment. Kim noticed that the ache was back; it had crept slowly into her body as they’d driven home. She pushed the pain to the back of her mind as she walked the winding path to her front door, realizing she couldn’t keep Suzanna worried and in the dark any longer. Before Kim opened the door, she turned to her best friend and took a breath.
“I saw Luke,” she said hurriedly. “That’s why I freaked out. It just threw me, is all. But you don’t need to worry. I’m telling you this because as soon as we cross this threshold, Luke doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not seeing him again, because he clearly doesn’t want to see me.”
A stunned silence followed her words. She could tell this was the last thing Suzanna had expected. Kim waited nervously for Susanna to speak, but she seemed to still be scrambling for words. Finally, she smiled.
“Okay,” she said simply. “It’s your decision, and I’m going to support you no matter what. Let’s go make some pasta.”
Chapter 2
It was difficult for Kim to adjust to having a baby in the house – but not as difficult as it was to believe how well everyone was adjusting to the situation. Her entire inner circle had roughly two months to process her pregnancy and its surprising source; despite the expedited timeline, however, no one had showed her anything but love and enthusiastic support so far. She had an unshakeable suspicion that one or two of her friends were choosing to be involved just so they could hang out with a vampire baby, but their curiosity was quickly transitioning to real concern.
“Does he breastfeed?” her friend Shauna asked over frozen yogurt one day. “Like...with his fangs?” She was visibly upset by the idea.
Kim laughed, nearly spewing chopped peanuts over the outdoor table they’d claimed. “Yes, Shauna, he breastfeeds, but normally. He’s got human DNA, so he can process some foods just like us. I give him blood by bottle. Haven’t you seen any of the Discovery Channel specials?”
“No,” Shauna admitted bashfully. “I’m sorry, I bet you’re getting all kinds of stupid questions.”
“Mostly from me,” Suzanna quipped. “I’m surprised she hasn’t beaten me up by now.”
Shauna chuckled, and the tension faded. Kim shot Suzanna a grateful smile; her best friend had been acting
as a buffer whenever Kim hung out with anyone who hadn’t seen her baby yet. Suzanna winked and went back to eating her strawberry yogurt.
“So where is the little guy?” Shauna asked, leaning back in her chair.
“With my sister-in-law,” Kim said.
Shauna’s eyes opened wide. “Wait, the one who used to call you ‘loose’ when we were in college?”
“That’s the one,” Suzanna said bitterly. “She also told Kim’s mom that she was experimenting with drugs. And women.”
“All for my own good,” Kim said. “Yeah, she seemed very happy when I asked her to help out. I know her daycare has a few vampire children, so I initially just wanted some pointers...but she insisted on being hands on.” She wrinkled her nose. “I feel a little weird about it, but she has a pretty open schedule.”
“And she’s obsessed with kids,” Suzanna said. “Probably because she can’t have her own.”
Kim shrugged and started pushing her yogurt around with her spoon. She didn’t like thinking about Daisy; the truth was that her zeal for children was the main reason she’d asked to help out – Kim had completely forgotten about the vampires at her daycare center until Daisy herself brought it up. Her sister-in-law seemed to think she wanted to mend fences, but Kim wasn’t eager to go down that road again.
Suzanna suddenly looked at her watch. “Oh! I’d better go, Kim, I’m dropping Shauna off at work, then I need to pick up my brother.”
“Thanks for coming to hang out, guys,” Kim said as she stood to hug each of them. “I love Evan, but he’s not a big conversationalist.”
Kim didn’t have anything planned for the rest of the afternoon. Daisy was staying with Evan so that Kim could have some “grown up time”, as she put it, but Kim found herself wanting to drive back home to be with her son.
You need to get out of the house every once in awhile or you’ll go crazy, she reminded herself. When you’re home, you’re either thinking about Evan or thinking about--
She stopped her train of thought in its tracks with a tremendous amount of effort. Kim had been trying very hard not to think about Luke; whenever she did, she got sucked into vivid daydreams about sex or – somewhat alarmingly--actual romance, like candlelit dinners and couple’s massages. It bothered her that he hadn’t called yet, and it had been two weeks since they almost ran into each other at the grocery store. She couldn’t help but feel that her yearning had conjured him somehow. Kim knew it was silly, but she thought it was safer not to think about him at all.
Still, as she drove aimlessly down the streets of her city, her mind drifted back to him once again, stopping to fixate on the last time she’d seen him. The lights of the supermarket had struck his hair so that its true color showed. The night they met, Kim thought it was dark brown, but that day she realized it was actually a black so deep it looked almost blue. Luke was slightly taller than she’d remembered, or maybe it just seemed that way because she wasn’t wearing heels. Does he think about me? She wanted to believe he did, but his radio silence suggested otherwise.
Kim made a turn and pulled into a parking lot without any idea of where she was. Her car coasted up to a parking space in front a long gray building, home to four different businesses. There was a tasteful sign over the entrance to the nearest one, white cursive writing etched into its dark gray face: Mack’s Tailors – Since 1972.
She ran her fingers through her hair absentmindedly, gazing at the door from her seat in the car. How weird would it be if I went in there to window shop? she thought. I definitely don’t have anything to be altered. I don’t need any clothing made. I don’t know anyone who needs clothing altered, either.
Just go in, a little voice in the back of her head urged. Just go!
But why? Her hand was on the door’s handle by the time she thought to question her impulse. Why had she driven here? Why did she need to go in so badly? Kim looked at the store to the right of Mack’s, and then to the one on the left. She had no desire to enter either, but a tremor of excitement took hold of her when eyes fell on Mack’s again. What the hell. I might as well indulge myself. Maybe this is a variation of a pregnancy craving.
Just as she finally opened her car door, the door to the shop opened and a man walked out.
Luke.
Kim let out a sharp gasp – and realized too late that it was audible through her open door. Luke’s eyes found hers and widened in recognition; Kim saw that his gaze held a storm cloud of emotions, each one jockeying for a spot at the front. Her heart stopped, and she wondered if he would come over-- he looked, for a second, like he very much wanted to. She admitted to herself that she wanted him to come over, too. They stared at each other for what seemed like hours, the moment stretching long and wide between them like a treacherous desert.
She made a decision and then acted on it at the same time. Luke’s expression turned to one of deep confusion as Kim pulled her door shut, turned her car on, threw it into reverse, and peeled out of the parking lot. She forced herself to keep her eyes glued to the pavement, not wanting to catch even a glimpse of Luke’s face in her rear view mirror. Her palms were sweaty against the steering wheel, and she turned her knuckles white trying to keep a steady grip on it. Don’t look back. Don’t look back. Don’t look back.
She didn’t know what would be worse: seeing him angry, or finding that he was relieved as she pulled away.
***
Kim willed herself to forget about the incident, attempting to bury all thoughts of Luke under a mountain of work and errands for Evan. She spent a day learning to knit, and by the end of the day she had a set of socks for him. She played chess with Suzanna, borrowed recipe books from her mother, and even watched documentaries with Daisy. Shauna invited her to Bible study one day, and the only reason she didn’t go was because Evan had learned to sit up on his own. His accelerated growth was enough reason to watch him closely – Kim was terrified of him trying to leave his crib on his own and injuring himself--but the fact that he consumed all of her attention was the main reason she chose not to leave the house for a full week.
Early into the second week, she got stir crazy. Kim called first Shauna, then Suzanna, and finally her old roommate Olive to see if any of them were free.
“Sorry, I’ve got a conference call!”
“I’m recovering from shoulder surgery.”
“I have to meet with the caterers for my wedding!”
An hour after making the calls, she found herself driving aimlessly in her little green Fiat again. She’d accepted the fact that she couldn’t stop her mind from drifting to Luke, but she could at least get out of the city and go somewhere that was more likely to hold her attention.
Since she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d been uncomfortably sedentary; Kim was used to kickboxing at the gym three times a week at a minimum, sometimes up to five or six. Now she just wanted to do some sort of physical activity, and a low-impact jog was the best way to ease back into things, she decided.
The city was surrounded by desert – right outside its limits there were a few Spanish-style homes peppered here and there among the stretches of khaki-colored landscape; but after twenty minutes of driving, the only thing to break up the monotony of the scenery were tall, skeletal trees and short, dense bushes with green and gray leaves. There was a park about ten minutes further down the road, right before the next city.
Daisy and her brother Mark had a large vacation house not far from there, and she sometimes stayed overnight. Kim liked the park for its creative design; it didn’t try to be a stunningly green oasis that would fit better in the suburbs. Instead, it was like a miniature version of a place like Death Valley national park: groups of stark trees around flat rock surfaces, tiny streams leading to a large pond, and a little rock canyon that was about one mile end-to-end. There was a stretch of grass at its beginning, where families would take picnics before exploring, but Kim never stayed there for more than a minute.
Before she got to the park, however, a column
of black smoke caught her eye. Kim frowned, trying to figure out if there was a house or mobile home around that could be the source, but a spate of leafless trees was blocking her view. Kim slowed as her car approached a path, its mouth meeting the edge of the road, wide enough for her to drive on. It looked like it would take her straight to the source of the smoke; she couldn’t say why, but she needed to follow the path. With no second thought, Kim turned her wheel sharply to the right and crept up the path, eyes darting from side to side to check for any animals scurrying past. The wind was blowing enough to shake some of the trees, but not enough to stir the sand.
It didn’t take long for a group of people to come into view. A fire was burning beyond them, though nothing was being done with it. The group of people were beyond the trees – mostly standing around, it looked like, though some seemed to be hurrying back and forth among themselves. Kim knotted her brows together as the shapes grew sharper and she saw that there were no cars near them--nor had she passed any cars sitting on the side of the road. It should have given her pause, but Kim plowed ahead, only vaguely aware that she could be stumbling upon something dangerous or illegal. Or, quite possibly, both.
The feeling of unease grew much heavier as her car got within fifty yards of the group and she finally saw what was going on.
A group of adults – about fifteen of them--were standing in a wide circle in the sand, cheering and clapping their hands as two shirtless men in the center grappled with each other. They looked dirty and sweaty, but neither looked badly hurt, and no one was making a move to stop them. Kim halted her Fiat, mouth agape, as a wiry red-haired man struggled to escape the choke hold a burly blonde man had on him. The blonde’s arms were easily as big as the red-haired man's head, but he still seemed to be having trouble holding him.
The redhead finally slipped out of the blonde’s grasp and darted to the edge of the circle so quickly that Kim almost lost track of his motion; the blonde man followed immediately, his arms outstretched – nearly as fast, she noticed, but not fast enough. The crowd screamed. The red-haired man was on the other side of the circle by the time the blonde man realized he’d missed him.