John-John calls from next door. The neighbors have invited him to stay on and help groom the horses after Trish leaves for school. Noting the excitement in his voice, we happily grant him permission.
Next, we contact the wedding people. They assure us that a wedding three days from now is tricky but certainly not impossible. They will email us a questionnaire about what kind of ceremony we envision. Once we’ve filled it out and mailed it back, we only need to meet with them for a short time before the ceremony to decide on vows.
We call David and Tracey and tell them we’ve set the date. No shocked protestations about the short notice. They are as excited as we are. We go on speakerphone mode and Mom invites them to come out a day ahead and stay as long as they’d like after. There are certainly enough bedrooms in the villa. They happily accept. I let them know I’ll telephone my pilot next and arrange for them to be picked up in San Diego. I’ll have the pilot contact them with the details.
Which I do.
By this time, Catherine is in the doorway announcing lunch. I’m seated right beside Mom on the couch in the living room. I rise and turn to offer my mother my hand when she suddenly pales and sinks back onto the couch. Her pad and pen fall to the floor. My heart stutters in my chest.
“Mom?” I lean over and feel her forehead. Stupid. My hands are so cold, any human flesh feels feverish. I look up at Frey and he takes my place beside her.
“Anita?” His voice is soft. He takes one of her hands in both of his own.
In the next instant, Dad is standing over us, too.
Even Catherine has crossed the room to cluck at us, wringing a towel in her hands. “It’s too much,” she scolds. “She shouldn’t be out of bed. She should rest. Conserve her strength.”
I look up at Catherine, at the concern on her face. It takes the housekeeper to make me recognize with a rush of anger that I never asked to speak with Mom’s doctor. I’d assumed she’d let us know if she wasn’t strong enough to deal with the task she’d taken on. I should have remembered how stubborn she can be . . . how unlikely to admit she might be tired or in pain.
“Let’s take her upstairs,” Dad says.
Frey sweeps Mom into his arms. She starts to protest that she can walk, but he doesn’t falter.
She looks like a doll, small and fragile, huddled against his chest. I become conscious again of how much weight she’s lost. I follow them upstairs, listening as Dad stays behind to ask Catherine to prepare a lunch tray. I turn the bedclothes back and Frey lays Mom down. She settles back against the pillows while I slip her shoes off and pull a blanket up around her waist.
She reaches out a hand and brushes a fingertip across my cheek. It surprises me to see that her finger comes away wet.
I didn’t realize I’d been crying.
“Oh, Anna,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
Her words cut into my heart. Why should she be sorry? Bitterness stiffens my shoulders. I’m ready to lash out that I’m the sorry one, that I’ve manipulated her life in ways in which she’s not even aware, that I’ve been lying to her about what I am, about who Trish is, about every fucking thing that matters. I suck in a ragged breath.
Frey’s soft hand on my shoulder stays my tongue. Once again, he
I sit beside my mother on the bed, wiping away the tears with the back of my hand. “You have nothing to be sorry for, silly. Look at the wedding you’ve made for Frey and me. Everything is perfect. Trish and I will go into town this afternoon and finish the shopping. Frey and John-John have final fittings tomorrow morning.” I tick off more items on my fingers. “We’ve chosen the menu and the cake, the party planners and florist will be here to decorate the morning of the wedding, our guests have been invited. It’s done. No wonder you’re exhausted!”
Mom smiles. “I think we are done, aren’t we?”
Catherine appears with a lunch tray. “Do you want me to stay with you?” I ask Mom.
She waves me off. “No. You and Daniel go have lunch with your father. I’ll have lunch up here and take a nap. You wait, by dinnertime I’ll be right as rain.”
I lean over and kiss her cheek. “Then we’ll see you at dinnertime.”
Frey follows me out of the bedroom and I close the door softly behind us, beckoning him past the stairway and into our own room. Behind the closed door, I collapse against him.
He holds me against his chest, stroking my hair.
It’s a long moment before I can speak. “Thank you.”
He doesn’t ask for what or mumble some meaningless conciliatory remark. He just holds me.
It’s absolutely the right thing to do. He gives me strength but, once again, I find myself wondering if there isn’t something more for my mother that I can do.
CHAPTER 16
THE NEIGHBORS BRING JOHN-JOHN BACK IN TIME TO join us for lunch. His presence brightens the mood at the table considerably. He’s full of lively talk about the neighbors (real nice) and their horses (a breed called Arabian) and the ride he and Trish took out into the countryside (through fields of lavender.)
He provides the perfect distraction, drawing Dad and Frey in with his enthusiastic chatter and leaving me alone with my thoughts . . . and my concern for Mom.
After lunch, Dad takes John-John out to show him the winepress. Frey and I take glasses of wine to sit at the big table under the shade of a huge oak.
“You were quiet at lunch,” Frey says, kneading the back of my neck with the palm of his hand.
I sigh and relax against him. “I wasn’t prepared for how hard this would be.”
“No one ever is.”
I sip my wine, looking out over the vineyards, unsure how to broach the subject. After a while, I say, “I keep thinking about Max.”
Frey looks surprised. “Are you thinking of him because he died recently?”
“No.” I draw in a breath. “Because I could have saved him.”
The glass in Frey’s hand stops midway to his lips. “Saved him? You mean ‘turned him,’ don’t you?”
“You don’t see it as the same thing?”
The corners of his mouth turn down in a sharp frown. “You do?” His eyes narrow. “What are you thinking, Anna?”
He doesn’t wait for me to respond. “You can’t think your mother would want—”
“Want what?” I interject hotly, angry words rising like lava. “To be like me? A monster? A freak?”
He puts his glass down on the table with a sharp crack and gathers me into his arms. “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
Irrationally I’m angry, so angry I struggle violently to break free. Frey tightens his grip until I can scarcely move. When I stop fighting, he still doesn’t loosen his grip. He bends his face close and whispers in my ear, “When you got back from Mexico, you told me that you didn’t turn Max because you couldn’t be sure that it was what he wanted. That you wouldn’t do to someone else what had been done to you. Is that what you’re thinking now? That you’ll ask your mother if she wants to be turned? Do you realize what that means? Her life—your Dad’s life, Trish’s life—nothing will ever be the same.”
He pushes back now, tilts my chin up so that I’m looking into his eyes. “Think about it, Anna. You have so little time left to spend with her. Once you tell her that you’re vampire, regardless of her decision, your relationship with your mother will be changed.”
A wave of fatigue overtakes me. Everything Frey says is true. But another truth interjects itself as well. I don’t want my mother to die. Trish needs her. My dad needs her. I need her.
I close my eyes and lean my head wearily against Frey’s chest. Maybe I’m being selfish, but if I didn’t at least offer her the alternative to what she’s facing, I will never forgive myself.
Frey glances at his watch. “Listen, Trish won’t be home for another hour. Why don’t you go upstairs and
