“Thank you,” I mumbled, feeling humbled. It actually hadn’t occurred to me that there would be a limit on vampire membership, but it was incredibly flattering knowing that I was even being considered.
“But there is a very heavy price with that,” Ezra continued gravely.
“Everything around you will die. You will see everyone you love whither up and die. Jack is already on his second dog, but I’m sure he’ll eventually tire of burying them and stop getting pets all together. Even this town, it will change, and things you loved and held dear will be destroyed. You will outlast everything. There is more of a burden in that than you can possibly imagine.”
“Does that mean that I can’t see my brother? Or just that it will be painful watching him grow old?”
Ezra shared a look with Mae, who nodded, and then she stood up, saying, “I have to show you something.”
“You’re gonna take her?” Jack groaned and got up. “She doesn’t need to see it.”
“You’re just saying that because you think she’ll change her mind,” Mae said to Jack.
“Uh, yeah!” Jack exclaimed.
“If it would change her mind, then it should!” Mae snapped. “If she doesn’t have all the facts because you kept them from her and she makes a decision that she later regrets, then she’ll spend the rest of eternity resenting you. Is that really what you want?”
“No,” Jack mumbled and rubbed the back of his neck.
“What’s going on?” I asked nervously, standing up.
“I’m going to take you to see something,” Mae forced a smile at me. Then she turned back to Ezra and kissed him. “We won’t be gone too long.”
“Okay. Be safe.” Ezra looked sad to so her go, but he smiled reassuringly at me. “It’ll be alright.”
“What’s going on?” I asked Jack, feeling strangely frightened as I followed Mae out of the living room.
“I guess you gotta go see,” Jack sighed and sat back down in the chair.
“I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Where are we going?” I was right behind Mae, but I could see the drawn look on her face, and I was afraid of what we were going to see that would cause her to look so pained.
“I’ll explain in the car.”
By the time I got into her Jetta, I was filled with nervous anticipation.
Whatever she was going to show me would apparently scare me off of becoming a vampire. I half-expected some horrifying monster or a stash of human corpses or something equally disturbing. What else could there be that would completely change mind about turning? The soft music of Nina Simone playing out of the car stereo did little to make me feel good, and I just stared apprehensively at Mae, who in turn, just stared straight ahead, looking rather tragic.
“I was born in Reading, England in 1928,” Mae explained in a voice so sad, it barely sounded like her own. “When I was very young, the second World War broke out. Towards the end of the war, American soldiers were stationed all over England. Philip was the most dashing young man I had ever met, but at the time, I’d never met Ezra.” She smiled lightly at that, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Despite my best attempts at being virtuous, I ended up pregnant at sixteen, and Philip was a very upstanding man, so we were wed. My first child, a son I named Samuel, was born while he was still fighting in the war, and I was still living with my parents in Reading.
“Samuel was five months old when Philip finished his tour of duty, and we moved to the US, to a small flat in St. Paul, where Philip and his family were from,” Mae continued. “The first few months we lived here were truly wonderful.
They were some of the best memories of my life. Then, one night, three weeks before Samuel’s first birthday, I went in to check on him, and he wasn’t breathing.” A solitary tear slid down her cheek, but she chose to ignore it. “The pain never gets easier. Don’t listen to what anyone tells you. Losing a child is… an impossible loss.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, unsure of what else to say.
“Everybody kept saying, ‘At least you’re young enough to try again.’” Mae smiled bitterly at the memory, and then glanced over to me. “But I didn’t want to try again. After Samuel died, I spent months curled up in bed. My family, everything I had known and loved, was a million miles away, and my husband, as much as he did love me, was very young himself and he was busy trying to work and start a life for us…” She had a faraway expression for a moment, but then she remembered I was there and snapped herself out of it.
“I was just a little older than you when Samuel died, so you can imagine what it would be like,” Mae looked at me warmly, but I sensed an uneasy warning underneath her gaze. “I understand the excitement of being offered a whole new life with an attractive stranger. But you isolate yourself from everything you know. It’s terrifying.”
“I–I don’t feel isolated,” I offered lamely.
I was trying to understand her reasoning for telling me the story, and where we were going. My guesses were leaning towards Samuel’s headstone, and she was trying to explain the immeasurable the loss a person goes through when they out live everything around them. But she would’ve outlived her baby whether she was a vampire or not. It had nothing to do with the choices she made.
“Nevertheless.” Mae was staring straight ahead, her knuckles turning white from the way she gripped the steering wheel. “Philip, bless his heart, stayed by my side, when a lesser man might’ve shipped me back home for my parents to deal with. Eventually, I managed to pull myself out of the depression and go on with my life. I got a job at a deli to keep myself busy and made a few friends. And then, one day, I decided it was time to start trying for a family again.
“Being pregnant was the most miraculous thing that ever happened to me. To feel this little life growing inside me…” She looked rather blissful, but her gaze got harder when she turned to me. “That’s something you’ll be giving up, you know. Vampires can’t get pregnant. They don’t have children. You will never have a family if you choose this life.”
“I don’t think I want kids anyway.” I had actually thought about it very little, but for the most part, the idea of having a child didn’t sound that appealing.
“Well, you might change your mind when the option is taken away from you,” Mae replied thoughtfully. “It’s just something for you to think about.”
“I will,” I promised her, but I doubted that it would affect my decision at all. Even if she was right, if someday I regretted never having children, I could only make the decision now, based on my current state of mind. And right now, having children didn’t seem that important.
“The day my daughter was born was the happiest day of my life.” Her expression stretched into a deep smile, and her eyes filled with happy tears. Just remembering the birth of her daughter made her swell with joy. “She was so beautiful. Her eyes were huge and blue, just like Philip’s. And she had these soft, downy curls, the same as I had had when I was born. I remember the first time I held her in my arms, and the soft warm weight of her body… I promised her I’d never let anything bad happen to her.” She exhaled heavily, and the sadness started seeping into her eyes.
“I decided to name her Sarah, after my mother.” She wiped at her cheek, trying to catch a tear before it fell. “Everyday with her was absolute heaven. I’m sure every mother thinks their child was perfect, but she really was. She rarely cried, and she woke up every day with this beautiful smile on her chubby cheeks. And she learned so quickly. I had quit my job at the deli just so I could spend as much time with her as I could. Every moment with her just seemed so absolutely precious.