Epilog 1: Mommy

Charity and Peter lay next to each other in the early morning, their fingers comfortingly intertwined. Charity wondered what to say.

She knew she wasn’t going back to her old life. She had worked hard for this new one. She had stood up to her boss and risked death by vampire and she had bonded with a sweet man and she was happy.

Happy. She deserved to be happy and she was happy.

How does a shy person step into a new life, as much as she wants it? How does she face people who know her?

But Teddi at the office was the only person she cared about who knew the old Charity. The vampires in her house would accept however she chose to present herself.

She blushed as she realized that she was thinking of Peter that way. He was a man, a real person, he deserved not to be manipulated. And she had called him husband during the long night, they had clung during that dream of falling, they had heard the call and done … something

… which helped heal the world. What did it all mean?

The spiral down was starting. She was hungry and to get food she would have to get up from this bed and all the magic would be gone when she got back. Would Peter remember anything, would she be able to talk to him?

Any

risk was better than the miserable wheel of despair. She rolled onto her side and Peter turned to face her.

Heart pounding at her daring (why did this seem like such a risk after all they had done?) she took his face in her hands and kissed him on the lips. He kissed her back and she nearly sobbed with relief.

But his face had a speculative look that hurt her. Could she bring herself to ask him what was wrong?

She had to, she had to.

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“What’s wrong, my la…” Her voice trailed off. She’d been about to call him “my lamb.” Would that embarrass him?

“What’s…” What’s going on

sounded too confrontational. What’s up

sounded too flippant.

“Can, can I help with anything?” she finally managed.

He looked at her, seeming to really see her at last. “I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry. You’re such an angel and I’ve never done this before. I, I miss my wife so bad, but she’s dead, I saw her die, I, I…” His voice broke and Charity’s heart broke with him. She understood that he had killed her himself when he was first turned and that she had not risen.

He took her in his arms, a man with a broken heart in bed with a woman who was not his wife. “You deserve better than this, cher

, you deserve so much good.”

“I am happy,” she reassured him simply. “So happy. Please don’t worry about that. Please tell me what you were thinking about?”

But she wasn’t ready for his words. “I love you.” Her heart slammed. He took her shock the wrong way. “I know it’s early days to be saying like that, but there. You gave me back everything. I know I’m just a middle-aged guy and I miss Jean like crazy but I love you and I shouldn’t have took advantage of you like this…”

She couldn’t bear to let him continue. She actually put a finger on his lips, eyes flooding. “I’m not ready to say it yet but I could love you too, don’t you worry about that.” She kissed him with firm, deliberate passion, making a statement with her lips about how she valued him.

Tommy’s voice from the next room called, “Mommy.”

Torn between the joy of hearing him call her that and a commandment that she correct him immediately, she rolled out of bed and slid her nightgown back on. “I’ll be right back, please please

let’s come back to this talk my dear, oh my dear.” But she turned before seeing his response, hurried to the door and opened it.

Tommy wasn’t standing at the bedroom door. He was at the window and he had pulled the blinds so he could look out into the street. The grandmother stood behind him with her hands on his shoulder. She turned a warm, approving smile on Charity.

Knowing some important revelation was near, Charity walked to the window, put her hand on the back of Tommy’s neck and looked out.

She saw a beautiful, very dark black woman in the robes of a nun. Her face was so radiant that Charity simply couldn’t be frightened by the fact that those robes were torn and stained with blood and caked with red dust.

Tommy hadn’t called Charity “Mommy.” That

was his mother out there in the sunlight, lifting a hand either to beckon or to bless.