“DR. Sophie?” An urgent rap on the screen door of her houseboat. She recognized the voice. Thomas “Don’t-call-me-Tommy” Carlson, the mechanic’s son. “Dr. Sophie, can I come in?”
“Come on in, Thomas.” She was checking her bag, having a good idea what the problem was. “Is Misty having trouble?”
In the manner of eight-year-old boys, Thomas slammed the screen door aside and jumped into the boat before it could rebound closed. The sound was not unlike rocks rolling across a parking lot. “She can’t get started, doc. She tries and tries, and she’s licking herself, like, all the time down there, yuck! But the kittens won’t come.”
“We’d better go give her a hand, then,” Sophie replied. “Lead the way.”
She followed the boy silently; the mechanic’s family lived on an old farm just down the road; it was a brisk ten-minute walk. She wondered idly why he hadn’t called her cell phone and saved himself a trip, then she remembered the indefatigable energy of children. She hadn’t realized how lost in thought she was until the child spoke again. “You’re missing Ed, are’ncha?”
“I—yes.”
“Well, he was old,” Thomas said in a tone that was both heartless and comforting.
“You,” Sophie said, smiling. “You think you’ll be eight forever.”
The truth was, she missed Ed dreadfully. She had known him since she was a child in Paris, and after she had been turned, he had come with her to America. She had bought him, a former banker trapped in the city his entire life, the home of his dreams; an enormous farm and all the livestock he could play with. In return, he had let her feed whenever she wished. Theirs was a comfortable relationship, one based on mutual need and friendship. She supposed he had been her sheep, but she despised that vampiric term. It denoted a relationship that was not equal, when, in fact, Ed called the shots. If anything, she had been his sheep.
But she had been foolish to overlook the inevitable…that he would age and, someday, die. She had assumed her friend would be eternal, like her.
And now, she missed him dreadfully.
At the end, though she had begged, he had refused to let her turn him. “Yeah,” he’d croaked derisively, “this country needs an eighty-six-year-old vampire like I need another plate in my head. You think I want arthritis in my knees for all eternity? Don’t you touch me, young lady. You’re not too big to spank.” His raspy voice had softened as he looked into her dark eyes, took in her unlined face. He went on in French, their mother tongue. “You would not be doing it for me, anyway, yes? You’re just afraid to be alone. As old as you are, it’s time to learn. So don’t touch me. Let me go, Sophie.”
So she had acceded to his wish, and oh how bitter it was to watch him die, to see him buried in the cold earth. Worse than the steadily rising hunger was an even more basic need: she missed her friend.
Thomas, she noticed, was looking at her sideways. “Some of the guys were wondering.”
“Some of the guys are always wondering.”
“Yeah, but. Now that Ed’s dead. You know, we…they…were wondering if you were staying.”
“This is my home now,” she replied quietly. “It’s been my home for…for a long time.”
“Yeah, that’s what we think, too,” the child replied comfortably. “My dad says he was a kid when…I mean, we’re glad you’re staying.”
She glanced at the back of Thomas’s neck, tan and healthy and as wide as two pork loins placed side by side. Then she jerked her gaze elsewhere. That was no way to be thinking. She would not throw away everything she had made…. The town was curious, but a third-grader was out in the dark with her, and no one would question it, question him. Ed would be furious if she put that in jeopardy, and he would be right.
But she was a realist, and Ed’s death had presented special problems.
She sighed. She was old enough so it wasn’t a matter of urgency…yet. Meanwhile, there was Thomas’s cat. The work, the animals, the country, the people, those were always there, and worth staying for.