Free Bite Me by Donaya Haymond Page B

wondered if the black color scheme reflected his mood.
I turned to go into the kitchen, but a question occurred to me. “Um, are you going to tell me to go back to bed?”
“Hm?” He had been staring blankly—and squinting—into space. “Oh. I doubt that doing so would be of any benefit to either of us. How about we make a deal: I switch on the table lamp over there, you turn off the main light, and I let you stay here with an added discretionary clause.”
“Huh?”
“I mean we don’t have to tell your mother.”
While doing the required light maneuvers, I replied, “Right. Sorry, late night equals slowness. Though technically it’s early morning. I was going to get myself a drink. Would you like anything?” I knew what he wanted, but sometimes I prefer to pretend that he has more than one thing in his diet.
“The usual. . . if it’s not too much trouble.”
“No problemo. Hot or cold?”
He looked wistful. “Somewhere in the neighborhood of 98. 6 Fahrenheit and 36. 8 Celsius?”
“Poor Daddy. I don’t have a thermometer, but I’ll try.”
Mom’s voice trailed down after me. “Herbal tea would be really nice.” I craned my neck over, and sure enough, she was standing at the foot of the stairs, almost as pale as her husband. She had wrapped herself in a purple and blue flowered blanket. “Better than the two of you hiding from me.”
“We’re not. . .”
“Relax, I’m kidding. This isn’t exactly land of the well-rested, is it?” She came down and kissed me on the top of the head. I felt a mixture of teen desire to protest, ‘Mo-om!’, and little girl pleasure.
The process was simple enough. I pulled out one of the bottles of blood, poured it into a mug, and put it in the microwave. After nearly sixteen years the setting was automatic; I didn’t even need to think about how long it would take to heat it to vampire-preference. While that was revolving, I filled two other mugs with hot water from the faucet, dropping the bag of herb and flower tea into the first and mixing cocoa into the second. I knew we had a tray somewhere–
“Are you okay, Di?” chorused my parents.
“Yeah, fine. I just knocked over most of the pots and pans.”
When I’d put everything back I carefully carried the hot drinks on the tray, hoping not to spill any on my ‘The First 1,000 Digits of Pi’ t-shirt. The big comfy chair now had two occupants—my dad took up so little sideways room that my mom barely had to squish at all. When Mom is sick she tends to want companionship more than usual. Dad had put the computer back in the loft while I was messing around in the kitchen; he now had an arm around Mom’s shoulders.
“Thank you,” Mom said, taking her flowery tea. She generally preferred coffee, but caffeine would have defeated the purpose of joining us. I put down the tray, pulled a cushion over to a spot near the chair, and sat cross-legged on top of it. Dad and I each took a mug.
Being down here, in the soft yellow lamplight, felt much better than alone in my room. I asked Mom, “So, have you come for the beverage or for the company?”
She wrapped her hands around the tea, warming her hands. “Company. Would using the phrase ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ have copyright issues?”
“Might I suggest lucid in Laconia?” Dad said.
She smiled. “I have an idea. Can we pretend that we have known about me being HIV positive for a long time and have gotten used to the idea and don’t have to make that our main topic and don’t have to avoid it in a very obvious way as if we had an elephant in the room?”
I was hesitant. “I don’t know. Do we have that much imagination?”
“We could try.”
“I drink to that,” Mom replied. We all took a sip.
I nearly choked. “Oops.”
Dad grimaced. “Switch.”
We switched mugs while Mom tried not to giggle. “Bloody gross,” I muttered.
“I faintly remember liking chocolate once. . . Selene, please. It was a simple mistake.” He took a long, deep drink to wash