Betsy's Blog Post

 My life here is over. I’d say my life everywhere is over, but perhaps that’d be a tad dramatic. Still, this house is nothing but a broken shell of my past life, the life that I want nothing more than to smash into smithereens and leave scattered across the floor for the maid to sweep away.

I’ve said my goodbyes. I’ve let the parrot fly free through the window; he was probably as glad to go as I am. I loathed that infernal pest, but John adored it and I adored him so… 

No matter. John left me. So today I will leave behind the life we made together, the flame we kindled from nothing but ashes, the house that I can gaze at and almost remember a time when the word love didn’t evoke a howl of hunger from within me. 

And today I will leave behind our second son.

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My mother left me. Dolley Todd, or Dolley Madison, now, I suppose. Ha. The woman who beams at visiting dignitaries as she serves ice cream on the country’s finest china, but couldn’t be bothered to feed milk to her infant son. 

Perhaps I’m not being fair. It’s not like my mother left me with nothing. Bertha, mother’s old maid, was always there for me. She never wished to play games or go on outings, but she was useful in the way that an old candle lying in the corner of your cupboard suddenly becomes vital when you hear a noise in the dead of the night.

It’s not the fact that my mother left me that makes everything in this old house so hard to lay eyes on. No, it’s the reason she left me that soaks into my soul like a frosty wind on a bleak winter’s day.

I walk through the house slowly, taking in everything I’m leaving behind. The birdcage with an unlocked door. The buckets of water for putting out fires. My dad’s rifle that he could have shown me how to hunt with if he hadn’t died so soon after my birth. Everything is a reminder of what my life could have been. But I cannot dwell on my mother’s shame for any longer. That is why today, now that I’ve finally grabbed hold of the adulthood I climbed the mountain of my childhood to attain, I will leave this house forever.

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I probably sound like a bad mother. I’m doing my best, truly. 

It’s all my fault that William’s, well, the way he is. My mind swirled into a tornado after John passed on. How could I be a mother when I couldn’t even remember how to be myself? I still do not know. I was walking William in his carriage around the Square, just trying to escape from myself. But then I saw…

I saw a couple holding hands. And they looked so much like John and I did when we were young. Young and free. And they were smiling. I don’t think I’ve smiled since he left me. I don’t know that I ever will again. I couldn’t take it.

I thrust the carriage at a stranger sitting on a nearby bench. “Watch him,” I growled, the darkness inside me spilling over the brim. I ran then, far, far away, my shoes clacking against the cobblestones.

How could I have known William would be bleeding when I returned, or that he would have a hunger for more than I could ever provide him with?

What has become of me? John would be so ashamed.

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I’m on the second floor now, feeling grateful that I’ll never have to trudge up that dastardly old staircase again. I want to look at each room one final time, a kind of farewell to this prison that has become so entwined with me I don’t know who I am apart from it. Walking through the rooms is like looking through the past, a past I was cut out from like a coupon in a magazine. Do I sound bitter? I am.

I stop at the door to Anna and Lucy’s room. It’s always been shut and even as a child, I never had a desire to explore. I spent every moment of each day outside until the curtain was pulled down over the sky and it was time to crawl into bed. There was always much to do in the city. I played at the park, stopped at the market. And, of course, I drank, no better than the mosquitoes who turn people into pubs. But despite all this, I suddenly feel a need to see my aunts’ room.

I’ll tread every inch of this house, even if it deflates me from the inside out. I need to prove to myself that I can. One last time.

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William will be better off here, even if it takes him years to see it. The city is more welcoming to… his kind. I can’t bring myself to say what I’ve made him become. All I have to offer my son is the snobby elite. They’ll look down on him, they’ll tear him apart, kill him if they can get their hands on him. They won’t. Here he may have to live in the shadows, but at least he’ll get to see the sun shine.

But he’ll know that I loved him, right? He has to, and I’m going to see to it. My mother left a mirror to my sisters and me. But I’m sure they won’t mind my putting it to a noble cause.

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My aunts’ room is mostly bare. Some moving boxes are strewn across it, like they couldn’t escape the city quickly enough to finish packing. A desk I suppose they shared faces a window. It’s cracked - like me. I wonder what they saw when they looked out. Now, there is nothing but twigs. Twigs, stones, and mud.

On top of the desk rests a sprig of tobacco. I forget about the epidemic from time to time, and then it comes crashing into me like a wave, all that my family must have gone through, losing my father to the fever. How could my mother have lied to them that I, just a newborn, had died as well?

The bed is in disarray, almost like Lucy and Anna never left at all. Even a half melted candle stands on their bed table. Perhaps I’ll light it and let it sink down before I leave. 

I look up then, into the mirror hanging from the wall. I try so hard not to catch a glimpse at my reflection, but sometimes it cannot be avoided.

And no matter how much I wish to erase them, these fangs will never stop protruding from my gums.

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My sisters’ room is almost empty. Neither of them are like me. They can’t wait to leave the city, to go to elegant parties in the countryside and flirt with young gentlemen. They can’t see past this disease that’s made everyone sick with pain or sick with mourning. But I remember a time when light shone through the gaps between leaves on branches and one laugh turned into many. Philadelphia is beautiful, but I no longer have a need for beauty in my life.

I can see my garden from out the window. “Just lovely,” John would say, tucking a flower behind my ear.

“Me? Or the garden?” I’d ask, grinning upwards like his face was a starry sky.

“Both.” 

John was a man of few words, but now I have none at all. I think I’ll chop away all those lovely flowers before I leave town.

The mirror hangs on the wall. My mother wanted to save a fragment of my father in it, but he said to save it for something more important. This is more important.

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I lean my head against the mirror, suddenly exhausted. Am I really ready to upheave my life today? I suppose it can’t become more pitiful than it already is. I have to remind myself to breathe. Just breathe.

My breath is fogging up the mirror. I step back, ready to wipe it away, but something’s happened. There are words written in the fog.

I squint, trying to read what it says. The handwriting is scrawled, like whoever wrote it was in a rush. Come see what I see, it says. 

What?

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I inscribe some words on the glass, trying not to think about how these words may be the first ones William will remember me telling him. If he finds my message at all. This is my last chance, son.

And now it is time. Time to give a piece of my soul to the looking glass. Not much is left inside me, but I can sacrifice what little I have remaining. I don’t have to try to summon the tears; they come naturally. The dam I’ve built to numb myself has collapsed, and suddenly I’m overflowing. I let the tears trickle down the mirror, creating rivers on the surface. 

Let the tears tell my story. Let William discover all I will never get the chance to say.

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What is happening? This is not my life. My life is boring, melancholy, a shrine to stories no one else remembers. I reach out. The words will fade with my touch, and then I will fade as well. I reach out.

I am pulled inside.

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That is all. I’ve done everything there was left to do, admittedly very little, and now it is time to go. I cannot wait here any longer, not when my family is waiting for me, not when each passing second only makes it harder to let go.

I go to the broom closet where I’ve concealed William from my family these past few days and scoop him up in my arms. He’s sleeping and barely stirs. How could he know he is all I have left for this city that has taken so much from me?

I carry him up to the attic, where Bertha is waiting, her arms outstretched. I do not want him to call a different set of arms home. I do not want any of this.

I kiss my son goodbye.

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I am inside the mirror and everything has gone still. There is no ground below, but then again, there is nothing at all. Where am I?

I feel a tap on my shoulder. Why does it not startle me? Why, as I turn around, do I already know who I will find?

My mother beams at me, but her eyes are very sad. She looks much younger than is possible. I want to run away from her the way I’m running away from this house, but at the same time, I want to make her arms into my home. Instead, I stand still.

“William”, she whispers. “You cannot possibly understand how much I love -”

I cut her off. “No. No, you’re lying to me. You abandoned me. Because I’m a vampire.” I scowl to let her see my fangs, and she shudders, as if to prove my point.

But then she’s crying. “Please tell me that’s not what you believe.”

I sigh. “It’s what I know.” I have no pity for her.

“William”, she grabs my hand and holds firmly, even as I try to pull away. “I left you to save you from my family,” she continues. “But I love you. So, so much.”

And there’s so much I don’t know, so much I cannot understand. But somehow I know that this will not last for long, that right now is the only time I’ll be with my mother in this life. And so I don’t send a snowstorm of questions her way or berate her for choosing her family over me or ask her how I can possibly continue onward when I leave this little world we’ve created.

Instead, I kiss my mother hello.