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Looking up at the waxing gibbous moon, seeing how the reflected light shown down upon me ever more brightly, more clearly, than it ever did when I was human. I am left in awe of the beauty of this simple trick of nature. I took a deep breath, not that I needed to; I guess old human habits die hard. Just now I felt so small in the vastness of the Universe. What difference have I made? Whose lives have I effected in a positive way?

It has been one hundred and fifty years since I became a vampire. I still remember that night vividly, seeing my best friend die in front of me. Then nearly dying myself before my sweet, oh so sweet, Athena came to my aid. I smiled and closed my eyes, letting the night air rustle my hair into my face.

The breeze passed before I opened my eyes again. With my upper arms I moved my hair out of my face. With my lower left arm I took out, from my pocket, a rubber band; who would have thought those would be still around. I tied my hair in a ponytail and looked around. I stood there, recognizing once again that I stood in a graveyard. I forgot, for a moment, why I was there. Then the reason came to me, tonight is a special night for me.

It was the night that my mother died. I came here to where she was buried to pay my respects to her. Standing here in front of her tombstone I find myself feeling a sense of calm and childlike giddiness. The horrors and doubts that I have experienced in my life seemed to just melt away. I fell to my knees.

“Hello mom. I’m glad to see you again. Listen, I just want to apologize to you for never showing myself to you after that awful night. I know it was hard for you and dad to take that I wasn’t there anymore. Not knowing what happened to your baby girl. I did visit you often, as often as I could. I watched you two age, you two start a new family without me. I watched you two raise a healthy son, even though you two have seen better days. I so wanted to be a part of your lives, to be a big sister to my little brother, to be your daughter, to create memories with you, to be a part of your lives,” I said, sighing. “I wanted to be there so much for you three. I just couldn’t be there. Your lives would have been in continuous peril if I had been; if not from our enemies then from a vampire that would come across you. One law between us vampire that is an unwritten rule, that is never broken, is to never reveal ourselves to mortals. That means death to any mortal who finds out. I couldn’t risk that. I wanted you to live full, happy lives.”

I started to cry. Red tears ran down my face like a river. But I remained silent. Never speaking another word to my mom’s grave. Moments later, I felt a cold hand touch my left shoulder. Defensively I looked behind me.

It was Athena. She gave me a knowing smile. Her parents had died nearly a decade before mine did, but they were cremated and their ashes spread out to sea during the day. She had confined it in me that she felt sad that she couldn’t go somewhere to talk to her parents. I felt her pain in the loss of her parents.

“Sorry to disturb you Marissa. But you forgot the flowers to put on the gravestone,” said Athena as she gave me the flowers. “Plus, I couldn’t let you go through this alone.”

I smiled at her. “Thank you, Athena. You didn’t need to be here. I know you understand.”

“I know, but I thought you could use some looking after. You do have the tendency to not tell people your feelings and in this situation you needed my support,” Athena said. “Whether or not you consciously knew it.”

I laid the flowers on the bottom of my mother’s tombstone and stood up. Facing Athena I said, “Have you heard from Rebecca?”

“You know I haven’t missy. It’s been what, nearly one hundred and twenty years since we have even seen here?” responded Athena.

“One hundred and twenty five years to be exact,” I said.

“So why would you expect us to hear from her now?” Athena asked.

“Something tells me that our paths will cross again. She did take on a motherly role for several decades with us,” I responded.

“Decades are like months in a human life time,” said Athena.

I smiled at her again. Her cynical view could be amusing at times. But that is part of why I love her. As a human I would have never have given another thought at loving another female, even in a platonic way. But now, as a vampire who has the potential to live forever, a petty thing like who I can or cannot love became secondary to loving the person for who they are.

Athena has been my partner, my love, since the day she created me. We never considered each other in a sexual way but in a loving family way. I felt the same way with Rebecca, although she wasn’t really my mother I treated her as such because she had so much life experience to teach us with. I was sad to see Rebecca go, she didn’t explain why she needed to go but she said that she was called to be with her maker. But she would never fully divulge what she meant. We could only guess.

Another breeze crossed our skin. Me wearing a mid-length skirt with pockets and what would cross as a ‘wife beater’ of the day and Athena wearing very long black skirt and a black corset, along with a cotton shirt that exposed her forearms to the world. We both shivered in the breeze, in a very intimate way. Intimacy, in a non-sexual way and in a sexual way, was changed when a person is changed into a vampire. A small breeze could create a non-sexual response of intimacy.

“Let’s go Marissa,” said Athena.

“Ok, let’s go,” I said.

We both ran out of the cemetery. We ran for hours, since my mother was buried in her home town, and my dad next to her. To this day I do not know where my brother was buried, I am sad that I do not know because I cannot pay him my respects.

Finally, we made it home. We now lived in an apartment in Chicago. Chicago was one of the first cities in the United States to come out of the second great depression. Production in fresh water fish and replenishing the world’s various fish and mammals in the ocean rescued the city. Biotechnology dominated the city now-a-days.

Athena walked into the apartment before I did. Before I could enter she gasped and stopped. I stuck my head in our apartment and saw Rebecca there, sitting on our couch.

“Hello girls. How are you doing?” said Rebecca with a deviant smile. “I know I haven’t been around for a while but I need your help now.”