She had lung cancer. It was aggressive and didn’t respond to treatment. Toward the end, she developed pneumonia, which was the phrase her doctor used. I asked, “Developed, like film?” I said it like I was angry at him, so angry I could punch a hole in his chest.

The infection killed her before the cancer could. And I know it’s my fault.

I don’t think I can write about this. I’m sorry.

I hated reading these lines. I wanted to burn them gone.

* * *

After (After what? After the night I saw it sitting on Mom’s chest? After the night I didn’t try to get it off her? After I didn’t know if it had been feeding on her for part or the entirety of the time I’d been back home? After I still cowardly call it “it” and not “me”?), I threw away my blue jacket and I slept with my bedroom door closed and locked. Each morning when I woke the door was unlocked and ajar. One night I moved my dresser in front of the locked door. I had to take the drawers out first because it was too heavy to move otherwise. The dresser was back in its usual spot the next morning.

Mom’s cough got worse. She lost weight. Her diagnosis was swift and irreparable. Irreversible.

I didn’t know what to do. I tried staying awake while she slept, and I became a zombie—no, a ghoul. I became who I was.

I wanted to leave, to move out to keep her safe from me, from what was in me, but how could I have told her any of that? How could I have said, “Hey, I’m a weird kind of vampire (as opposed to the regular kind) and I haven’t been doing it on purpose, but I’ve been feeding on you so it’s my fault you’re sick, and now that you have cancer, I’m going to get my own place and leave you alone”? It was already too late anyway. It was. (I must believe that. There is no other option.) As Mom became more ill, she asked me, as sheepish as a child admitting she was afraid of the dark, to sleep on the couch in the adjoining living room. It would make her feel better knowing I was close by, and I could leave the light on out there and read or work on my book while she slept, she didn’t mind. I couldn’t say no. I could not say no. (I must believe that. There is no other option.)

When she slept, her breathing was an excruciatingly wet sound, a foot being pulled out of pond muck, and each night the foot sank deeper. I stole that from her too. Now I must keep it forever.