Page 7 of Missing Moon

“He’s not dead... yet.” Mary Lou sips her coffee again. “Got a call last night from a doctor. He’s got late-stage lung cancer. The doctor said he’s terminal, probably has less than amonth left. Apparently, his cancer was very advanced before he got any kind of medical attention. There’s nothing they can do for him at this point.”

“Sounds like Dad. His leg could fall off and he’d insist he didn’t need a doctor.”

I reach over and take my sister’s hand. She’s feeling a bit guilty for being mad at him these past few decades. Nothing quite like death to get people to bury hatchets. Not saying we had any arguments or open hostility—or anything like that. We (and bywe, I mean myself and Mary Lou) just haven’t had much contact with our parents since we left home in our teens. Mary Lou met Rick, got married six months later, and went to live with him. I went to college.

All the craziness in my life’s only made that harder. How do I show up to visit my parents when I should be approaching fifty but I still look like I’m in my later twenties? For crying out loud, Mary Lou looks like she could be my mother now. Technically speaking, she basicallywasmy mom…so appearances now mirror the reality we lived. I don’t mean she literally gave birth to me. She’s only a few years older than me. Just… stepped in and raised us all since our parents were too busy or too preoccupied with other things to really notice kids existed in the house.

“A month.” I swirl coffee around my mug. “Suppose I should at least go see him before he dies.”

“Probably… but.” Mary Lou fidgets. “It’s going to be a little complicated.” She points to my face.

I shrug one shoulder. “We could tell him the complete truth. For one thing, who would believe the ramblings of a dying old man if he tried to tell anyone one of his daughters became a psychic vampire immortal?”

Mary Lou gives a maudlin chuckle.

“For another, if he’s only got a month left… it’s not like he’s going to run around telling everyone.”

“But what if he freaks out?”

“Freaks out?” I blink.

“You look young enough to be your own daughter.”

I laugh. “Maybe if I got knocked up at seventeen.” I pause, then smirk. “That probably would have bothered him less than going to college.”

She lets out a guilty laugh. “I think he expected it of us. The getting pregnant young thing, I mean.”

“Probably did.” I take a large swig of coffee, nearly draining the rest of the mug. “Bet the old man considers it a win that only one of his kids ended up in jail.”

She snickers.

Of course, I’m talking about our brother, River. Idiot stole a car when he was eighteen, got sentenced to two years. He told the court he got high and didn’t really know what he was doing. The truth was, he wanted to try and sell it for some quick money because we had to fix up the house and Dad couldn’t afford it. They let him out after only like five months, though… with probation. Some kind of suspended thing. Like, okay you did this, but if you don’t do anything else, we’ll pretend you didn’t. As far as I know, he hasn’t gotten into any more trouble with the law since.

“Speaking of the boys, have you been able to reach any of them?” I ask.

“Only Dusk.”

I blink. “Wow, impressive. Figured he’d be the hardest to find.” The last I heard, Dusk had ended up as some sort of wandering homeless artist somewhere in Europe.

“He answered his email.” Mary Lou flicks her thumbnail at the mug. “River’s a bit too much like Dad. He probably has email, but doesn’t understand how to use it.”

I chuckle. “Haven’t heard much about him, honestly.”

“He got divorced again.” Mary Lou sighs.

“Again?” I blink. “He got remarried?”

“He married this woman named Victoria like eight years ago. They’ve got a ten-year-old daughter named Hailey. Not sure why they divorced, but that’s over.”

“He had a kid with Ashley, too, didn’t he?” I pour more coffee into my mug.

“Two boys. Bryce is fifteen and Colton is twelve,” says Mary Lou in a flat tone. “Of course, I haven’t seen him or the boys since Colton was an infant.”

“Mom?” asks a soft voice from the doorway.

I glance over at Paxton, still in her Pikachu pajamas. “Morning, hon.”

Yes, some people might say she’s a little old to wear Pikachu onesie, but she doesn’t care.

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