“Our house has always been open to anyone who needs it.” Mae sounded irritated by that as she folded a towel. “Anyone that’s ever needed a place, be they vampire or not, has always had a place. You wouldn’t believe how many people have stayed with us over the years. Ezra has always had an open door policy. To anyone.
“Literally, anyone,” she went on. She put the folded towel in the basket and just leaned on it for a minute, as if she was too suddenly too weary to go on. “Except for my family. Except for what matters to me.”
“Mae, you know that’s not what it’s about,” Milo said gently. He tried to put his hand on her shoulder, but she snapped back into motion and pulled a towel out of the dryer. “And you have us here. Don’t forget that. We’re your family, too.”
“You know that I adore you, but…” She held a towel to her chest and trailed off.
“Have you made a decision yet?” I asked carefully. “About what you’re going to do?” As far as I knew, she still had her heart set on turning her great-granddaughter, and Ezra hadn’t changed his either.
“No.” Mae closed her eyes and shook her head. “Maybe. I don’t know.” She rubbed her forehead and smiled sadly at Milo. “I mean, if I left, you could all handle doing your laundry, couldn’t you?”
“We don’t want you to stay because of laundry,” Milo said, looking appalled. “You’re the heart of the family. I don’t know what would happen if you went away.”
“I know that, love.” She touched his leg gently. She went back to folding laundry, but more like the normal way she did. “I have time to think. There’s still time.”
“Alice!” Jack called from down the hall. “Alice? Where are you? Are you ready?”
“I should go.” I nodded back to the door. “We’re going to the zoo today.”
“Have fun,” Milo gave me a half-wave, but his focus was still on Mae. She chewed her lip and didn’t even notice me leaving.
Back in the living room, Ezra was making Peter watch that Planet Earth documentary because of how amazing it looked on the new TV. Jack came over to me and took my hand. As he said his goodbyes to the guys, Peter gave me a weird look, and I hurried Jack along. I wasn’t sure how well I could hide my emotions from Jack.
Maybe I’d have to talk to Milo about all of this. He’d be really disappointed in me, but he’d help me out, assuming there was a way to help me out.
We got to the zoo in time for Jack to see the otters and the prairie dogs, and he was overly excited about both of them. We spent a long time in the nocturnal exhibit with the bats, and Jack had way too much fun. As usual, his happiness was contagious, and I was having a great time.
The best thing about the zoo was that most of the people there were children, and children didn’t react to us the way adults do. Some people still stared at us, and a small cluster of people followed us closer than was polite, but it was nothing that I couldn’t shake off. Jack didn’t even notice it at all.
The highlight of the trip was the dolphin show. Jack made sure we sat right down in the front row, so when they jumped out or came to the edge, we got splashed. Afterwards, we went down to the lower level so we could see them in the aquarium. I stood next to the glass, watching them swim as if they were dancing with each other.
“You know, I swam with dolphins once,” Jack said casually. “Mae had always wanted to do it, so the two of us went down to Florida, and we spent all day in the ocean. It was this thing we paid for, so it wasn’t like we randomly found wild dolphins or anything. But it was super awesome. We asked Peter to come with, but he said no, because dolphins are just big fish, and there’s nothing exciting about swimming with fish.”
“Dolphins are mammals!” A little girl was standing next to me, her face pressed up to the glass, but she sounded completely offended when Jack called dolphins “fish.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jack grinned at her. “My brother thinks they’re fish.”
“Your brother is an idiot,” the little girl said.
“He sure is,” Jack laughed.
The girl’s mother just noticed her talking to us, and she apologized profusely as she dragged her daughter away, all the while managing to ogle Jack as she did.
“So you and Mae swam with dolphins?” I asked, walking away from the tank and changing the subject from Peter. Even in jest, I was uncomfortable with Jack saying anything about him.
“Yeah, it was a really spectacular trip. We should go again,” Jack suggested. We wandered around the aquarium, and he had his hands shoved in his pockets as I admired the seahorses. “Milo would love it, and I know Mae would be up to going. We have to go during the day, and the sun gets pretty hard on you, but if you eat a lot and just crash the whole next day, you should be okay.”
“That would be really awesome.” I couldn’t imagine anything cooler than swimming with dolphins, but the thought of Mae made me less enthusiastic. “But do you think Mae would really go?”