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Claudia stood at the edge of the sofa like a supplicant.
“You said you’d come,” she said, trying to sound like the woman she was. A sister and not a child. But no matter how much she practiced, the words contained an upward lilt, almost a whimper.
“It’s just been so cold,” Louis said. Talking as though he were an elderly man and not an ageless vampire. And what did he mean, it had been cold? He was hardly ever outside to observe the weather, except to pick up his rats and cats.
“You notice it because you don’t eat right.”
He pretended to look up at her, but his eyes only reached her shoulder. Then he sighed, shook his head.
“Alright…alright, we’ll go.” Appeasing her. Claudia bit back her resentment; they were going out, that was the important thing.
As they pulled on their coats, the telephone rang. Claudia looked up at the clock: six on the dot.
“Louis,” she warned.
“Stop.” His voice was low and harsh. Claudia almost didn’t breathe as the telephone continued to ring. If he answered it, after all this time…
But he didn’t. He’d taken a few steps forward, then stood there on the rug, arms folded tight across his chest. The ringing stopped, and his whole form slumped forward. Claudia’s exhale came out like a sigh, and his jaw jumped.
“Don’t do that.” He didn’t look at her.
“Nothing’s changed but the date on the calendar.” She followed him out to the foyer.
“Seven years, Claudia.” He spoke these words to the front door. Shoulders still bent, his hand limp as he unbolted the door.
Why was he telling her this? Was it possible he expected her to give her blessing?
“That’s nothing. For him? If he keeps it up for seventy, then we'll talk.”
Louis would never make him wait so long. If Lestat weren’t such a coward, if he dared to show his face more than once every three years, he might have found himself back home for Christmas.
Claudia didn’t know what would happen when Louis’s resolve broke. She’d allowed herself the indulgence of not thinking about it, but that was going to have to change. It wouldn’t be much longer, now.
Louis locked the door behind them, squinting as he looked out onto the lamplit street. He stepped down onto the pavement, hands in his coat pockets.
“Well, where are we headed?”
His smile was thin, and so false that it was almost mocking. Claudia wondered if she’d understood anything at all when she was a child, or if it had all been an illusion. She had once believed herself the center of all their activities, that her particular role in the family was to suggest their direction of orbit. What she reached for, they obtained. Like she was their child.
She hadn't invented that; she didn't think so, anyway. Surely it had not been her idea to call them Daddy Lou, Uncle Les...or had it been? Sometimes, a flush of deep shame permeating her whole body, she had the notion that she must have thought up the terms of endearment herself. She could almost remember speaking them aloud for the first time, with no thought of being rejected by either of them.
How clever she'd been. How sharp and wonderful.
And now?
“It’s window shopping,” she said in a hollow voice. “We can go anywhere.”
“Lead the way.”
She had very nearly been free: that was the thing she couldn’t get over. But like a fool in a fairytale she’d come back and cursed herself. She had believed that she could return, reclaim her titles again. Oh, she had told herself that she would not be their daughter when she returned. She had grown up, she knew better now.
Except she hadn't, really. She had wanted to be embraced; she had wanted to be indulged. How alarming it had been to realize that it wouldn't happen that way, that it never could happen that way again.
“We could leave, go somewhere else,” she’d suggest to Louis. No, he didn’t want to do that. Most nights, he didn’t want to do much of anything. She hunted alone—no, not alone. He was there when she left, his neck twisting to watch her go; often he was in the same place when she returned. His eyes would flash up to her then back down to the page.
“All good?” he might ask, but he didn’t want to know anything except what her footsteps had already told him: she was back again.
She did not try to explain where she had gone, what she had done. She’d remembered his reticence to kill as something quaint and easy to forgive. Not so anymore. His poorly concealed grimaces wore on her spirit. The killing was all she had, and she withered under his judgment. Did he want her to sink into one of the armchairs and become nothing? Starve for eternity?
But then sometimes he would look at her, and she saw the love and need that had brought her into this house, into this life.
“Claudia,” he’d say. “What should we do tonight?” And he’d mean it.
Sometimes, what they had was very close to happiness. So close, if she could just find where his spirit snagged and pull it free…
But whenever she made a gesture that suggested this intent, he’d circle in on himself like a wounded animal, snatching away all the contentment and peace between them until she gave up.
He wished to be loved as he was. He’d made her to do that. Wanted her made.
She had been made well enough, if that were the standard. There was something irrepressible in her affection for Louis, something that coaxed out the smallest embers of warmth in her.
Once they reached the lit up streets, he softened, became truly interested. His spirit lifted as they weaved through the crowds of holiday shoppers. Why he pretended he wanted very little when he wanted life as much as anyone, Claudia didn’t understand. Everyone lived in the world; everyone wanted all they could get.
They convinced each other to accept small gifts along the way. A ring with a small stone, a cheap paperback, a postcard…trinkets, tokens of affection. Louis’s smile became real; he laughed easily with her, and the hours passed quickly.
“I enjoyed that,” he told her on the way back. “I’m glad you talked me into it.”
“So don’t make it so hard next time,” she replied. He laughed, and so did she. For the moment, the idea seemed absurd. Hard, what was so hard about life?
She did not want to walk the world alone again.
They were greeted on the front stoop by a pile of packages—more modest than some they’d received in the past, but each one beautifully wrapped.
“Don’t even look at them,” Claudia said at once. “I’ll do it.”
In her eagerness, she dropped one of the parcels as they entered the house: a book-shaped rectangle which fell at Louis’s feet. Worst of all, there was a card tucked under the bow.
“Put it on top,” she said, pretending she didn’t notice how Louis handled the package, how his shaking hand had pulled the card out of place.
“Nothing he says matters.” That ugly whine was in her voice again, that lack of conviction. Louis heard it, and a condescending smile crossed his face.
“What are you so scared of?” he asked, waving the card. “I’ve got more where that came from. Twenty years’ worth.”
“Good, then you don’t need it.”
Louis hesitated, then nodded. He placed the note on top of the pile in Claudia’s arms.
“I’m keeping this,” he said of the unwrapped book.
“Fine,” she said to his back.
It was not difficult for Claudia to burn the pretty boxes Lestat had sent her; she wasn’t curious in the least about their contents.
The card he’d attached did fall to the ground in front of the incinerator, something she told herself was accidental.
For Claudia—in every window, something makes me think of you. This is my favorite.
The past pressed against her painfully. How many little trinkets he'd bought her on their nights out...and then there were the things too absurd or expensive to bring home, the items she pretended to own each time they passed the shop window. One of the traits they'd shared was a love of little things. Very early on, Claudia had thought it might have been something passed down to her through his blood. A ridiculous thing to believe, she knew that now. It was only that he'd given her the opportunity to want such things.
Swallowing a knot, Claudia looked into the incinerator. A glint of silver in the flames caught her eye before vanishing. She threw the card in after it.