Page 50 of Born Reckless
“Does this mean I can call you my aunt?” I ask, throwing a little humor into the situation, because it’s one of the only ways I know how to deal.
Sigrid laughs, just one quick, singular expulsion of breath. It’s so big and genuine, she actually lifts her face to the ceiling for a moment. “Dear Juliet, I would be all too happy to claim you as my niece. However, for your own good and these unique implications, it’s best we keep this familial discovery between the two of us, yes?”
I smile, though it doesn’t quite reach my eyes. I’ve never had anyone to claim as my own. It would be kind of nice to have someone, even if my relation to Sigrid is buried deep in the past.
But she has a point.
“When did your gift manifest?” I ask. “Have you always known you were what you are?”
The look on Sigrid’s face gets more serious. Her eyes fall to the floor for a moment, and she shakes her head. “No, I did not know. My mother had no gift that manifested, and my grandmother assumed that I would not either. I did not know until I was fifteen.”
Her eyes rise back up to mine, and something in them has changed. They look haunted.
"I did not always make wise decisions as a teenager,” she says. “I got involved with a man who was older than I was. When I was fifteen, I found I was carrying his child.”
Ice drops into my blood. Fifteen.
“When I told him, he accused me of sleeping around and claimed there was no way it was his. He denied me and the baby growing inside of me. But word spread throughout our town, word that I was a teenage whore. Life became very difficult for me.”
It makes me angry. It makes me angry that this man shut Sigrid out, that he didn’t take any responsibility for his part. That people could be so cruel and believe stupid rumors.
“I could not take it anymore. I had a cousin who had moved to America a few years previous, and I begged her to let me move in with her for a while.” Sigrid swallows hard, her eyes lowering once more. “She agreed. I spent the last four months of my pregnancy living with her in California. And I decided that it was best for the baby if I let someone else raise it. I was only a teenager. I was not fit to parent a child, I was still a child myself. So, when he was born, I picked a nice family. I cried the entire hour I held him after his birth, but I did not hesitate when I placed him in their arms.
“We had agreed to a closed adoption,” she continues. “There would be no contact, and they knew that I was returning to Norway soon after the birth. It hurt too much to keep that wound open. And so they left with him a few days later, and I have never felt so anxious in my life.”
She quickly wipes away a tear that has fallen from her eyes. “I ignored that feeling in the pit of my stomach, felt that it was simply natural. I returned to Norway. But the feeling only got worse.”
Sigrid reaches out and touches the end table between us. Instantly, a map of the city shoots out on its surface. There are hundreds of glowing dots, but for the first time, I see one that glows far brighter than all the rest.
“My gift is my connection to my son,” Sigrid says, her voice raw. “Do you know what kind of hell it is to feel the child you gave away to a better life? To always know exactly where he is? To sense him every single moment of his life?”
A chill washes through my blood as I realize.
“Warren is your son,” I say hoarsely.
Another tear breaks free from her eyes as she nods. “I did not manifest the locations in a visible way for the first year. But I could always feel him. I always knew exactly where he was. His adoptive parents moved from California to Virginia when he was five. They then moved to Michigan when he was sixteen. And when he was eighteen, he came here, to Chicago, for school.”
I lean back in my seat and rub a hand over my mouth, trying to digest this.
“I couldn’t bear the agony anymore,” Sigrid says as she shakes her head. “I packed all of my belongings and I moved here to Chicago just days after he arrived in the city. It took me two weeks before I worked up the courage to approach him.”
I can’t even imagine how that must have felt, for either of them. After eighteen years, and Warren never knowing who she was…
“It was strained, and he didn’t believe me until he confirmed things with his parents,” Sigrid says with a jerky nod. “But slowly, over the past six years, we have been building our relationship. I have been getting to know my son.”
“Sigrid, I had no idea,” I say softly, still at a loss for words.
She simply nods. “So, you see how we are able to track all of the vampires who come and go. His blood allows me to monitor everyone. Warren’s gift is the barrier. But mine is to know where he is, and therefore anyone who receives his blood.”
Sigrid reaches across the space and takes my hand. “It has not been easy, trying to create a relationship with the son I did not raise. But it has been the greatest blessing of my life. So, dear Juliet, I hope with everything in my bones that we can find Jon Bonny.”
I want to ask her about the man who killed my mother. The timeframe fits, she would have been in the city when he was killed.
But there has already been too much weight that has passed between us.
It can wait for another time.
“Thank you,” I say softly. The warmth and softness I see in her eyes when she looks at me is everything. “For everything.”