Charity’s little blue Honda Civic chugged up Highway 12 through the Sonoma Valley. Tommy in the back seat sang, “To day yis, da day I, go fwine!”

In the passenger’s seat lolled the vampire who had told Charity where to take Tommy to fly, paralyzed by the day. He’d collapsed on her living room floor when dawn broke. She would have left him in her house but she could see how much he wanted to help. So she fetched her car (parked three blocks away) and dragged down her red concrete front steps.

He was small or she’d never have managed it. A couple of early risers saw her dragging a man to her car and she nearly died of shame as tilted the seat back and strapped him as tight as she could (shoulder strap seatbelts weren’t really made for holding corpses in place).

Now they were out of the fog and every time a wing of sunshine drifted across his arm he moaned and (she blushed) his pants tented. Fortunately, Tommy couldn’t see that. He had commented once, “Da man makin’ yotta noise!” Then he ignored the sounds altogether.

“Y’ lookin’ f’ Lawndale Road,” came the weak daytime voice of the vampire, who had given his name as Peter. “Sh’d be on the left soon.”

“Aunt Chatty? We be dere soon?”

“Soon, my angel.” She scanned the road ahead. A winery on the left, a winery on the right. You’d think that people wouldn’t want to drink dark red fluid after five years of vampires! Charity never drank and couldn’t understand why anyone would. To her, wine tasted like moldy grape juice.

They sped past lines of grapevines behind quaint wooden fences. There were numerous left turns, none of them Lawndale.

The vampire gave off a pleasant smell which reminded Charity of her grandmother’s Christmas baking: frosted cookies and candied walnuts, creamy fudge and round Russian Tea Cakes rolled in powdered sugar and tasting like buttery heaven. Charity had been so happy at grandma’s, away from her crazy mother.

But her mother could be such fun! When she painted her nails as purple as grape wine and danced around the living room waving them in the air to dry, she’d sing old songs from the forties. “Whe-e-e-n I went a dancin’, no special lad I was encouragin’,” she sang. “Every likely laddie was ma Heeland Flame!”

If only it could always have been fun like that. No pawing boyfriends, no drunken vomit, no crazy eyes darting left and right.

A truck backed out of a driveway on the left. Charity started to brake, then mad with sudden courage, she pulled into the middle lane, the lane for turns, and passed the truck, waving at the driver. She felt good! She was doing something worth doing and she felt good.

They passed a sign for Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. “Kay, ‘kay, it’s comin’ up,” Peter whispered. But they rounded a curve and went on and further on. Charity began to wonder what she was doing.

And then there it was, like a miracle: a green sign that said, “Lawndale Road.” Triumphantly vindicated, she turned left onto the country lane which cut between fields straight as a schoolbook rhyme. It lined with live oaks and a weeping willow which draped itself over thick telephone cables like it was crying on their shoulder or whispering confidentially in their ear.

A sharp right, then a sharp left: this was one of those country roads which went around farmer’s fields, not across them. Then they plunged into the hills and Peter wriggled in his seat. “Here, here, turn right here. This is the lot. Awww, man.”

Was he crying? She swung right into a small empty parking lot. The sun was already bright on the white gravel.

The silence rang when she shut the engine off. There were indeed tears in vampire Peter’s eyes. “Aww, Jean,” he said wistfully as Tommy bounced in the back seat.

Charity started to say, shyly, “Jean was … your wife?” But Tommy unbuckled his seatbelt and nuzzled his head against her shoulder like a kitten. “Tome on, Aunt Chatty, yet’s go!”

Peter struggled with all his might, then sank back into the seat. “Cain’t do it. I don’t know how you do it, little guy.” He looked so sad that Charity said, “I’d carry you but I’m just not strong enough.”

“Cawwy me, Aunt Chatty, cawwy me.”

She ruffled his hair. When she opened the door, the lot smelled of old horse droppings and hot tire rubber. Tommy ran to the gate at the head of the fire road and squirmed between the bars. Charity opened the passenger door. “Just one more try. I’d like you to come with us, if you can.”

Where had the old helpless Charity gone? She liked this new Charity. But though she took his hand, she couldn’t help him to move. And in the full sun he lost his mind with pleasure. She was suddenly scared: if he could move, he would rape her! Instantly she was ashamed: just like a white girl, to automatically think that about a black man. Thank God he was so lost in pleasure that he didn’t notice. She stroked his warm face, contrite.

Tommy appeared at her elbow. “Tome on, yet’s go! You toming, Uncle Peter?” At his question, “You coming?” Charity blushed.

But he was cheerily unaware that Peter was in sexual ecstasy: Uncle Peter was making noise and that was just that. She closed the car door with a clump and followed Tommy, who was eager to fly.