When I lost my mother in the store, I was only three years old. I can't remember what happened but I still wake up in a sweat most nights, an innate sense of abandonment, as though I have been on a mission to the moon, stepped outside the spaceship for a walk across the lunar landscape and left behind. Terror.
Mother never recovered from her fear. She spent the rest of my childhood in a daze from a mix of prescription pill cocktails, agrophobia and alcohol. Dangerous combinations.
She was currently in a secure medical facility, unrecognisable from the pretty woman in the photos.
Gina, my second wife, was more patient than my first who did not understand children so my early trauma wasn't in her agenda as a trophy wife. Even so, I expected Gina to also leave before long.
She did seem to be late most nights coming to bed and getting up very early and didn't seem to be that interested in talking to me like before. Telling me I was paranoid.
I know the signs. I must do something to keep her with me. I bite her neck.
As Count Dracula's ancestor I know what needs to be done.
Lost, without a hand to hold.