Chapter 18. The New Family

"Hemato, there is somebody here to see you." Lisa-Marie said, she was holding her luggage to go off to college, while I stayed at home to tend the house.

"Who is it? Who could possible want to see me?" I asked, giggling a little bit from the ridiculousness of my self-pity. When you get to the point where I'm at, you no longer want to focus on the past. Only the future.

"It's a surprise!" Lisa-Marie said.

She opens the door, and it's Anna-Marie. Her head was stitched back onto her body, and she shuffled in my direction. She wore a similar dress to the one when she died, or I assumed that she died. Instead those eyes indicate a new kind of life, a new life of life form like a zombie but not quite. While she had a hard time keeping her head straight, it being stitched on, she didn't seem to understand why she wanted to see me. She was not rotted at all.

On some level I felt sad that she was still alive. If she had any memory of the indecent from before her head was taken off, it was probably scattered in all directions fading out by the second. "I know you don't remember me, but I remember you. I never got to tell you how sorry I felt for you."

There was a slight smile. And then she came in for the kiss.

We exchanged glances and soft gestures, the moonlight hour being when Lisa-Marie arrived to see her new family being reborn again.

We could be a family again. I thought I heard words from Anna-Marie.

"Hemato. Hemato. Hemato." she said. Apparently the doctor that rebuilt her was an experienced surgeon. He repaired the vocal chords, but it was relatively new technology. She was kept in a tank for months.

"That's right, Hemato is my name."

We all group hugged.

"Family!" Anna-Marie said.