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Mason drove over to the post office to send a package on its way for one of the volunteers at the shelter. The anxiety the teenaged girl exhibited made her offer almost automatic. She was halfway there before she even idly wondered why she'd done it... to ease the anxiety of another? Or did she somehow miss the post office... she wondered when she'd last been to one. More than a month, maybe even three months. The last visit she actually remembered was when she took her distant relatives' Christmas presents to be sent early last December.
As she drove, she pondered a statement Lucille had made the night before. She was planning to create two new ghouls, and Mason could not remember whether she had said that she already had the Prince's permission for these specific two, or whether she meant she was about to ask it. The frustration she felt from her memory lapse was all out of proportion to the actual effect. It wasn't that important, yet the frustration of it was so intense she had to pull over to the side of the road for a few minutes until she could regain enough composure to drive the rest of the way to the bank.
Mason wasn't sure if her forgetfulness was due to her pregnancy, or her loss of the effect of Kindred vitae on her system, or perhaps it was just from stress. No matter which, or even another cause entirely, it was something she'd have to stop worrying about so much, or she'd just make herself worse, she thought. If only it were easy to keep such resolutions. She thought in an atypical moment of cynicism that entire industries of weight loss foods, three year gym contracts, and so forth were founded on that simple facet of human nature.
She parked her Camry in the front of the post office, and walked in, carrying the package. She noticed the destination was somewhere in Chicago, Illinois. Wondering for a moment what might be in the package, then deciding it wasn't any of her business, she walked through the door. Inside as she waited in line behind a gray-haired man with an artificial leg who clutched nearly a dozen envelopes in one hand, and a redhead in her thirties trying to keep her 3 year old daughter from throwing the change of address cards all over the floor, Mason noticed a sign saying that the post office would be open until midnight on April fifteenth to allow last minute tax filers to get their forms postmarked.
She had a moment's feeling of vertigo, wondering about her own taxes, which she hadn't thought about ... at all... had she? Then she recalled that Nick had an accounting firm who was taking care of all that for her, as she remembered signing the forms a month or so back. Still a bit of the vertigo seemed to cling to her, a sense of detachment and anomie. Nothing is certain but death and taxes, she thought wildly, and not even those anymore for me. She was truly living in a world separate from these people, she thought as she looked from the young mother to the older man, who she somehow classified as a veteran, though for all she knew his leg had been lost in a car accident or to cancer or any number of other possibilities. Maybe a shark had eaten it. Maybe he'd been caught in a fox trap and gnawed it off...
Her mind veered wildly, she felt lightheaded, and barely caught herself on the side of the counter as she reached the front of the line at last. She handed over the package with a sense of relief, and tried to calm herself with a deep breath, but it only made her feel as though she were hyperventilating. Instead she repeated nonsense syllables over and over to herself until they somehow surrounded her in a wash of tranquility, artificial, but functional, allowing her to pay for the package and return to the safety and familiarity of her car before she lost control.
Mason sat in the car for either a minute or an hour, she was not sure later; finally, she felt able to drive home, and she stood shakily in the elevator, then retreated to the sanctuary of her room and curled up on the floor in the corner. Brutis came and lay his huge head on her leg, and she sat there as the sun went down, silently stroking his head, until it was time for her to go back to work for Lucille.