Dearest Diary,
That spring has come is no consolation; my woman's period has ceased; how abominably fertile I am! The inseminator remains a mystery. Perhaps it was my absent friend, but who could say? Another child shall come, and I cannot welcome him into this bleak world.
A portrait photographer arrived today, for little Albert. The new gardener exhumed him for me, and we three sat in our final moment as a family. Albert was placed center, in his tiny rose-filled coffin. James sat on the right, restrained in his sick-chair. I stood on the left, arrayed in black, holding the ivory club. I could look neither at the monstrous prodigy who was once my husband, nor the decayed lump which was once my son.
My dark friend, if friend he was, has left me. Yet I wander the garden constantly, in search of him. Thus far, he has only alluded me. I no longer hear his strange song, or discover that heavy tread among the beds. Was he man, or emanation? Have I absorbed his essence, as Carmilla would, or has the seed of my husband taken root within me, so many months hence?
The garden, with it's long rows of daffodils and great walls of forsythia, seems a prison to me. The roses seem insipid and dull, representing only friendship's absence. I cannot help but think Albert happier than I, or even poor, fevered James; I am strong, but I know my strength makes me but a conduit for ever greater sorrow.