A/N: This is my second fanfic, so please don't tear it to pieces! Constructive criticism always welcome. Oneshot about Renee's thoughts as she watches Bella's plane take off from Phoenix en route to Forks. Also, I don't have Twilight (the book) on me right now (lent it to a friend), so if I make mistakes with the dialogue, sorry. But I don't think much gets said in this part anyway. –moodyriver
"It's time, Mom."
I inhaled deeply, trying to keep back the tears. After weeks of pleading and arguing with her, my only daughter, she was finally leaving. I knew it was for my sake that she went, and she put on a brave front, but I could see the sadness in her eyes. Phoenix was her home, and she was abandoning it for a rainy town in western Washington and a man that had broken my heart years ago.
"I'll e-mail you when I get to Ch – Dad's," she promised, her voice quavering only slightly. I nodded once, realizing that this was the only goodbye we would get, here in the airport by the metal detectors, in front of security guards and business travelers and families on their way to Disney World, complete with Mickey Mouse ears.
She hesitated, and then embraced me closely, burying her head in my shoulder. I breathed in her familiar scent of strawberry shampoo, trying to make the moment last as long as possible. But at last I had to release her – she couldn't miss her flight.
She fidgeted as she went through security, and I could see by the look on her face that she was anxious. You don't have to go, I wanted to say. You can stay. Stay with me, please. But I had known from the moment she had proposed going to Forks that her mind was set, and there was no changing it. Somehow, the words wouldn't come, as if my mouth knew they weren't true and refused to speak them.
Bella had always been insufferably stubborn about things like this, and while I loved her for it, it killed me to see her sacrifice her happiness for mine. Phil had told me that Bella wasn't a child, she could think for herself, and I knew it to be true. I wanted to live with my new husband, to watch him play, but I worried about her so much. Some small part of me ached in a way only a mother could, as I watched her vanish from my sight.
Her flight didn't leave for another hour, but I bought a cup of coffee and sat with my forehead pressed against the glass of the windows in the waiting area. I could just see the plane at her gate in the distance, and I watched the miniscule workers load luggage into the belly of the jet. Slowly, passengers began to board and several pulled down their window shades to block the sunlight that was steadily streaming down. It was a perfect Phoenix day – the sky impossibly blue, not a cloud in sight. So why did I have to feel like my heart was being wrenched in two?
Hugging my knees to my chest, I watched as the plane began to taxi to the runway. Even now my beloved daughter was sitting on that flight, listening to the stewards give a tired speech about safety, waiting for the moment when the plane would take off and carry her far, far away from me. My breath quickened as the plane increased its speed, slowly but steadily, until it was off the ground, flying into the glorious light, farther, farther, until it was only a dot on the horizon, and then gone.
It was then that I began to cry.
Great gasps and sobs bubbled up inside my chest, spilling out of me. I cried for myself, for how selfish I was, for Phil, for Charlie. But most of all, I cried for my daughter, my brave, beautiful Bella, who was off to the place that I had escaped from seventeen years ago. At last my tears were spent, and I simply sat there as my chest heaved. She was gone, and nothing could change that. I had to pull myself together.
I walked to my car, feeling world-weary all of a sudden. It was as though I had aged ten years in the last hour. Opening my door, I put my keys in the ignition but didn't turn them, instead sitting with my eyes closed and basking in the Phoenix sun, letting the light wash me clean of my tears, leaving me as fresh as a new-born baby. I opened my eyes, and suddenly it seemed as though maybe, just maybe, I would be all right.