A Picture is Worth a 1000 Words Contest
Title: Esme's Lullaby
Pen name: hexumhunnie311
Inspirational photo number: 4
To view the photos for this contest visit: http://i618(DOT)photobucket(DOT)com/albums/tt268/Rosalynn7885/contestcollage(DOT)png
Rating: M for language
Summary: A final gift for Edward's biggest fan – his mother.
If you would like to see all the stories that are a part of this contest visit:
http://www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/community/a_picture_is_worth_a_1000_words_contest/76199/
A/N: Thanks to mah number one Allysue08 for pre-reading this for me. SMeyer owns Twilight.
The innocence of childhood is something I often miss. To be free from the heartache of real life. To have my days revolve around new toys, new friends, and of course, my mother.
She was a talented musician before she became a mother. But when my sister, Alice, and I came into the world on the same day, not two minutes apart, she focused all her energy on caring for, providing for, and loving us.
When I was a toddler, I used to reach up to the keys on her baby grand piano and bang on them. She'd never get mad. She'd simply sit on the bench and put me on her lap to allow me better access for abusing her precious instrument. She'd laugh, and smile, and tell me that she could already tell I'd be a great pianist one day.
When I turned six, she asked me if I'd like for her to teach me how to play. I didn't really want to. I wanted to play with my toy trucks in the dirt and play catch with my dad. But my mother's smile lit up my life. I agreed, so I could see it.
When I was twelve, I won a state competition. My mother had so much pride in her eyes and so many tears on her face, and I felt invincible. That was the day she began encouraging me to compose my own pieces.
For the next four years, she would ask me once a month if I was writing anything of my own. My answer was always no. She would just nod, and smile, and drop it. Her smile got sadder and sadder every month.
When I was sixteen, I'd had a bad day at school. I'd had a fight with my girlfriend, found out that I'd failed a test, and sprained my wrist in gym class, meaning no piano for weeks. When I walked in the front door of my home, my mother was sitting in the living room playing the baby grand, and I walked into the kitchen for a snack. She came in and leaned against the doorframe, watching me. When I finally looked up to acknowledge her presence, she smiled once again, and asked me that same damn question.
"Have you been trying to compose anything, Edward?"
Every month for four years, she asked me this question. I would always, politely, tell her no. But on this day – on this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day – I lost it.
"Fuck, Mom. No, I have not been composing anything. No, I will not be composing anything in the near future. SO STOP FUCKING ASKING ME."
I stormed up to my room, making sure I slammed the door.
That was the last time my mother asked me about composing.
When I was seventeen, I was in another competition almost an hour away. It was December. My mother had to take Alice to a dance class, but she promised she'd make it in time for my performance.
She promised.
She promised.
I played with everything I had. I played to vent my anger at my mother for missing my performance. When I received the first place ribbon, I forced a smile onto my face while silently fuming that I was accepting it alone.
When I was leaving, I noticed a police officer in the hallway. He looked up as I neared him, his face solemn, and I just knew.
"Edward Cullen?"
I swallowed hard, and nodded.
"Son, there's been an accident…"
I didn't listen much after that. Everything seemed fuzzy and dream-like. What I did catch was that my mother had skidded on black ice when she was rushing to see me. She had veered off the road, down an embankment, and flipped her car. She was now in a coma. No one knew if she'd wake up.
And it was my fault.
At the hospital, I met the swollen, blood-shot gaze of my father and felt the world around me crumble a little bit more.
"I can see it in your eyes, Edward. Don't blame yourself."
I shrugged noncommittally and asked if she was going to wake up.
"I have faith that she will."
And she did. She woke up four days later, paralysed from the neck down.
So for the next year, I didn't play the piano. I dropped out of the competitions I usually participated in. I didn't practice. I didn't care.
Just after Christmas during my senior year, I got several large envelopes in the mail. I'd lain in the bed my mother was practically confined to, put my head on her shoulder, and opened them so she could see. I'd been accepted, as a music major, to every school I'd applied to. She cried, silently, and I saw the pride in her eyes again. I wiped the tears from her cheeks and kissed her forehead.
Two weeks after my graduation day, my mother got pneumonia. She'd never been strong after the accident. She lasted two days with the infection ravaging her already ravaged body, and then she died, peacefully, in her sleep with my father in the bed next to her and Alice and me at her side.
We spread her ashes off of a cliff overlooking the ocean – a favourite spot of hers. A few days later, I went back with several sheets of paper in my hands. They were filled with musical notes.
"I wrote this for you, Mom. Finally. I'm sorry I didn't do it sooner. And…and I don't want anyone to hear it but you."
I released the papers from my hand and watched them scatter over the grassy cliff, caught in the ocean air. One by one they dropped over the edge and out of my sight. The last one took its time, caught on a long blade of grass, the writing at the top of the page waving at me in the breeze before it took the final plunge.
Esme's Lullaby
A/N: Thanks for reading! Don't forget to check out the other entries, and please review and vote!