Just my second Twilight piece… written in sort of hurry in time for OH MY GOODNESS, EDWARD'S 107th BIRTHDAY! I love stories that explore Edward as a human, though I've never found too many (feel free to leave an advertisement if you know of one) so I hope I do the concept justice! Review/critique… whatever suits your fancy! Enjoy!
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While my mother begged me to allow her to invite over guests for the evening, I insisted on a family dinner instead. It was only my seventeenth birthday after all, not a great milestone like eighteen or twenty-one.
After eating a brief meal, Mother, Father, Grandmother Masen – visiting from Wisconsin – and I sat for a moment discussing W. Somerset Maugham's transition from a playwright to a novelist.
"Are you ready, Mrs. Masen?" asked our maid with a smile, poking her head around the white swinging door.
"Ready?" my Father repeated. "Elizabeth, what are you planning?"
My Mother beamed, so proud of herself for having surprised all of us. "You'll see!"
And so we did. As if I was turning nine years-old again, the maid carried from the kitchen a white cake with a large candle in the center.
"Thank you, Anna," I mumbled, smiling. I can not be positive I was heard clearly though, for a round of, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" began by the four others in the room. While they sang, I looked around at the faces of my family. Mother was still smiling, a few blonde curls tinged with silver clinging to her forehead in the June heat, her hands clasped together and her wedding ring glittering by candle light. Father, too, was smiling, though perhaps more at Mother's enthusiasm than at the event. Grandmother Masen had the more serious expression, perhaps concentrating greatly on remembering the lyrics.
At the end of the song, I clapped, rolling my eyes sarcastically at the unnecessary exuberance of their song.
"Now make a wish, darling," breathed Mother.
"Mother," I began to complain, "Really, I'm not a child—"
"Edward," she pleaded. "Its tradition!"
Sighing, I suppose I could have merely paused, faked a wish and then blown out the candle but I decided instead to give in to a more childish nature in the spirit of the occasion.
I thought of my earlier statement. "Seventeen is not a particularly special birthday, Mother. Let's just have a simple dinner." In a moment of intimate honesty though, my Mother sighed and expressed her logic for wanting to make my seventeenth birthday so important.
I knew it was the concern of every Mother across the country, but it hurt me to hear her express her thoughts on the matter in her own way. "You'll be turning eighteen next year," she reminded me. "Either way, college or off to enlist, Edward, you're leaving me. You're seventeenth birthday is the last one I'll have with you as my little boy," she smiled, tears threatening to invade her green eyes, my natural inheritance from her.
I shut my eyes dramatically, opening up one quickly to shoot a glance at Mother, and then closed it again. I wish for this year to go by both fast and slow. I wish to turn eighteen, yet I dread it simultaneously. I wish for my future to be purposeful, no matter where I go, or what I decide to do.
Out went the candle.
Insistent on doing everything herself for the occasion, my mother refused the help of Anna and began to pull the candles out of the cake herself and cut it.
"Ridiculous, German tradition," muttered my Father.
Irritated that my father brought politics in to such a calm evening, I leaned against the table, pinching the bridge of my nose. I waited for a moment for my mother to comment as she normally did upon any mention of the war in Europe and my involvement in it at my coming of age, but after a moment of silence I suppose she either ignored the comment or simply missed it.
"Actually, blowing out candles on a cake has Grecian roots."
"Is that so, Edward?" asked Grandmother Masen, smiling.
"It was an offering to the Goddess of the Moon," I explained. "A cake – being round – with candles mirrors the circular image of the moon. The candles sent a signal, or a prayer, straight up to Artemis."
"Entirely inappropriate for your birthday, then," laughed Grandmother.
"Why?" asked my Mother, looking up from the cover description of my new copy of Of Human Bondage from my pile of gifts.
"June 20," she said, by means of explanation. "The day of the summer solstice."
Trying not to seem ignorant of a fact everyone at the table clearly knew but her, she smiled and nodded as if she knew exactly what we meant. Though, I could read her expression very clearly and see that she was terribly confused what a solstice was. As to not embarrass her, I began rambled as if for my own benefit.
"You're right, Grandmother," I said, though directing my words more to my mother. "I did not need candles to the Goddess of the Moon on the longest day of the year, when the sun rises earlier and sets later than any other day."
"And just think," started Father. "Next year you'll be eighteen. A man."
I laughed. "Yes. Eighteen! Just think of it."