Happy
The sun was low in the sky. The tall trees around our New Hampshire home filtered the sunlight onto the garden, so that every so often Esme's skin would sparkle. I marveled at the way the sparkles seemed to dance across the garden, and occasionally caught myself staring in awe at my own skin when rays of sun caught it in their light.
"These are so pretty," Esme sighed, softly touching the white rose bud. I was doing correspondence school at Dartmouth while the other Cullen children were taking classes on campus. Consequently, I was bored a lot of the day, and with Carlisle at work, Esme became my companion during the school hours. She had taken me on hunting trips when needed, and to pass the time, we either decorated the new home or gardened. Today we had been working in the beds next to the wrap-around porch, planting pink and white roses. Roses are very tricky to grow, but Esme was a talented gardener, and as a result, the roses were thriving.
"That's enough gardening for today, what do you think?" her hands were on her hips. Her soft but proud face turned towards me, smudges of dirt contrasting with her pale skin.
"Yeah. The roses are coming in really nicely." I replied. Esme nodded.
"Is there anything else you want to do today? We have about," she checked her watch, "an hour before they get home."
I thought, but then shook my head. It was so lovely in the garden, I just wanted to stay here and talk with Esme. We didn't get much of a chance to really talk, unless it was about furniture, color schemes, or which flowers should go in which beds. "No, not really. Just relax I guess." Esme breathed in deeply. Then she sat down on a white bench, facing the setting sun.
"Okay," she patted the space next to her, and I sat down. Esme was great to spend time with, she was always busy, but also easy going, a nice combination. "Is there anything you want to talk about?"
"Kind of," I said slowly. While we'd been gardening, I had been worrying. Mostly about forgetting my human life. As a vampire now, I remembered everything. It was like I could play perfect videos in my head, very specific and exact videos, with not a detail out of place. But these memories were much stronger than my human memories, and the human memories were becoming vague. "Esme, how much of your human life do you remember?"
"I remember events that happened. But I couldn't tell you specific things that people said, or go into very much detail. Carlisle helps me remember some of it, he was a vampire when he found me, and remembers details better than I did. He reminds me of things that happened and I try and remember as much as I can every day and hope it sticks in my more permanent memory," she said.
My head tilted slightly to the left. I was curious. I didn't know much about how she and Carlisle met. "When did Carlisle find you?" I questioned.
She actually laughed out loud here. "I met Carlisle for the first time when I was sixteen. It was more coincidence than anything, you see, I had broken my leg. We met briefly, but he left town within the month."
"And you met again later?"
"Yes," she was looking at the sun creating pink and orange stripes across the sky. "Much later. A lot of things had changed the second time we met." Her usually soft face had set into a hard expression. I was very curious now, but wary. I didn't want Esme to tell me a story that she'd rather keep to herself, I didn't want to be nosy. But if she wanted to tell me, I would let her. "I should explain better," her face relaxed a little, but the hardness was still in her eyes.
"I was born in 1895 in Columbus, Ohio."
"So you're older than Edward?" I asked.
"Yes, technically I'm older, but I was changed later than he was. My full name was Esme Anne Platt, and my family lived on a farm on the outskirts of Columbus. My childhood was a happy one, but I don't remember it well, up until 1911, and I remember this mostly because Carlisle reminded me of it later." she smiled affectionately upon saying his name. "When I was 16, I had been climbing a tree, and I fell out of it from a long way up. We had to go into the city for a doctor because the local doctor's office was closed already. It was late, and by the time we got into town, it was even later. Carlisle was working night shifts, and so I was to be treated by a doctor Cullen," she smiled again, reminiscing. "He was nice. He was very nice, and also very attractive. Whenever he smiled at me it made me so happy, and I hardly even knew him yet, all I knew was that he made me happy."
I understood how she felt. When Edward had avoided me the first day we met, I felt terrible, but when he was nice to me, I was so happy, before I even knew him very well.
"From that moment on, I could not get Doctor Carlisle Cullen out of my mind. It was weird, and I told myself to stop thinking about him, he was thirty-five after all, and he was leaving. While putting my cast on, he told me that he was moving in about two weeks. I felt terrible. Even though I knew I'd probably never see him again anyways, I just didn't want him to move," she sighed in a troubled way, "but he did move, and I kept on thinking about him."
This made sense to me as well. Even when I thought Edward hated me, when he tried to switch out of our Biology class, and when he was absent from school for those next few days, I thought about him constantly.
I nodded and Esme continued with her story.
"But I had to stop thinking about him. At 17, all of my friends were beginning to get married. I never considered marriage as an option for me, especially with Carlisle gone. He felt like the only man for me. Instead I thought it'd be a good idea to become a teacher, maybe move out West, but my father refused to let me do this, and in those days, I couldn't exactly go against my father's wishes. He thought that a woman should not live alone, that was very abnormal for the day, so I stayed in town. I realized that if Father thought I should not be living alone, I would have to be married, and soon. Finally in 1917, at age twenty-two, a very late age to be married, Charles Evenson proposed to me after asking for my father's blessing. My father was enthusiastic about me taking Charles Evenson's hand, and encouraged me to do it, and so we were married," Esme's face was now not only hard, but also dark and solemn.
"What was wrong with him?" I wondered in a soft voice.
"Nothing. Yet. At the time, I thought that if I couldn't have Carlisle, Charles was a good choice for a husband. His family was well-to-do, and he had the potential to go far in life. I was willing to try being married to him. I was not wild about him, but I didn't hate him or anything, at the time. That soon changed. My clearest human memory, besides the memory of becoming a vampire, is Charles coming home from work one day, shortly after we'd been married." Esme's face clouded over, and I felt frightened. I had not seen this side of her before. Her voice hushed.
"He had had a bad day. I could tell when he walked in. I remember thinking that now was my chance to be a good wife, to cook him dinner, talk to him and cheer him up. But this didn't happen. Charles was a violent man, and his temper got the better of him. He abused me. And not just that day, but any time he had a bad day, he took out his anger on me." I was shocked, this was something I would have never guessed about Esme. All of the Cullens were like this, they had something dark in their pasts that I never would've guessed, but needed to know.
"I told my parents about it. My mother especially, I thought that she would help me escape, but instead both of them told me that I was obviously not a very good wife and should try harder to make him happy. I tried to make him happy, I honestly tried so hard, as long as he was happy, he wouldn't hurt me, but he had a temper, and it was impossible to keep that man happy." Esme's voice had become a throaty whisper.
"Oh, Esme, I'm so sorry." Her compassionate smile returned, the pain still lingering in her eyes.
"It's okay Bella. My past might have been rough, but I'm very happy with my life now. Everything's better, so please, don't worry or feel sorry for me. Thankfully, shortly after we were married, he was shipped overseas to fight in World War One, and it was quite a relief to see him go. I wished for him to die in that war, I wished that he'd never return and that I'd be a widow. Of course, that would interfere with my plans for having children, but I hated him so much. And he didn't die." She shook her head. " He returned two years later in 1919. I was terrified, but also slightly grateful, because soon after he returned home, I got pregnant and I was overjoyed. But Charles continued to abuse me," her voice saddening. "Even while I carried his baby, he didn't seem to care how much he hurt me and his child.
"So I ran away. I went to Milwaukee to live with my second cousin Ramona and her husband Ivan. But their daughter Maya wrote to my parents, and let it slip that I was staying with them. She was very little, you see, and didn't know that it was supposed to be kept a secret that I was living there. So I moved even further North to Ashland. I was twenty-six at the time. I started to teach kids like I'd wanted to. About a month later was when my baby was born. A boy. I named him Matthew."
I knew what happened next.
"I could tell that there was something wrong with him, but the doctors couldn't treat whatever it was fast enough. He was so tiny."
This was the first time as a vampire that I had wanted to cry. I felt a tingling behind my eyes, but without any tears to fall, the sensation was uncomfortable and frustrating.
"I had lost everything. First Carlisle, then the chance at a family, and now my baby. I took a walk to calm myself after the funeral. It was the same time of day that it was the last time I'd seen Carlisle, late afternoon, and I desperately wanted to see him again. I saw a cliff. I jumped without really thinking. It hurt, a lot. Then after being brought to the hospital it hurt even more." Her transformation. "It was unimaginable pain. I just wanted it over with, this life, and instead, I was suffering even more. I lived in that pain for three days, only thinking about my little Matthew and Carlisle, two people I really didn't know at all, but I felt so connected to them both. I thought of what a happy family we would make." She laughed. "But instead of Matthew it was Edward who was my son in that happy family."
"My first vampire memory is of opening my eyes, and the first thing I saw was Carlisle's face, apprehensive but full of happiness. The first thing I heard was his voice asking me "Are you okay?" And the first thing I felt was happiness. Pure and complete happiness."
She shut her eyes and smiled to herself. We were both breathing slowly, deep in thought, basking in happiness, watching the sun set even lower in the sky.
"We're home!" I heard Alice squeal, rocketing outside to join us, Jasper following behind her grinning. Rosalie, Emmett, Edward, and Carlisle walked outside after them.
Edward kissed me on the cheek. "How was your day?"
"Good," I murmured. "Yours?"
"Good as well."
I got up from the bench to let Carlisle sit down. He put his arm around Esme and she relaxed into him.
"C'mere Bella!" Emmett called. He and Jasper had recently been training me to be a good fighter. I normally didn't win, but I was getting better. After fighting both of them a few times and winning once against Emmett, we all sat down and watched Jasper and Alice fight.
They were very entertaining to watch, Jasper had the best strategy and Alice with her power. It was rare that Jasper managed to fool Alice. After Alice had beaten him for a third time and everybody was laughing, I looked back at Esme, still sitting with Carlisle.
She beamed at me. I smiled in return.
I felt her happiness. We all did.
If you liked this story, please read my other stories for Twilight. First Light, a story about Alice's past, and An Eternity to Live, a conversation between the Cullens before Bella's change.