Chapter 2

Bitter Memories

"Bella, come on love, it's time to hunt." His hand on my cheek startles me. I turn my eyes up to his, and they mirror my sadness. Eleazar was once a handsome man by any standards, but now he's a shadow of himself. It's not in his outward appearance, it's more like the spark has gone out of him. It's in the way he moves, as if he's walking through a river that threatens to wash him away. I know I have the same look. "We have to go now, it's almost time for the bears to enter hibernation."

"That sounds like a good idea. Maybe I should just find a way to hibernate." I try to smile, but I've forgotten how.

"Come on querida, we have to hunt for the safety of the people who live near us."

"I know." I tear my eyes away from the spot outside. It's far enough in the distance, my human eyes wouldn't have been able to see it. It's where I lost everything. It's where he died.

Eleazar takes my hand to pull me away from my window perch. He doesn't let go as we walk down the wooden steps of the modern log cabin. At the bottom they wait for us. Rosalie and Garrett, each standing as still as statuary. She doesn't meet my eyes, but Garrett smiles. She's afraid I'll see what's happening between them, and he doesn't care.

Emmett died the same day as my Edward, as did Garrett's mate Kate. Rosalie still bears the scars of her attempt to save Emmett from the flames. Half her beautiful face is withered and angry red, even two years afterward. She is healing, but it's a very slow process. She now parts her hair to one side, so it covers her face like a curtain.

I meet her eye, and the corners of my mouth pull up. It's as close to a smile as I can manage, but I don't want her to think I hold it against her. I know she loves Emmett, and I know she grieves for him as well. But Garrett the patriot has set his sights on Rose, and I know they spend time together. He'll be good for her, and I want to be happy for them. We've all lost so much, I couldn't possibly hold it against them if they're able to move forward.

As we turn to leave, Garrett's hand lightly rests on the small of her back. It reminds me painfully of how Edward would touch me. Again I wish I had tears – I miss him so much.

The air is crisp and cold as I pull it into my frozen lungs. We run. What would take humans days takes us only hours, and we near Canada without even noticing. We hunt in a pattern, allowing for populated areas as well as topography. We're conscientious not to over hunt an area. We're careful not to leave any trace that we've been there. Garrett takes down a large bear, and later Rosalie feeds on Moose. Eleazar follows the scent of a mountain lion, and I can't even help him trap the animal, as I'm overwhelmed with memories of Edward.

In the absence of tears, I scream. I remember the way he looked when he first told me his favorite meal was mountain lion – and Emmett liked bear. I shriek at the horror and unfairness. I wail at the overwhelming loss. How can I continue to exist like this when he's taken so much of me with him?

Her arm around my shoulders startles me to silence, and my voice echoes off the rocks and trees. Rosalie pulls me close and I clutch at her thin frame

"He's gone! I miss him so much. I love him, and everything reminds me of him. I don't know how to face forever without him, Rose. " It's not the first time she's had to comfort me. It's not even the twentieth. In fact, after the dust had settled over the war zone, we'd spent weeks just holding one another. We'd nestled together like two orphan kittens, each of us too grief stricken to even speak. And when we were finally able, we had no coherent thoughts or words, just floods of memories, pain, and loss.

Everyone left alive had to find a new reason to go on. The Volturi had brought with them the perfect means of vampire execution, and one of the nomads who'd lost his mate, ended his own life, rather than face his existence alone. For the first time ever, I'd felt I understood Victoria.

In fact Rosalie had chosen a purpose similar to Victoria's at first. She knew who had killed Emmett, and she planned to hunt her to the ends of the earth and make her suffer for it. Eleazar pointed out that I needed her, and so she'd put her mission of vengeance on hold. And even now I envy her, that she is starting to see life beyond her loss.

I pull away from her arms as I think of our daughter. She's the only reason I still exist. I miss her terribly, especially now that I've got a granddaughter and another grandchild on the way. I went home for the birth, and they'd named the baby Sarah Esme, for Jacob's mother and for the woman who'd died to protect her.

I wish I could stay in Forks, but it's too painful. Everywhere I go there are memories of him. He haunts Forks to the point I can't even function there. I went home for Nessie, and stayed in my old room at Charlie's house, unable to face the Cullen house and especially our cabin. Even my room was crowded with memories of him, but they were at least dim human recollections.

What makes me stay away from my family, even more than his memory, is their life. Renesmee and Jacob are young and strong, and they've begun their own family. My sadness doesn't fit into their world. If that wasn't enough, she looks enough like him, it sometimes hurts just to look at her. It's in the way she combs her hand through her hair, or that crooked smile she gives me. It's in her steady regard, and the shape of her mouth. He lives in her, but I can't have him back.

I stayed for two weeks, fighting my grief for the sake of my daughter and granddaughter. But after the baby was given a clean bill of health, and she was shown to be growing almost as a normal human baby, I left.

Of the Denali coven, there is only Eleazar and Garrett. It's clear the two men haven't really bonded, and they're like two marbles rattling around in the big glass backed log structure. Rosalie had gone with me to see Nessie's baby, but she left even before I did. It's strange how the Denali homestead has become a refuge to us, even though it's where all our dreams ended. It's like sadness and pain live there, and we fit right in.

Garrett is a survivor, and after his initial grief over losing Kate, he began putting himself back together with the force of his own will. I like him, and I admire his strength and determination. It's only been in the last few weeks that he's started subtly courting Rosalie. I hear them talking nightly, as they sit outside on the deck and look at the starry sky. I see the way he watches her when she walks into a room. And I've seen him hold her ruined face reverently in the palm of his hand as they shared a meaningful look.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to stay when they become a couple. I know it will happen, but I just don't know how to be in the presence of happiness anymore. Every smile, every laugh, every shared moment reminds me I'll never have that in my life again.

If Garrett is a survivor, Eleazar is not. Maybe he was once, but he's lost so much over the years, it's as if the foundation of his soul has been compromised. He's such a sweet and kind man, I really wish I had it in me to make a connection with him. But he's much older than I am, both as a vampire and as a human man. And I know he misses his wife Carmen as much as I miss Edward. We understand each other.

There was a moment a few weeks back, when we'd found ourselves in each others arms. I think we were bot desperate to try to somehow break out of the cycle of pain and suffering that held us. But as I held him, and felt his body pressed against mine, all I could think about was how he wasn't Edward. We'd pulled back and looked into each others eyes, and I knew he was thinking of Carmen, and how I wasn't her. I'd kissed his cheek, and he'd touched my face, light as a butterfly. There would never be anything between us but an understanding of sorrow.

He finishes his kill, and feeds. I'm last to hunt, and I think again about just letting myself waste away. They've had to remind me in the past that I'll lose control if I allow myself to get too hungry. I know they're right, but it just seems wrong to take the life of living things when I'm not living myself. We begin the trip back to Denali, and I hunt from a herd of caribou. There's no joy in it without him. In fact the remorse I feel over the death of the animal makes me wish I could actually become a vegetarian in truth and not just name.

Still it sustains me, and I feel stronger as I follow them at a run back to the house. As always, I run past the spot where it happened. It's like a sick compulsion for me to walk over the place where he was murdered. I'll never forget. I wish there was some way to obliterate vampire memory, but there isn't. I can still see his face, just before Marcus and Caius tore into him with teeth and claw-like fingers, giving him what he'd asked for eleven years earlier. I can still feel the way my own heart burned; as if they'd thrown it into the fire with his body. It was far worse than the burning of my conversion.

"Bella, please don't do this." It's Rosalie, and her concern tells me she's begun putting the past behind her. I just don't know how. I look at her golden eyes and let her lead me away from his macabre memorial. There wasn't even enough of him left to bury. If I hadn't seen him die with my own eyes I could convince myself that he'd disappeared. As if somehow he'd ascended to heaven like the angel I'd always known him to be.

She leads me back to the house where there's some old movie playing on the big TV. Garrett is a typical man, and he likes the action and adventure types of movies. It's hard to believe he's almost two hundred and fifty years old. With his hair loose, he looks like a rock star from twenty years back.

"I've had enough of these old movies! I think I've seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at least a hundred times." Rosalie complains as she swipes the remote, and that fast the screen goes blue and music pours from the speakers. Garrett moves fast, uncurling from the couch with catlike reflexes to wrestle her for the remote. I hear her first laugh in two years as she plays keep-away with the device. I hurry up to my room. It's started, and it won't be long now. I hear the music continue to play, as I turn on the computer. It's not enough to drown out their laughter.

I send an email to Carlisle. My request is simple, but the letter is hard to write. He's still in Italy, and I remember how Edward and I took in all the typical tourist attractions from dusk to dawn. I don't worry about the pleasantries, since he knows very well the reason behind my request.

He surprises me with an answer even before I close down my email. Yes, he would arrange for me to visit Esme Island. I stare at her name in the message before me. I wonder if I'll ever get past the pain and guilt I feel at her loss. She may have wanted to be seen as a mother, but she'd been more of a friend to me than a parent. I hear a laugh from below, and I draw my knees up and hug them where I sit. I miss her. Worse, I still feel guilt that she died protecting my daughter when I wasn't able.

I wonder why he doesn't blame me. Carlisle has never said one word about what happened. He functions much better than I do. But Rosalie pointed out, he's only functioning. It's like he's on autopilot, and he continually stays busy.

I miss my friend Alice, though I doubt things will ever be the same between us. She may have survived, but I have only seen her once in two years, and even then she was distant. She's really not the same, even though she and Jasper both made it through the battle. I shake my head. It's as if everything in my life comes down to that one night and the aftermath. Everything I know can be neatly separated between my life before the war, and my existence after the war.

It takes a week for me to make my plans. It's a week I spend holed up in my room, listening to the blossoming romance between Rosalie and Garrett. When I stand in the foyer of the Denali home, I have one bag to take with me. I've packed light, and what I have are mostly books. I say my goodbyes, and note the way Rosalie and Garrett hold hands for a second, before she lets go self-consciously. Eleazar hugs me tight, and I wonder if I'll see him again.

I drive myself the miles to civilization and the airport. It takes a few stopovers to make it to the private plane waiting to take me to a lost and lonely paradise. I have to remind myself to move and act like a real person when I'm around humanity. I don't talk to anyone on the flights or on the ground, but some still try to engage me. After all my human years of feeling like I was plain and didn't fit in, I've got supernatural beauty. How ironic that I now realize how little it matters. It shocks me that men approach me, and on one flight a man sitting beside me comments on my lovely perfume. I stare blankly through him, and he gets the message.

The float plane arrives in the late afternoon, and I'm dressed appropriately to cover all my skin. From beneath my wide hat, I tell the pilot I've got a skin condition and can't be exposed to direct sunlight. He he makes a noise a human wouldn't hear, and rolls his eyes. I almost smile.

We touch down in the water, and coast to the end of the dock where I can get out. I know the caretakers will have cleaned the house, and turned on the power. There's no real need to stock it with groceries, but I know it will be stocked anyway. As the pilot gets out to help me, I hop out and take my one bag. I tip him with gloved hands, and thank him. I think he might want to carry my bag to the house, but I don't want the attention.

I watch as he heads the plane to calmer waters, then I watch him take off. I kick off my shoes, and take off the hat and extra clothes on the way, leaving a trail to the bungalow. I pause at the door to the house, and remember Edward carrying me across the threshold twelve years before. I unlock the door and step into my honeymoon hideaway. The grief crouches in waiting just beyond the door. It pounces and tears into me as I remember how my marriage began here. Our daughter was conceived here. And now, more than anything, it reminds me that my life is empty.

I drop everything in the doorway and run. I circle the island at a sprint, and even at that speed I can't outrun the memories. The floodgates are open, and I'm drowning in thoughts of him. Back at the house again, I enter and close the door. The bed isn't the same, and that's a blessing. I lie here and stare at the unpainted wood ceiling. Along with Edward, I can see Esme here as well. She chose the palm fan circling overhead. She draped the canopy bed in sheer romantic white fabric. She painted the painting on the wall of two hands clasped before a sunset. And she chose the colorful throw rugs scattered over the dark hardwood floors.

I can't stay here, and it will be three days before the new caretakers come to check on me. The only way back to the mainland now, is to swim. As soon as I remove all evidence I was even here, I lock the door and return the key to its hiding place. On the other side of the island there's a rise that looks out over the water. Twelve years before, Edward and I sat there and watched a school of dolphins swim by one evening. I go there and sit alone. I watch the sun make its way across the sky, and when it's dark, I feel the wind coming off the ocean.

In the morning I watch the sun lighten the sky in shades of lavender and pink. I can smell the flowers blooming somewhere toward the center of the island. I feel a little stiff, so I stand and stretch, then sit back down and watch the day pass.