"Bella?" Charlie's eyes flickered to my impassive face. I opened my mouth to respond but no words escaped.
Charlie turned a questioning glance towards Jane, who had dropped her fake smile and rearranged her expression to show she meant to get down to business.
"Mr. Swan, I spoke with you on the phone. We are doing the transfer today." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Jane raised her hand and poked me sharply in the back.
I jumped forward awkwardly, colliding into Charlie and causing him to stumble backwards against the door. He composed himself quickly, reaching out uncertainly to offer me a shaking hand. I recoiled, feeling a surge of heat in my cheeks and the tips of my ears. Perceiving my distress, Charlie turned his face promptly away and led us to a surprisingly homey living room. There was an uncomfortable tension in all his stiff gestures as he motioned for us to sit on the worn sofa. He in turn, sat on the edge of the coffee table and rested his hands on his knees.
Jane immediately began talking but I drowned out as much of it as I could. I tried to imagine that she was speaking of someone else. The unfeeling tone of her voice as she described my pathetic life barely touched me. I didn't even flinch when I heard words like addict, emaciated, and neglect falling from her lips. She spoke as if she was in essence, reading a grocery list, reducing my life to a horrifying list of one word adjectives.
While Jane pulled a handful of papers out of her briefcase and handed them to Charlie, I couldn't stop my curious eyes from examining my father more closely. I was relieved to see that he had a kind face. His sharp, brown eyes were lightly lined with wrinkles and he had a wide, brown mustache. I imagined that he might look younger without the mustache and that it was possibly hiding a thin upper lip like my own.
He was trim and muscular, thankfully without the hard, wasted, look that Phil had. I couldn't help but wonder if I resembled him and discreetly searched for similarities. There was something familiar in his posture, and in the line of his jaw. Though his hair was graying slightly, its color and texture was similar to mine.
He caught me looking at him and smiled shyly at me. I realized with a start that he was clearly just as nervous and uncertain as I was. My instincts told me to trust him and I tried to push all the feelings of dread to the back of my mind. But I was still riddled with doubt. Did he really want me here? I had no where else to go but I was used to taking care of myself and I could continue to do so. I would wait and see.
I was tangled up in my own thoughts and fears when I realized Jane and my father were both standing up and heading for the door. I followed like a ghost, feeling invisible for the moment. My father walked down to the rental car and hoisted the small, dirty suitcase that housed all my possessions out of the trunk. He slammed the trunk shut and then turned without ceremony to shake Jane's hand. He walked back towards me with the suitcase in one hand as Jane drove away leaving us alone.
"Come on in, Bella," Charlie said as he lightly placed his hand on my shoulder, encouraging me to go back inside the house.
He carried my bag up the stairs, gesturing me to follow. I shifted forward on my toes, my body automatically responding, and climbed the stairs behind him.
When I reached the landing on the second floor, I saw Charlie's silhouette in one of the rooms and headed that way. He had put my suitcase on the floor and he was standing with his hands on his hips, his face twisted in thought. He watched me approach.
Without hesitation he spoke, "Bella, this will be your room. When I found out you were coming I went out and got a few things. I hope you like purple," he said as he motioned to the purple bedding.
I wasn't ready to talk yet so I just nodded my head sheepishly. To hide my nerves, I swept my eyes across the room, taking in small details like the white desk in the corner and the empty bulletin board hanging crookedly on the wall. I resisted the strong urge to steal a glimpse in Charlie's direction and avoided meeting his gaze. He shifted anxiously from one foot to the other, clearing his throat to draw my attention to him.
"Um, well, I'll just let you get settled. And then when you feel up to it, I guess we should talk, okay?"
Luckily for me in my mute stupor, Charlie seemed to sense that I needed some time to figure things out. He didn't bother to wait for me to respond before he walked out of the room and went back down the stairs.
When I heard the calming mumble of television voices drifting up from the living room, I collapsed on the bed and curled up into a tight ball, wrapping my arms around me protectively. I felt a surge of self-pity and tearless sobs tore from my chest. A gust of wind caused the windows to rattle in their frames, mirroring the tremors in my body.
Soon my eyelids became so heavy I couldn't keep them open and I easily succumbed to the complete exhaustion of my mind and body. My last thought as I slipped into oblivion was how odd it was to be in this house that so closely resembled what I'd always dreamed of having. But Renee wasn't here and I was never going to see her again. The cold wind outside whipped up into a frenzy, aggressively lapping at the house. As I pulled my arms more tightly around me, I felt my loss acutely.
I was startled when I awoke, surprised to find myself still in Charlie's house in Forks, the angry wind was still lashing around outside. My mind was so muddled it seemed the whole thing might have been a dream. Yet I was used to waking up and feeling disoriented. I had moved around so much in my life that I had to be adaptable. But there were certain things that I always had control of, that always had to be the same in order for me to retain my sanity.
I needed to have a shower each morning and I always washed my hair with my favorite drug-store brand strawberry shampoo. No matter where we lived or where I slept, I always put my tattered, dog-eared copy of Pride and Prejudice next to my bed and tucked my shabby, well-loved teddy bear, Bubba, next to my pillow. Bubba had been with me since I was two years old. Unable yet to articulate clearly, I had ingeniously saddled him with the closest name I could come to "Bear Bear" which ended up as "Bubba."
Renee had bought Bubba for me at a happier time and he always made me feel a little safer in even some of the most unstable living situations we had faced. The only other possession that I had somehow managed to hang on to through all our transient living was a fuzzy, pink blanket that some friend of Renee's long ago knitted for me when I was a baby. It was much too small and thin to provide any real warmth or comfort but I couldn't sleep without it. Even a cold, hard floor could transform into a makeshift bed when I had my pink blanket wrapped around me.
So the first thing I did when I woke up in my new bedroom was to pull all of my things out of my suitcase and arrange them where I needed them to be. It didn't take long for me to organize my few belongings. As soon as I was done, I grabbed some clothes from my suitcase and scurried quietly out into the hall with my strawberry shampoo in hand, searching for the bathroom.
The bathroom wasn't hard to find; it was sandwiched between the only two rooms on the second floor. I was happy to find that even though it was a small and very old fashioned bathroom, it was meticulously clean. White and black hexagonal tiles decorated both the cold floors and the shower walls. There were two towels hanging on the only towel rack, a threadbare, pale yellow towel nestled tightly against a pristine, fluffy, purple one. I ran my hands over the soft fibers of the new towel. I couldn't ever remember using a new towel before.
I climbed into the foreign shower and imagined, like I always did, that the ugliness of my life would simply wash away down the drain. The water was so hot that it was almost painful as it pelted my shoulders. But it made me feel almost alive again and thawed me enough to give me a small scrap of courage with which to cling. As I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself up in a new fluffy, purple towel, I felt for the first time that perhaps I had polished off some of my grime.
I finally felt like I was ready to officially meet the man who, up until a few days previously, was completely absent from my life. I hoped he wouldn't immediately be able to see my weaknesses. I wanted to believe that I didn't need him but I was also well aware of the fact that I didn't have anywhere else to go.
I didn't want to have any expectations of Charlie, but I still couldn't deny that I had an overwhelming curiosity to find out more about him. What had happened between him and Renee? Why had he never been part of my life? Did he ever try to find me? Did he even want me now? I feared that deep down I desperately longed for him to like me, to want me, maybe even to love me. But I wouldn't let him know. I had to be strong or else crumble like a million little shards of glass.
The stairwell was shrouded in darkness as I nervously descended. I smelled an acrid burning scent billowing out of the kitchen and realized with a jolt of surprise that Charlie was making dinner. No one had really ever made me dinner before and I was hungry; I couldn't remember when I had last eaten. My stomach growled and I instantly felt the pangs of hunger as I slowly made my way into the kitchen. I felt small and alien as I moved forward, my eyes affixed to the floral pattern etched in the vinyl floor tiles.
"Oh Bella!" Charlie jumped, startled by my presence, dropping a wooden spoon and splattering tomato sauce across the floor and on the front of the oven door.
I felt a stab of guilt for making him so uncomfortable and ran forward to grab the spoon. In my clumsiness I didn't notice that Charlie bent over at the same time to reach for the spoon and our heads banged together painfully.
"Ow," Charlie said as he steadied himself and rubbed the sore spot on his forehead.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," I blurted as I picked up the spoon and tried to back away from the mess I had made, tripping over my feet.
I stifled the tears that threatened to fall. Stupid Bella. I was overcome with anguish and embarrassment, about to give in to the instinct to flee the scene when Charlie started to laugh. I raised my eyes to catch his gaze and was again surprised by the warmth I recognized there. His laugh was so genuine and heartfelt, his entire face animated, and his eyes so kind that I couldn't resist smiling shyly back at him.
"Please tell me you can cook, Bella. Because I am clearly a disaster in the kitchen," he said chuckling. He opened a drawer and pulled out a clean wooden spoon, trading me for the dirty one.
"Perhaps you can save dinner," he said as he grabbed a dishtowel and wiped up the floor in front of the stove.
I turned my attention to the pots cooking on the stovetop just as the telephone rang. Charlie nodded reassuringly at me before he left, I assumed to answer the ringing in another, more private room.
The tomato sauce demanded my attention. It was bubbling and spattering angrily. I gave it a stir and found that it was only slightly scorched on the bottom. I turned down the burner to a low simmer and then glanced over the stovetop to assess the rest of the dinner preparations.
A large stockpot was full of boiling water, ready to receive the package of spaghetti that Charlie had left out on the counter. I salted the water with a shaker I found on the shelf above the stove and carefully placed the pasta in the pot. After stirring the bubbling sauce a little more, I scooped up a spoonful and carefully tasted it, sucking just a little bit off the tip of the wooden spoon. It had a residual charred tang to it but not so bad that I couldn't fix it with some spices. I scanned the shelf where I had found the salt and spotted some oregano, basil and garlic powder. I added a bit of each to the tomato mixture along with another pinch of salt.
As I stirred, the familiarity of the motion helped calm my racing heart. I listened for sounds of Charlie and could hear bits and pieces of his conversation from the other room. I was pretty sure that I heard my name a few times, and though I was interested to hear what he had to say, I felt like I had to respect his privacy. I wanted to deserve to be here.
While the pasta finished cooking, I figured that I had better acquaint myself with the kitchen as I presumed I might be doing most of the cooking while living here. That is if Charlie decided to keep me. I opened up several cabinet doors before I found the plates, glasses, and silverware. Though none of Charlie's things were fancy or new, I was relieved to see that the cabinets were stocked and everything was clean and well organized.
Feeling like I might be overstepping my bounds, I hesitantly opened the refrigerator and catalogued its contents. I could tell from the sparse contents that Charlie liked beer, Rainer to be specific, and that he ate out almost exclusively. Except for two six packs and a few take out containers, a carton of milk, and a loaf of white bread, the refrigerator was empty. I took a few more minutes to map out the rest of the kitchen. Then, after a quick check to see that the pasta was ready, I plated our dinners and set them on the small round table by the window.
Just as I was beginning to fret about going out to the other room to let Charlie know that dinner was ready, he walked into the kitchen and smiled contentedly at the table. For a brief moment I swelled with pride and a sense of relief that I had pleased him. I felt the ice around my heart melt just a little more.
"This is just…great, Bella," he said as he sat down at the table. I stood fixed in place, trying to memorize every detail of this unusual night, until I realized Charlie was looking at me, waiting for me to join him.
I blushed at being caught in my reverie, dropped my eyes back to studying the floor and shuffled over to the table. I prayed that Charlie hadn't caught the hope and expectation in my expression before I had rearranged my features. I needed him to know that I knew I didn't deserve much and that I wouldn't be any trouble. I sat down in the chair opposite him and opened my mouth to speak the words that kept repeating themselves in my mind. I needed to let him know.
"I don't expect anything," I said in a weak voice that I immediately despised.
I picked up my fork nervously and concentrated on swirling a strand of spaghetti around the tines so that I didn't have to see Charlie's reaction. Before I could raise the bite to my mouth, a firm hand reached out and gently but urgently grabbed my wrist, drawing my gaze upward.
"Look at me Bella. I finally have my chance with you and I'm not going to blow it, okay? I am here for you as long as you need me. You have been through some horrible stuff and I only wish…that well…I wish that I could have helped you sooner." He shook my wrist lightly, narrowing his eyes at me with a scrutinizing look and asked pointedly, "Do you understand me?"
I looked up at his face and nodded, so filled with warring emotions that a measured bob of the head was the only response I was capable of giving. I was more than overwhelmed by Charlie's declaration and tried with all my might to hold back the tears that threatened to spill. No one had ever said anything like that to me before and I didn't know how to react. Though I still was wary of my security, I couldn't help but feel immense relief at sincerity of Charlie's words.
I swallowed deeply, letting the tension melt away and took a bite of my pasta. Charlie took a bite too.
"This is really good, Bella. Thank you," he said, willing me to look up again.
"You're welcome," I managed to respond in my new squeaky, uncertain voice.
We ate the rest of our dinner in silence, neither of us desiring to bring up what needed to be said. An insurmountable gap still remained between us and I wasn't entirely ready to jump across it yet.
After dinner I automatically rose to clear the dishes from the table and began to rinse them in the sink. I could sense Charlie behind me before he actually made his presence known. He was being as careful around me as I was around him. We were two strangers thrust into an incredibly awkward situation, and I could only hope to be as little a disruption to his life as possible so that he didn't change his mind about me.
"You don't have to do that," Charlie said as he placed his hand lightly on my shoulder.
I tried to hide my instinctual reaction to the strangeness of his touch but he removed his hand quickly. I shrugged my shoulders and craned my head to look at him so that he could see my face.
"No. I want to," I said in the tiny wounded voice that I couldn't seem to shake, wiping the plate I held with the soapy sponge.
"Well, okay, thanks," Charlie responded and I could see him out of the corner of my eye opening the refrigerator and pulling out a can of beer.
He disappeared to the living room and I heard the television click on. I recognized the sounds of the nightly sports report, a broadcaster expertly recalling the highlights from a baseball game. I could hear bits of numbers, scores and statistics, and the energized roar of the spectators in the background.
Knowing that Charlie was sufficiently occupied, I relaxed into my task at hand; I dropped my shoulders and exhaled. I slowly and methodically continued washing all the dishes, drying them off completely, putting them tidily away in their respective spots.
As I made my way out to the living room, I felt my nerves return. Finding Charlie slumped back casually on the couch was somehow comforting and I could feel the sharp edges of my façade beginning to dull a little. I was anxious to see what life was going to be like for me here and I found it surprisingly easy to trust Charlie a bit more with each interaction I had with him. He was thoughtful, he didn't hover, and he seemed like he intuitively knew what I needed. I understood that he was being careful and he was giving me time to adjust. I needed time.
When Charlie heard me walk in, he reached for the remote and muted the sound. He patted the couch next to him and I complied.
"I know we both need time to adjust to things," he said as though he plucked the thought straight from my brain, "but there are a few issues that we have to discuss."
"First, I enrolled you into school at Forks High. You'll be starting there on Monday. And I know that we maybe need to do some shopping…for school stuff and groceries and anything else you might need. We can go tomorrow, okay?"
I nodded to let him know that his words were acceptable, but my head was spinning with new thoughts. I was trying to imagine where we would go shopping, what I might need, and meals that I would cook for Charlie.
Out of nowhere an image of Renee's thin body popped unwittingly into my head. I remembered how, on the morning of her death, I was planning to stop by the grocery store for some ingredients to make her dinner. I wanted to make her healthy again; I wanted to save her. But, I was too late.
My mind reeled from the impact of the memory and I realized with some consternation that Charlie was still talking. It was so hard to keep my thoughts focused. It had only been a short time since Renee's death but already so much had changed. I tried to imagine that my life before had simply been a horrible nightmare. I drew some internal strength from this fabrication, shoving the wretched memory to the back of my mind and returning to the present moment.
"Um…," Charlie paused; he was waiting, being considerate and careful, very careful with me. He was hesitant to continue and, even in my distraction, I could tell he was pushing out words that he didn't want to speak.
"That woman from Social Services…um, Jane…she said that you should go to counseling…and well, I think it's a good idea. And I'm going to find someone for you to talk to. I will call the hospital tomorrow and talk to Dr. Cullen to get a recommendation," he leaned back further on the couch cushions, sighing in relief. "Well, I guess that's it for now. You figure out what you need…I mean…to buy tomorrow."
He was staring at me questioningly, waiting for my response. I stood gawking silently, my fears and anxieties paralyzing me from the inside out.
I said the only thing that I could think to say, "Okay."
Charlie smiled at me then and I had to look away; I feared that my emotions were transparent. I knew that they were written clearly on my face. Could he see my aching need to be wanted, to be loved, and to have the pieces of my heart put back together? He cleared his throat, trying to pull my attention back to him.
"You must be tired. Maybe you'd like to spend some time in your room…making your list?"
As I processed Charlie's words I realized that going to my room was exactly what I wanted to do and felt thankful to him for giving me some direction. I took a small step toward the stairs.
"Okay," I said again.
God, he must think I am stupid since I can't seem to sputter out more than one word at a time. I panicked at the thought that he might think badly of me and blurted "thank you" as I took the first step on the landing.
I climbed the rest of the stairs thinking that, for the first time in my fifteen years of life, not only did I have a father and a house but I had my own room. Out of no where, I felt a flare of anger towards Renee. Why did she deny me all of this? And why did she have to die in order for me to finally meet my father?
As soon as the anger came it passed and I settled in bed for the night, wrapping the purple comforter snugly around me like a blanket of guilt and shame. Ugh! My thoughts were so muddled. One moment I was angry, the next I felt extreme guilt, and I was almost always scared. What did life hold for me? What sort of difficulty would tomorrow bring and how was I going to deal with it all? Most importantly, how was I going to convince Charlie to love me when I felt so unlovable?