Chapter 2:
One Part Awkward; Four Parts Perfect
There is a beauty to be discovered in the awkwardness of a child's posture.
Although they may assemble their tiny bodies into different positions throughout the day, there is a lingering quality that uniquely colors every movement and stance. It is four parts awkward; one part perfect.
Watching her granddaughter struggle to tie her shoes on the last step of the basement staircase, Esme couldn't help but think Renesmee was the reciprocal of this particular rule.
She was one part awkward; four parts perfect.
She defied the natural balance of the earth's axis, with the feathery weight of her body perched on the edge of the step, with the natural bend of her pudgy knees, and with the way her bottom lip pooched out as she concentrated on the knots of her shoelaces.
Esme offered to help, but Nessie liked to be independent. She was so much like her dear father in that way.
"Remember the bunny ears, Nessie."
Surprisingly agile little fingers finally managed to twirl the pale pink laces into something cohesive. Twin loops came together, and like magic, they were entwined... albeit too loose to last for more than a few steps. But Esme would never let her trip.
The garage was humid and it smelled like gasoline. Nessie didn't like the smell of gasoline. If her shoelaces came untied, they got all gray and scummy when she dragged them on the ground. It was much nicer when someone was there to carry her.
Esme lifted her into the car, even when the child insisted she could climb in by way of her own strength. She was tucked into her special car seat with the purple dragonflies on it, and was supplied with a Tupperware cup full of Cheerios to keep her content for the ride. Sometimes the trick worked; sometimes it didn't.
Nessie favored her grandmother's car above all the rest of her family's. Sure, Uncle Emmett's jeep was cool, and Aunt Alice's Porsche was fast, but there was a flashy feminine quirk, an indefinable quality about Esme's classy Cadillac. It was shiny, candy-apple red, with velvety interior seats that matched the outside.
Sometimes Nessie preferred the leather interior of her father's car because it didn't make the inside of the car so hot... But the velvety seats were so much prettier. And that was all that really mattered to a little girl when it came to comfort.
The car was stuffy inside while Nessie waited for her air supply to return. So helpless she felt for that short span of seconds where her grandmother would walk around the car to get to the driver's seat. But once the front door was opened and Esme was buckled into her set, everything was safe again.
The sound of the car starting never failed to coax a squeal of excitement from Nessie. It was such a thrill not knowing where they might be off to today.
The car would move backwards suddenly, and the bright blinding light of the outside world streamed into the windows, washing away all stains of gray left behind by the garage. It was a different habitat out here – that slow reverse path, out of garage and into driveway was like a magical gateway between alternate dimensions. Dark to bright. Dirty to shiny. Cramp to cavernous.
Only the most acute of imaginations could deem such a simple thing "magical."
They drove for a while with nothing but woods on either side, but no matter how similar the pattern of trees looked, Nessie was able to memorize them all. And finally, when they emerged from the forest, they ventured down the residential streets of all too familiar houses. There was the big white brick house with the pretty bird bath out front. Then the small house with the dark brown roof and the porch in front. Then the house on the corner with the big purple tree by the mailbox and the barking puppy.
The roads are a wild place to a child observing from the back seat of a moving van. Children really never understood the rules out here. How long did they go on, thinking cars just drove through whichever lanes they pleased? How long did they fail to realize that there were sometimes four lanes in a row instead of only two? How long did they watch through their shady windows, never appreciating the delicate art to starting and stopping; the complexities of the dreaded intersection; the contrast between the yellow and white lines on a charcoal black road?
The car ride was a fascinating experience, indeed.
The skinny black telephone wires were snaking over clear blue sky, repeating interweaving patterns over and over and over, as they drove on and on and on. Trees passed by in big green and yellow blurs. The car swerved and turned, and its occupants got tossed around with it, submissive to the superiority of the vehicle's momentum.
If the Cadillac needed to be cleaned, they would stop at the car wash. Nessie had mixed feelings about the car wash.
On the one hand, it was a devious detour from their usual mundane drive – it was always a surprise to pull up and suddenly find the car face to face with the gaping tunnel of soapy, scrubbing robots. But on the other hand, it was somewhat intimidating... and even a little bit scary.
Inside awaited the wild unpredictability of a mechanical bath time. The strong chemical aromas made Nessie's nose crinkle in displeasure – it was hard to believe the car would emerge clean on the other side. Once the light turned green and the doors closed behind them, it was a chaotic rumble and tumble of squirts and brushes and beating strips of sudsy fabric. The windows were smeared with thick white foam, blocking from view everything that stirred outside.
But inside the car, it was safe. No matter how fantastic her imagination became, Nessie knew no harm could come to her as long as the windows were sealed and someone was always with her.
Before she knew it, a mighty rinse would wash the windshield clean and clear, and a giant gray vacuum would yawn above the roof of the car, chasing the remaining droplets away with the unsettling pressure of its monotonous song.
And no matter how nervous she'd been before they entered the wash, Nessie was almost disappointed when it all came to an end.
They resumed their drive on the street with the rest of the cars, only now they stood out in their clean, glossy, cherry-colored Cadillac.
Nessie sometimes watched other cars, in an instinctive search for other children who shared the common back seat, and she wondered if they were going someplace special. Nessie always made it a point to read every sign the car passed, and sometimes she did it out loud. Her exceptional intelligence was not often something that they spoke of out loud, but Esme couldn't help the pride she felt in hearing any bit of knowledge her granddaughter felt worthy to offer.
The next stop was the bakery. Esme unbuckled her happy prisoner from the back seat, for a child can only take so much time without stretching her legs.
With every four perfect steps she took, one awkward step followed.
The door jingled when they opened it, and the sound reminded Nessie of Christmas. Many of the smells in the bakery reminded her of Christmas, too.
Nessie asked to be lifted up so she could see the cakes and pastries, gleaming in colorful rows beneath their glass case. She wanted to try a little bit of everything.
Esme bought a box of doughnuts, and she let Nessie pick one for herself.
Pink frosting and sprinkles. Her predictability was adorable.
"We'll save it for later," Esme told her. Nessie wondered why her family always used the word "we" when nobody else ever ate.
The car started up yet again, as did the familiar antics of the back seat. Nessie swung her legs back and forth over the edge of the car seat, and sometimes she traced the little purple dragonflies on the cushion. With every other unexpected jerk of the car, another piece of cereal dropped to the floor. All of the Cheerios were either on the ground or in her tummy by the time they got there, wherever there happened to be.
Esme pulled into the parking lot, and if it was a tight squeeze, Nessie might warn her that she thought so. Esme thanked the child for her lovingly pretentious alerts, but she made sure the car never got a scratch.
With a turn of the key, the car settled its roaring hum; all the noise stopped. And here they were.
The parking lot.
Ah, didn't parking lots seem to go on forever? All those yellow lines painted everywhere, some were diagonal and some were straight and some were perpendicular, and it seemed frustratingly impossible that people somehow managed to fit their huge cars inside those tiny spaces. The lot looked so neat and organized.
The pavement sparkled here, too.
As was a common peril amongst small children, Nessie had some trouble whilst walking between cars. The world seemed to swallow her up, and she longed to be taller so that she could see how far they had yet to walk.
Esme took Nessie by the hand and never let her go, because parking lots were dangerous places. Nessie knew this, of course, but she accepted the hand holding not because safety was a concern, but because she just liked to hold hands with her grandmother.
The pair reached the sidewalk and walked a little further... and Nessie knew exactly where they were.
There is a sudden moment of recognition for children – like Mary Poppins snapping her fingers – and all the magic abruptly drops into place.
"Hospital!" Nessie exclaimed.
"That's right!" Esme commended.
Nessie knew this place like the back of her itty bitty hand. She'd been here so many times, not only to visit her grandfather while he worked, but to see Jacob's friends when they happened to be in the Emergency Room. Those silly boys were always getting hurt.
Guests who sought the door to the ER entrance had to face the challenge posed by a long, winding series of concrete ramps. The railings were painted blue, coated with rust. Nessie had been told by multiple grown-ups never to touch those railings because they were covered in germs.
Nessie liked to test her speed in running the length of those ramps. Because she was so very competitive with herself, she was more than often out of breath by the time she reached the door. It was convenient that the doors opened automatically.
The tight, tender hold of her grandmother's hand was the ticket into the strangest of places. There was never a worry for becoming lost when her fingers were wrapped up in those of someone who loved her.
The inside of the hospital was cold with wide open hallways and doors everywhere she looked. It smelled mandarin oranges and a little bit like the soap they used in the car wash. Shoes squeaked on shiny floors and people dressed in green and blue pajamas rushed to and fro beneath a fluorescent flood. Nessie felt even smaller in here than she did between the cars in the parking lot.
But the further they walked, the quieter it became. The labyrinth looked gradually more familiar and the traffic died down, just like it did on the streets.
Esme left the box of doughnuts on the counter in the nurse's station as she passed on by. No one ever knew who put it there, but true generosity was not something that sighed for attention. She hastily wrapped Nessie's requested pink sprinkle doughnut with a napkin, tucked it into her purse, and closed the lid.
They rounded the corner, steadily slowing as they walked down the offices corridor, toward the very last door on the right.
Nessie had a secret knock, so her grandfather always knew it was her.
Two fast knocks, three slow knocks, and two fast at the end.
It never took more than a second for the door to swing open.
Carlisle looked disconcertingly young when he wore his scrubs. Perhaps there was something in the excess powder blue that enhanced his deceptive blond youth. Of course, Nessie's presence seemed to have this effect on him just as well.
He'd laughed robustly when his granddaughter asked him why he wore pajamas to work.
"They make you look sleepy," she'd said with a giggle.
Then he explained to her the limited dress code of the hospital work staff, and she understood.
"Well, you still look sleepy," she murmured with a hint of warning as her finger traced the hint of violet shade beneath his eye. She was smart with their secrets, careful to remind them when she thought they may benefit from a hunt or when they should take the day off.
Yet it mattered not how dark the circles beneath Carlisle's eyes had gotten – they were as bright as they could be when Nessie came to visit him.
Carlisle let the tiny brunette sit with him behind his desk for a while as he worked. For a while, Nessie would watch him contentedly as he wrote and typed and filed. But she never let more than a few minutes tick by on the clock before she politely requested a new source of mesmerization.
He gave her a highlighter to color with, and she lovingly decorated his boring white documents with her creative designs. The yellow of a highlighter was such an incredible color – it was outrageous, electric, brighter than lemons – so vivid that it made the white paper look lavender when she stared at it for too long.
Nessie drew complicated pictures on those lesser important papers... The skyline of Seattle; the silhouettes of pine trees and cacti; the solar system, all labeled and ordered neatly in the margins. If anyone else were to see her drawings, they may have guessed the work belonged to an aspiring street artist. She was better than she realized – enough that her talent posed a danger should she be caught doodling by another child of her age. She was never really satisfied with her finished drawings, but her grandparents both insisted that this was the best one yet. They said that every time, and every time, she beamed when they said it.
Nessie had no idea that her grandfather had kept a separate file for every one of her doodled documents in his bottom drawer.
When the brightness of the highlighter began to make her dizzy, Nessie set the marker down and confessed that all of her drawing had fueled her appetite.
So Esme unwrapped the pink frosted doughnut from its napkin and laid it down on the desk for Nessie to eat. The child's attempts to count the number of rainbow sprinkles were rarely resolved before her resistance wore out, and she took the first bite. She never finished the entire doughnut, but she learned to always make the most of whatever was left over by feeding the rest to the birds.
They opened the window so that she could toss the crumbs away.
Working, for Carlisle, was not the most favorable activity to immerse himself in while under the grace of his granddaughter's presence. They often sat behind the computer together and experimented with different games. Online games were soon omitted from the agenda; Renesmee would have topped the high scores list on every website – not very helpful in alleviating suspicions that could otherwise be avoided.
She was brilliant at minesweeper.
Carlisle watched her tiny fingers like a chemist might watch his crucible. Every click, every delicate reflex, every swivel of her wrist was precious to him. The warmth of her nearness was intoxicating, almost crippling, and he was helpless to press discreet kisses on the top of her head so as to not disrupt her concentration.
He watched the way her beautiful, bulging brown eyes blinked and flickered across the screen. Her eyes were so filled with intelligence, yet they still possessed that glistening wonder of a child who had yet to witness the world in all its subtleties. She was a strange and amazing breed, their Renesmee.
So clever, yet so curious. So precocious, yet so playful. So aware, yet so awestruck.
She was so close to perfection, as many children tend to be in the eyes of those who love them. Yet there was a blink of humble humanity in her every action that only served to make her twice as enchanting.
One part awkward; four parts perfect, as his wife liked to fondly say.
Her weight on his legs was so natural and so welcome that the second she finally slipped from his lap, he was left feeling empty and immobile. She scampered about the office for a while, accurately observing everything that had changed since her last visit. The cheery chime of her sweet voice as she commented on every new object made the room seem so much more interesting.
And it seemed, in the wake of Carlisle's attentive stare, that his wife's face became just as youthful as their granddaughter's – for just a brief moment, he saw it, when Esme caught sight of Nessie's smile. The gesture was reciprocated by anyone who happened to see it, but on Esme it glowed with twice the strength. The opaqueness that set in the gold of her eyes, the blistering fondness that yielded her lopsided smile, the irresistible inflections of love that dimpled her cheeks – it was staggering.
The humble grandeur of having Nessie in the room was something of an unspoken thrill. Having her here, all to themselves, for however short a time was a blessing. Even as she skated simply through her quest for wisdom every day, Nessie would never truly come to realize how precious a gift she was to them.
When it was time for Carlisle to return to the workday (Nessie was the one to remind them), she wrapped her arms around his neck and planted the tiniest of kisses he had ever received on his chin. Despite the strength of his willpower, Carlisle found it the cruelest of challenges to let her leave with his wife.
If he'd had his way he would have taken her into the OR with him while he reassembled internal organs.
They murmured their mutual I love you's and other pointless reminders that were never heard quite as clearly, having been unfortunate enough to follow the faithful prose.
Esme spared her husband a telling glance before disappearing behind the door with Nessie toddling after. In that glance, she seemed to silently ask, "Doesn't it astound you, how lucky we are?"
Nessie had the last smile.
And the door closed with a click.
Now, to any outside observer, it may have been just a mundane morning like any other. The events which transpired in the simple doctor's office during a fifteen minute lunch break that was never spent eating lunch might, to any third party, seem dull at best. But to Doctor Cullen it was never just like any other day. Not when his granddaughter filled those fifteen pieces of void with her sparkling laughter and surprising remarks and incomprehensibly tiny kisses.
With a sigh, he would return to the duties of the day, smiling absently when he noticed the fingerprints she'd kindly left for him to find on the surface of his desk.