Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight. No copyright infringement is intended. Sweetbriar, and any original plots or characters belong to me.

Many thanks to my betas, Hyacinthgirl18 and Aleisha. You girls rock!

~Sweetbriar ~

Chapter 3

The morning after the decision was made, a moving company was contracted to pack up what furnishings were left in Esme and Carlisle's home. Just a few days later, their belongings were stowed safely inside a huge moving truck and a realtor sign graced their well groomed front lawn. I knew they had made the decision for a number of reasons, yet I still felt guilty, aware that the greatest of those reasons were my mother and me.

My mother made me ride in the old, beat up Volvo 240 wagon she had been driving when we lived in Chicago. It looked like it had seen better days, but she swore it was the most dependable car she'd ever owned. I couldn't dispute her on that one. Mine was just a few years old and it had never left me sitting.

Carlisle drove my Volvo, while Esme took his Mercedes. I wanted to pull my weight and contribute to the driving as well, but Carlisle had laughed and made a comment about not letting me drive anywhere under the influence, I ended up navigating for my mother, instead. We spent several days making the trip, driving a few hours before stopping to take a break. We stayed in motels at night, always trying to find a room as far away from other people as possible. Carlisle always shared a room with me. I know he wanted to ensure that I was okay, but I suspected it had more to do with being able to keep me calm so I didn't make a disturbance that might cause the management to call the police. Blood curdling screams at two in the morning seemed to have that effect on people.

When we made it to their house in Albany on the evening of the third day, Carlisle had shown me to the room he and Esme had occupied on their first trip here. He explained that it was a guest room and would be mine for the length of my stay here, until something suitable could be worked out for us at the inn. I took advantage of the bathroom, relieving myself and washing up a little before I crawled into bed. I looked like hell. It's no wonder my mother constantly nagged me about my wellbeing. I hadn't shaved or showered since the funerals. I looked like grizzly Adams, and if I was being honest, I smelled like him too. I felt bad about Esme's nice bedding, but I just couldn't go through the motions tonight. If she wanted to burn it, I'd buy her more.

A week later, I was still wore the clothing I had left Chicago in. On one of the rare occasions where I chanced a look in the mirror, I discovered I was sporting a full beard and mustache now. I looked haggard. My hair was greasy; I had dark circles under my eyes. I crawled back into the rumpled bed and pulled the thin bedspread over me. I was beyond caring about my appearance. This room had become my prison, and I had become effective at keeping everyone out.

Well, almost everyone.

Finding sleep was nearly impossible, until Carlisle would come and insist I take another pill. I was terrified to take them. The day he realized I was hiding them in the nightstand, our routine changed. It included a quick inspection of my mouth, including under my tongue, to ensure that I had, in fact, swallowed it. He refused to leave the room until I drank the entire glass of water.

His alternative to taking medication: admitting me to the local hospital with a forty-eight hour psych hold, which would undoubtedly land me in some institution.

I took the pills.

They brought on an onslaught of images from my shattered life in blazing Technicolor, everything I had tried to keep at bay within the recesses of my mind when I was awake. When I was asleep, I was powerless to stop them from creeping out from their careful confines and haunting me.

The cycle continued over and over.

When I awoke screaming, in a heap on the floor, Carlisle would come in and guide me through some deep breathing routine or some shit in an attempt to calm me. He'd beg me each day to think about what this situation was doing to my mother and my aunt. He'd urge me to clean myself up out of respect for them. I guess seeing me this way had caused them to become depressed as well.

I could tell when I looked into my mother's haunted gaze that she feared she was losing me. I wasn't in a state where I could try to convince her otherwise. I was so deep in my own bottomless pit that I had no idea how to claw my way back out.

At some point, Esme declared my room in the carriage house ready for me to move into. I was content to remain in the pigsty I'd dug myself into, but I was unanimously outnumbered. I decided it would probably be in everyone's best interest if I cleaned myself up, so I showered and dressed in clean clothing for the occasion. While I was in the shower, a garbage bag had appeared. Inside of it were the sheets and bedspread from my bed and the pillow I had been sleeping on. I correctly assumed that the bag was awaiting my soiled and smelly clothing.

Showering had been a cathartic event. I felt stripped of so many things- not just body odor and grime, but I felt different somehow. Leaving the misty bathroom that smelled strongly of Irish Spring and Listerine, the stench of the bedroom hit me full force. Looking around, I was ashamed and embarrassed by what I had allowed myself to become. The room reeked of body odor and stale cigarette smoke. Empty cigarette packs and water bottles littered the floor. The room that I was sure had been beautiful when I'd arrived was disgusting. I'd never been so embarrassed by my actions.

The effort it took to clean up my mess was exhausting. However, out of respect for my family, I did what I could to tidy the room. I threw the trash that littered the room into the bag with my bedding and clothing. I opened the windows and sprayed room deodorizer I had found the bathroom sink into the air and on the mattress and carpet.

Looking around, I saw the state of disarray I had left the bathroom in, so I hung up my wet towels and cleaned the hair clippings that cluttered the vanity from trimming my beard. A quick swish around the bowl of the toilet with the brush and the bathroom was cleaned.

I carried my duffle bag to the entranceway and followed the sounds of my family conversing in the kitchen. We moved into the carriage house on my thirty-fourth birthday. June 20, 2009. I had seen the date on the calendar, this morning, but it meant nothing to me. A round chocolate cake sat on the breakfast bar under a glass dome. I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down between my mother and my aunt. Someone wished me a happy birthday. In my haste to get out the back door, I spilled my cup of coffee. Ignoring it and their cries, I ran out onto the porch.

I could barely catch my breath. It was so unfair! How could they even consider celebrating my birthday when they knew Tanya would never have another one? And Lily, precious baby Lily, she never had the chance to take a solitary breath. No, there would be no celebration today. Celebrating my own birthday was a tradition that ended the day Tanya could have birthdays no more.

I sank onto the swing that hung from the massive porch. I shut my eyes and the memories of birthdays past haunted me. I jerked awake when Carlisle took my arm. "Come on, Edward, it's time to go home."

He walked me out to my Volvo and we drove the few miles to the Sweetbriar Inn. I was appalled when I saw the state that it was in. I barely recognized the place where I celebrated my honeymoon with my new bride. It had only been ten years, but time had been no friend to the inn.

Everyone was abuzz with excitement when we pulled up at the carriage house. My mother practically dragged me from the car and into the garage. I was shocked when I saw the transformation. The first floor hadn't been completed yet. The walls had been framed in with 2x4s, the electrical wiring and outlets had been installed. I could picture the rooms in my mind. Esme took my hand and walked me through, explaining what each room would be when it was complete.

The first floor would contain a huge living room, an eat-in kitchen, and a study. A half bath resided under the staircase. Because the building was originally a garage for the carriages and sleighs the family owned, it had been left unheated and uninsulated, all the bricks still exposed. Esme felt it gave the place a certain amount of charm, so she refused to cover them with plaster.

The second floor was a four room loft. Currently there were two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a sitting area with a makeshift kitchen. The kitchen contained a coffee machine, a dorm sized refrigerator, a microwave, and a card table with two chairs. Esme explained that we could use the appliances at the inn for cooking and storing food-this was merely a convenience until the place was completed.

It truly would be a wonderful home for me. I felt guilty because I couldn't make myself be excited. At that moment, all I could think about was how the bed in my room would feel under my exhausted body.

:-:

~July~

I'd been at Sweetbriar for weeks and nothing had gotten easier.

I had known I was torturing the people who cared about me, but I couldn't bring myself to care. Life as I'd known it was over. My days consisted of little more than giving in to my bodily functions. On the occasions when I would go through the motions of eating, whatever it was returned with little warning as my body purged itself. From time to time I'd relieve myself, but I had learned that the less I put into my body, the less there was to get rid of. Nearly shutting down my digestive system allowed me to lock myself into the tiny bedroom for hours at a time.

After a few weeks, my mother gave up on her failed attempts to make me eat, resigning herself to leaving a tray outside my door on a small table. Several times a day she would replace the untouched tray with a fresh one, lightly tapping on my door to alert me of its existence. Eventually, the trays stopped coming. At some point, she realized that if I were so hungry that I could no longer take it, I'd find something to eat.

As each day passed, it became infinitely more impossible to reign in the fragments of my shattered life. The solitude that came from hiding in the cocoon I'd constructed around myself was the only thing holding the shreds of my life together.

Interacting with those around me would have meant feeling, on some level. At this point, any emotion would have made me crumble. I chose, instead, to exist in the black hole my life had become.

Mom was cooking some sort of stew. I could smell her homemade biscuits baking in the oven. She was trying to make me crumble. I made my way to the kitchen. At some point in my oblivion, the first floor had been completed. How did I not realize that the makeshift kitchen was absent?

I wish she would understand. It wasn't that I was purposely avoiding food. I simply had no desire to eat. For her I would try, but I knew I'd be purging myself of anything I'd forced down my throat. I knew she'd take it personally.

My mom was an incredible cook.

When Dad died, I encouraged her to follow her dreams. She always wanted to run her own restaurant. She stumbled across the inn on some website that listed foreclosures. The owner had died and his kid was no businessman. The taxes fell delinquent and it went up for foreclosure. Carlisle accompanied her to New York. He took my mother to the courthouse and paid the taxes and filed some paperwork. Somehow they ended up with the property for next to nothing. The money from Dad's life insurance bought the Sweetbriar Inn. Carlisle, Esme and I packed up my childhood home and moved her to Albany, New York, right before I got into the academy.

When Mom acquired it, the property was in a sad state of affairs. There was enough money left for Mom to do the most pressing repairs and spruce the place up some. At the time, no one knew the inn generated barely enough income to cover the expenses. Over the years it continued to decay.

She had been running the main part of the inn by herself all these years, always wanting to do renovations, but money was scarce and good help expensive. She continued to only make the repairs that were necessary to keep operating. A few months ago, the state of New York forced her hand.

I'll never forget the teary phone call I received from my mother. She'd gone into Albany to buy supplies for the inn. After several hours of shopping she came home to find a big orange notice stapled to her front door.

CONDEMNED!

I made several phone calls to the Albany City Hall: Bureau of Codes. I tried to pull the "Detective Masen" card, but it didn't fly. Instead I had my ass reamed by a very abrupt codes enforcement officer. Officer Hale. She explained that there was a process. It must be followed. She said she'd be there "every step of the way" to ensure we followed code.

The anonymous report of several suspected building code violations had led to the initial inspection.

An exterior inspection of the dilapidated porch, combined with chipped and curling paint on the wood clapboard siding and trim on the older portion of the building, along with a few other violations she noted, had been enough to justify Officer Hale's condemnation of the property.

The fact that my mother held a hotel occupancy permit issued by the state of New York sealed her fate. A state inspection not only upheld the first notice, but it also rendered the inn ineligible to retain the hotel occupancy permit. Sweetbriar was closed until the repairs could be made and the state conducted another inspection. If the state was pleased with the outcome, they would consider re-instating the permit that would allow my mother to re-open for business.

The man I spoke to from the state of New York explained that Codes Officer Hale would be overseeing every step of the process. Yes…she had explained that little tidbit. After the phone conversation I had with her, I felt sorry that my mother had to deal with someone who sounded so cold and impersonal. I was ashamed that I felt relieved that I didn't have to deal with this woman.

At the time, I had no idea that my life would soon be destroyed. I had no idea I would, in fact, be dealing with Ms. Hale on a nearly day to day basis, nor did I realize that she would soon become the bane of my existence.

The condemnation of the inn set several other things in motion. Esme and Carlisle made the decision to move to Albany so they could be closer to Mom. At fifty-five, Carlisle had decided to take an early retirement at Chicago's Cook County Hospital. He was tired of working rotations in the Emergency Department. He and Esme found an old Victorian house five miles from Mom. Albany was going to be the home of his new private practice.

June 1 marked his twenty-fifth anniversary as a Physician at Cook County. Carlisle made the decision as soon as they found the new house that his anniversary would also be his final day of work in a facility.

They had begun moving small loads and spending weekends in Albany, shortly before I lost Tanya.

I wasn't surprised when Mom said it was a blessing in disguise that the inn was closed. Carlisle had called her a few hours after Tanya died. She drove all night long to get home to me. She always made me her first priority. Because the inn had been shut down, there was nothing to tie her down or stop her from coming to me in Chicago when I needed my Mom.

Esme invested in the inn, buying out half of the business at much more than the property was actually worth. Mom had a fit, but she was in a position where a decision had to be made. Find the money, or sell the inn. She agreed to Esme's proposal, she wasn't ready to let the inn go. Esme's money would give the sisters some working capital. The papers were signed making it a partnership before we left Chicago.

Esme declared that she was going to refurbish the inn beginning with the old wing. In the mean time, some handyman friend of my mother's would begin to make repairs to bring the newer portion up to code. I secretly wondered if my mother had a beau she'd not told us about. Certainly Esme would have known.

The original structure hadn't been inhabited in years. The roof had leaked, ruining some of the hardwood floors. It wasn't safe in its current state. Mom had been living in the newer part of the inn before it was condemned. By moving into the other wing, she would free up several rooms for her clientele.

When the inn was condemned, the handyman moved a dilapidated RV into the garage level of the carriage house. Before coming to Chicago, Mom had been staying in it as a temporary fix. None of us really understood the gravity of her financial circumstances until we all got to Albany.

Even through the fog that seemed to constantly surround me, I realized I had failed her. By getting so wrapped up in my own drama, I never realized how she struggled each month to balance the books and make ends meet.

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