A/N
Marvar: Many of you guessed correctly. This story is inspired by the movie, Sleepless in Seattle.
Cosmo: Kind of like the rest of our fic that's inspired by that movie with the vampires.
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"Jake, it's a little late for you to be on the phone," I say as I walk downstairs and hear my son talking. "I don't care how late Leah's parents let her stay up."
When I see him, he is sitting on the floor next to the couch. Hiding. As if I won't be able to hear his voice.
"I see you, Jacob," I say, walking over and standing directly in front of him. He rolls his eyes dramatically and I have to force myself not to laugh. "Tell Leah goodnight, Jake. It's time to get ready for bed."
"Okay," he says, but I quickly realize he's not talking to me.
"Jacob," I say in a more reprimanding tone. "I said 'now.'"
His wide brown eyes look at me and for a moment, he looks scared.
"I'm not talking to Leah, Dad."
This surprises me, because he is always talking to Leah.
"Who are you talking to?"
"A doctor," he says. "Dad?"
A doctor?
"Yes?"
He reaches the phone out and up toward me.
"Dad, she wants to talk to you," he says. "She thinks she can help."
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I'm sitting here, completely shocked. And while I understand that there is a woman – a "doctor" – talking to me, all I can do is look at my son. He's looking at me with wide eyes. Like he's scared of how I will react. So, I do the only thing I can. I begin to talk to this "doctor." For him.
"I'll just go to bed," Jacob says, embarrassed.
"Oh, no you don't," I tell him. "If I have to do this, you're doing this with me, little man."
"How long has it been since your wife passed away, Edward?"
I wrap my arm around Jacob, as he scoots closer to me on the couch. He lays his head on my shoulder and he has so much hope in his sleepy eyes. Have I really been that bad? I thought we were getting by. I thought we were doing fine.
"Two years," I tell her.
"Two years is a long time," she says.
"Really?" I ask. "That's funny. It doesn't seem long. It seems like it was just yesterday that I came home from work and she was in the kitchen making brownies with Jacob."
"Tell me about your wife, Edward."
"What do you want me to say?" I ask. "Her name was Emily. She was wonderful, sweet…my best friend and Jacob's mother. She was…she was everything." I take a deep breath and I run my free hand through my hair. "Until she wasn't."
"How long were you married?"
"We were married for eight years, but she'd been a part of my life forever. High school sweethearts," I say, as I laugh dryly. "She was the second girl I ever kissed, and after I met her, I never wanted to kiss anyone else. She was amazing – this funny and smart, independent woman who could knock you over with her wit, but she still believed in fairy tales."
Jacob's eyes are drooping and he snuggles in closer to my side. His breath is evening out and I know he's going to go to sleep soon.
"Fairy tales?"
"She loved Disney movies. She watched them incessantly. Not the funny ones. She loved all the princess ones…you know Snow White and Cinderella. And she would watch them all the time. Jacob loved them, too. Mostly because of her. She said it was good training for him. She wanted to teach him how to be a prince."
"That sounds really sweet, Edward."
"It was," I admit. "They would lie on his bed at night and instead of reading him a story, they would watch, as the princess got her happily ever after. I used to try to get him to watch movies with me. You know…boy movies," I chuckle as I remember. "Toy Story or The Lion King. And he didn't want any part of it. The movies were their thing…together. And who wouldn't prefer that? She was much nicer to cuddle with than me."
Doctor Jane laughs a little and even though I know that she doesn't really know or care about me, I find the sound soothing. Or maybe, it's talking about Emily. Honestly, I'm not sure. I try to ignore the fact that I'm talking on syndicated radio. Thank god Emmett only watches sports or True TV.
"Jacob loves you," she says. "It's the reason he called. He's worried about you."
And once again, I'm left wondering where I've failed him. I don't want him to worry. He's so young and he's had to deal with so much. He has settled down on the couch now and his head is resting in my lap.
"He's the best part of my life," I admit to her, running my fingers through his hair that is beginning to grow out. He wants to grow it long. Emmett tells him that long hair is for hippies, but Jacob tells him that chicks dig long hair. "He's the reason I force myself to get out of bed in the morning. He's exactly what makes every day bearable. When he smiles, he looks just like her, but there are pieces of me in him, too."
Jacob shifts and his hand is clutching the end of my shirt. I look down at him, his face so peaceful in his sleep, and I know that what I'm saying is true. He is the most important thing in the world to me. I love him more that anyone…anything.
"Doctor Volturi?"
"Yes, Edward?"
"Do you think that I've failed him?" I ask. "That I've been a bad father?"
There's silence for a minute and just as I'm beginning to think that I really have been a terrible father, she speaks.
"I think you have obviously raised a smart, funny, engaging, and independent little boy. I'm fairly certain that everyone listening is in love with him," she says chuckling. "I don't think he would be who he is, Edward, if you had failed him as a father."
Her words calm me because I know she's right. I know that I have done my very best to give him everything he needs. But still, somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm still wondering if it's enough. Does he need more?
Do I need more?
"Edward?" she asks, interrupting my thoughts. "Don't you think it's time to move on?"
"Dr. Volturi?" I respond quietly.
"Call me Dr. Jane, Edward," she says in a voice that is pleasant, but I know holds the slightest insincerity. "I'm a friend, here to help you."
"No, you're not," I tell her, knowing exactly why she wants to keep me talking. This makes for good radio, right? But this is my life. Jacob is my son.
"Edward," she pushes me further.
And finally relenting, I tell her the truth. And not just her, I'm saying it to myself, as well.
"I just try to make it through each day," I admit and even as I say the words, I know that's exactly what I'm doing…what I have been doing.
"Maybe you and Jacob deserve more than just getting by."
And her words are right. Not so much for me, but for him. He does deserve more than just getting by. He deserves happiness, and love and home that surround him with both.
And something deep inside me stirs and wakes. Something – some part of me I thought I'd let go of forever. I am lonely. I am so, so lonely. I miss Emily. Every single day I miss her, but I also miss the comfort of having someone there with me. Someone warm next to me in bed…someone I want to hold.
"Yeah, Dr. Jane, it's easy for you to say. But how do you find someone who is everything to you...again? It's like getting struck by lightning twice...or...or..." I don't even have the words to use to make a comparison. I was so young when Emily came into my life. Romantically, I've never really known anything else. She was perfect for me. To find that again would be like… "It's like ...magic."
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After I hang up the phone, I sit here watching Jacob sleep for the longest time. I don't want to move. Not from the couch and definitely not forward in my life. But the truth is, I'm wondering if it's time. Is it time for me to take those first steps? Is it time for me to put myself out there again? The idea of dating seems so foreign.
Jacob shifts and I know I need to get him to bed. It's so late. So, I lift him up into my arms, grunting softly because he's gotten so big, and I carry him up to his bedroom. As I'm settling him down into his bed, his brown eyes open and look at me.
He's nervous.
"Are you mad at me, Dad?" he asks.
I kneel down onto the floor next to him. My eyes are level with his as my fingers run through his messy hair that probably matches my own.
"I could never be mad at you, buddy," I tell him. "Not even for calling a radio station and making me talk to Doctor Jane and half the country."
"Do you really think half the country was listening?" he asks through a yawn.
"I don't know," I tell him, laughing softly. "Why were you listening to a radio talk show?"
"Leah likes talk shows like that," he says, and I begin to wonder if she was listening, too. "She says that the human psy…psy…"
His nose scrunches up like he's trying to figure out the word.
"Psyche?" I ask, trying to help him figure out the word and wondering why my son even knows what the human psyche is.
"Yeah, that," he says, nodding his head. "She says it's really interesting. And that some people are dark and twisted."
I bite back a laugh and try to look at him seriously.
"Well, I don't think you need to know about anything dark and twisted."
He nods his head in response, his eyes drooping again.
"Aren't we doing okay?" I ask. "I mean…I thought…I thought that we were doing okay with just the two of us."
"We are, Dad," he tells me. His head is resting on my hand as my thumb strokes the skin of his jaw. "I just don't want you to be lonely anymore."
And my heart swells and breaks all at the same time.
"I'm not lonely, Jake. I have you."
He rolls his eyes again – another thing he's learned from Leah.
"I mean a woman, Dad," he says in all seriousness. "What's going to happen to you when I grow up and move away?"
"Where are you moving?" I ask him. "And when are you supposed to be growing up?"
"I'll be grown up when I'm sixteen and can drive a car," he says. "And Leah and I will be moving away and going to college."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah," he nods his head as enthusiastically as he can.
"Well, I'm glad you're going to college," I tell him. "Are you going to be a lawyer like your Dad? And where are you going?"
"No, lawyers are boring," he says. "We are going to Hawaii. Leah wants to be an artist and I want to be a surfer."
"And they have a college for that in Hawaii?"
"Duh," he says and I chuckle.
I lean in and hug him one more time, happy that he's still young enough to enjoy it. Visions of him at sixteen and driving fill my mind and I push them way in the back. I've had enough to deal with for one night.
"Goodnight, Jacob," I tell him. "I love you. You know that, right?"
"I know," he says. "And I love you, too."
I get up and make my way to the door of his bedroom, shutting off the light on his dresser.
"I meant what I said," he says sleepily and I turn back to look at him.
"About what?"
"I want you to be happy, Dad," he says. "And I don't think you're happy…not really."
His words are said with simple truth and so much emotion that they cause my eyes to water and my throat to constrict.
"Are you happy?" I ask.
"Yeah," he says. "I am."
As I close the door, I focus on that. His happiness and his words.
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"It's too fucking late for you to be calling me," Rose says as she answers her phone. "Is everything okay?"
"Yes," I tell her. "Everything's fine."
"What's going on?"
I decide to cut right to the chase.
"Do you think it's time for me to move on?" I ask. "You know…start dating again?"
She's quiet for a minute, which is completely unlike her.
"Are you ready for that?" she asks.
"I don't know," I tell her. "Maybe."
"What brought all this on?"
"Jacob," I tell her without elaborating further. I'm sure I'll have to tell her about the radio fiasco eventually, but I've had enough humiliation for one night.
"I think that when you're ready," she says, "the right person will come along."
"I already had the right person."
"I think there can be more than one right person, Edward."
"Really?" I ask. "You think that there's someone else out there that could be just as good for you as Emmett?"
"Absolutely," she says. "But there is no one better for him than me."
She laughs and I realize that while there are a million reasons I love my sister, the ability to diffuse tense situations with humor is one of the best ones.
"You're probably right," I say.
"I know I am."
"I don't even know how to go about dating," I admit. "Like, I don't even know where I would meet someone."
"Well, don't ask me," she says. "I've been married for a thousand years. And the only two single women I know are Lauren and Jessica….and you can't date them because they're whores."
I snort at her delicate way of phrasing things.
"Have you considered online dating?" she asks.
"I've barely considered dating."
"What I said was true, you know," she says, her voice softer than before.
"What?"
"When you are really ready…the right woman will come along."
We say goodnight shortly after and the words of my sister and my son stay in my mind. I crawl in bed, looking at the empty side next to me before I close my eyes. And as I fall asleep, I wonder if magic really can happen twice.
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End Notes:
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