Disclaimer: The world of Twilight and all its characters belongs to Stephanie Meyer.
Chapter 4
The first few weeks after my change flew by faster than I thought possible, even without the need for sleep. As fall progressed and the rains started again after the summer lull, I seemed to spend all my time hunting or with my daughter or with Edward or hunting some more.
On that first afternoon, after climbing out of the river, I stood in the yard while Edward went up to the deck. He explained to the others that he was going to introduce Renesmee to me from the safety of the living room. He took our daughter from Rosalie and went inside. I didn't care that I was dripping wet or that my clothes were torn and stained. I held my breath and cautiously climbed the stairs onto the deck, aware that Alice and Esme were staying close. I peered through the window. Ahh…she was perfect. Her eyes were open. It looked like she would have my brown eyes but her auburn curls were all Edward's. I took a chance and drew in a very small breath. Even with the window separating us there was the sweetest smell, like the flowers in the meadow with a dash of licorice. It burned the back of my throat worse that anything I had yet felt so I quickly decided it was best to hold my breath. I put my hand on the window and while I knew she probably couldn't hear me, started talking, "Hi baby. I'm you mommy and I love you so much." We stayed there until she fell asleep.
Alice took my hand and led me around the side of the house toward the front door, "It's time to get you cleaned up." As she looked at the condition of my clothes, she asked wryly, "Who won, you or the deer?"
With a huge grin on my face, I replied, "I did!" After a shower, she put me in a comfortable dress and did my hair. Then she made me look in her full-length mirror. I almost didn't recognize me. I was paler but I was beautiful. I had never considered myself beautiful before. The only exception to this picture was the raging red eyes. They were truly scary looking. Whenever they settled to topaz couldn't be too soon for me.
The practicalities of my day-to-day life as a newborn vampire and mother were made much simpler by the most incredible gift. Even by Cullen standards, this would be hard to beat. I usually have such a hard time accepting gifts but…Esme gave us a cottage! When she and Alice led Edward and me through the trees that first evening and revealed what the entire family had been secretly working on prior to the wedding, I was speechless. I would have cried if I could so I threw my arms around Esme instead. It was small and looked very old. It was made of stone with a slate roof and there was a fireplace in every room. The furnishings were comfortable and casual. I recognized a few things from the main house. There was even a flower garden with a fountain right outside our bedroom window. Alice had bought me a complete wardrobe which took up the entire walk-in closet in the bedroom. She had mumbled something about Esme not letting her build out the space she had envisioned. Esme and Alice left us in the yard and Edward carried me over the threshold and into the beginning of our new life.
Edward was right about taking it one day at a time. If we had been living at the main house, logistics would have been much harder. I found that I couldn't be on the same floor with Renesmee; it was too close, the burning was too much. So far I was able to resist the urge to seek out the scent. I could be in a room she had recently occupied but usually held my breath until the air cleared. This allowed me to be with the family in the evenings after Renesmee was put to bed. Her nursery, perfectly decorated by Esme, was the next room down from Edward's old room.
Renesmee's diet was primarily blood. Carlisle would occasionally give her baby formula and she would drink it, but you could tell it wasn't her favorite. Feeding time was the worst for me. The smell of human blood, even stale, originating from a blood bank bag, was enough to set me off. If I got the tiniest whiff, it made me a little dizzy with an involuntary urge to seek out the source. My best recourse was to go for a run and then find a nice carnivore to snack on. Being able to retreat to our cottage was a haven and I knew deep down that Renesmee was in the perfect hands of Esme and Rosalie and all the others. An added plus was having alone time with Edward which was never a bad thing.
After a few incidents with hunters in the forest and an unfortunate UPS delivery man, I knew the irresistible draw of a human scent and the frenzy it could create. Fortunately, on each occasion I was not alone and was dragged away when the urge to hunt the human struck. I think Jasper was secretly enjoying not being only one with control issues and Emmett lived for a chance to tackle me into the mud. I don't think the UPS man will be back to deliver another package to the house after seeing the snarling woman being manhandled across the front yard. Somehow Alice managed to convince him that I was an actress practicing a part of a madwoman.
My life with my daughter consisted of visits through the back window and I read her a story every night before she went to sleep via a web cam. Only Carlisle, Edward and surprisingly Rosalie could handle the close contact with the human blood that was usually in her bottle. Rosalie and I were able to continue building the friendship we had started during my pregnancy. Having Renesmee in her life made a huge difference. She referred to herself as Auntie Rose and always included me as much as possible in the daily activities. I never felt that Renesmee would have to figure out which of us was her real mother.
Renesmee had every Cullen wrapped around her tiniest finger. Alice and Rosalie competed to dress her. Emmett liked to toss her in the air. She loved to fall asleep on Jasper. Esme was taking lots of pictures and working on a scrapbook. Carlisle loved to read to her. She had her grandparents and aunts and uncles at her beck and call, but her heart belonged to her father. She saved her biggest smiles for Edward.
When she was about eight weeks old, Renesmee had a surprise for all of us. She reached up one day and touched Edward's cheek while he was feeding her. He got quite still and almost dropped the bottle. Later he told me what it had felt like. "She replayed in my head the entire song which I had played for her on the piano this morning. It was amazing. Carlisle calls her gift the opposite of mine. She can put her images in other people's minds." It made me sad the think about yet another thing I was missing in her young life but I was thrilled that she was gifted like her father. A few days later as I played a nonsensical game with her via the web cam, Esme, whose arms she was in, called Renesmee's attention the big flat panel TV screen, "See Mommie?" Renesmee reached her hand up to Esme neck. For a few moments Esme's eyes got wider and then she had a huge smile on her face.
"What did she show you?" I asked. We had set up the web cam both ways, so I could see them as well.
"Oh my, she knows you! She just showed me you reading to her last night and playing with her yesterday, and a whole collage of images of you. She definitely knows you are her mother." I just dry sobbed. I had been so worried that she wouldn't know me.