A Rough Start

Chapter 7 – If You Leave

Edward sat at the table in Alice and Jasper's backyard, his chin resting in the palm of his hand.

"So you know her really well?" he turned to Rosalie.

"Well enough to know that she didn't deserve you calling her a bitch," Rosalie said as she narrowed her eyes in Edward's direction.

"For the last time, I didn't know I was talking to her and I was pissed off because she told me I had to pay $150 bucks because I was late picking up Anthony," Edward explained.

"A hundred and fifty bucks? She is a bitch!" Emmett piped in.

"Em, she doesn't make the rules. It's pretty standard that parents are charged a per minute rate if they're late picking up their kids," Rosalie said before returning her attention to Edward. "And she was telling you the truth. She is mandated by law to report anything that looks like neglect. I'm pretty sure dropping your kid off where there's no supervision qualifies as neglect."

"There are people there," Edward said indignantly. Maybe they were janitors, but technically Anthony wasn't alone.

"Look, man, you do look a little like you're coming apart at the seams. Maybe you should take a little break and take care of some of this shit," Jasper said.

"And how the hell am I supposed to do that?" Edward asked.

"On Monday, go in and talk to Pete. Take a few days off," Jasper suggested.

"Like hell," Edward took offense. "You know how many guys are sitting at home. If I take vacation…"

"Edward, you have two weeks vacation every year like everyone else. You haven't taken any time off to deal with all this stuff you've been going through. If you keep going like this, you're going to make yourself sick. I think it would be better if you took planned time off instead of suddenly calling out sick."

Edward had to admit, Jasper had a point.

"And if I were you, I wouldn't make a habit of pissing off the teacher. It sounds like she can make your life a living hell," Emmett said.

"I know I would if I was her," Rosalie was still glaring at Edward. "And if I were you, I'd be kissing her ass to make sure she doesn't report me."

Edward was still mulling over his friends words on Monday morning after he'd dropped Anthony off at school – only a wee bit early – and hightailed it to work. He was barely able to clock in before his shift started and by the time he'd made it upstairs to his supervisor's office, he'd made up his mind. He did need to take time off from work or he was going to have a heart attack. He simply couldn't keep up this routine.

"Hey, Pete," Edward stuck his head in the office after rapping softly on the doorjamb. "Got a minute?"

Edward hadn't noticed that Pete was on the phone, but he was waved in anyway. Edward walked in quietly and took a seat on the opposite side of the desk, waiting his turn. He looked around the office while he waited. He focused on a cellophane wrapped rose that looked out of place on Pete's desk. As Edward waited, he imagined numerous scenarios that would entail Pete obtaining that rose. He tried to stifle the laughter that most of those thoughts conjured up.

"What can I do for you Edward?" Pete asked the minute he'd hung up the phone.

"Uh…I wanted to talk to you about possibly taking a little vacation time…soon," Edward stammered as Pete began to go through papers on his desk that housed the staff schedule. "If this is a bad time-"

"Actually, Edward, this is a great time. How do you feel about starting your vacation today?" Pete asked.

"Today?" Edward swallowed hard. He wasn't sure if he was being granted his request or a permanent dismissal.

"That was just corporate on the line," Pete gestured towards the phone, "and they want to come in and do a walk-through sometime this week. The fewer people I have around here, the better. Otherwise they might look into making cuts again. I don't have you on the circular saw this week, so this would be a good time for you to take a little time off."

Edward nodded. "Okay…but just for a week, right? I mean…I'm not going to get canned because I took a few days, am I?"

Pete was a large man – behind his back members of the staff called him Jabba, short for the Star Wars character Jabba the Hutt. But his intimidating features ended at his physique. With his staff, Pete was playful, compassionate and honest. The recent cutbacks had been devastating for him, so when he saw the fear on Edward's face, he empathized immediately.

"Edward, you're one of my best guys. If you have something to worry about, it means the plant is shutting down and we all have something to worry about – and I don't see that happening anytime soon, so go, take some time off and take care of that kid of yours. Don't think about this place until you come back next Monday."

"Thanks, Pete," Edward exhaled in relief. As he got up to leave, the rose caught his eye again. "You and the Mrs. have a romantic evening planned?"

Pete looked over and saw that Edward was nodding toward the rose and he grimaced before picking it up and chucking it at Edward. "Some homeless guy near the tunnel gave it to me for giving him two bucks to wash my windows."

"Wash your windows? Is that what they're calling it these days?" Edward joked as he resituated his newly acquired rose.

"Get out of here before I change my mind and take your vacation pay away."

With a final salute, Edward left Pete's office and headed toward home to sort out the mess that had become his life…after a quick nap.

When Edward returned home, he took time to do the little things he never really had time to do anymore: check and sort the mail, take out the garbage, gather the dirty laundry to take to the Laundromat and toss the rancid food out of his refrigerator.

As Edward walked around the apartment picking up stray items, he noticed Anthony's puppet on the couch. He picked it up to get a closer look and noticed that it smelled atrocious. He chucked it into the laundry pile before heading out to the resident's laundry room. When he arrived, Edward was elated to see how empty the room was. There was one washing machine going, which meant he could do all of his laundry at once. He'd be done in no time.

"Man, people who don't have to work during the day have it made," he mumbled as he loaded his belongings, and Anthony's, into the machine. He happened to glance down at his watch and see that there was only a half an hour left before Anthony got out of school. He wondered if his son would be excited to be picked up right after school or if he enjoyed the afterschool program. Either way, it would be nice not to have to pay for a week of afterschool care.

Edward made it to the school just as the last bell rang. Classroom doors burst open and suddenly kids were everywhere. By the time he made it near the kindergarten corridor, he could see Anthony up ahead being led to the room that housed the afterschool daycare.

And then Miss Swan walked briskly by.

As soon as he saw her, Rosalie's words filtered through his mind. Edward knew he needed to apologize, he just didn't think an impromptu apology would satisfy the damage he'd done.

Kiss her ass, Cullen.

Suddenly Edward remembered Pete's rose that was still lying on the front seat of his car. He jogged back to the parking lot thinking a peace offering was just what he needed to level the playing field a little bit.

During the short jaunt, however, doubt set in and as he stood peering through the window at the rose, he wasn't so sure it was a good idea after all.

"She's going to think I'm trying to hit on her," he muttered.

But people use flowers to say they're sorry all the time…

He quickly opened the door and grabbed the flower, willing himself to just do it and get it over with. As he did so, he knocked the bag holding the lunch he'd made for the day onto the floor. An apple rolled onto the floor of his car.

An apple! Bring an apple to the teacher…or flowers?

"What the hell…" Edward said quietly as he berated himself for not being able to make such a simple decision.

A woman rushing to her car reminded Edward that he was wasting time. He picked up the apple and polished it on his shirt as he held it and the rose in the same hand.

Kiss her ass, Cullen. He'd rather err on the side of doing too much rather than not enough. He had called her a bitch, after all.

The kindergarten classroom was empty when Edward made his way inside. He walked over to the large desk on the far side of the room and perched himself on a table to wait. He glanced down at his watch and saw that he had ample time before 3:30; the time Miss Swan had told him she ended her office hours.

When she entered, she had her head down, reading over a paper that she held in her hand. Edward marveled at the way she skillfully maneuvered the room without even looking. She sat down and muttered something in irritation.

"That bad, huh?"

Miss Swan nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Edward standing there. Her eyes searched for his hands and when she didn't see them, her anxiety became evident.

"How may I help you, Mr. Cullen?" she asked after apologizing for her skittishness.

Wanting to set things off on the right note, Edward set both the apple and the rose before her. "I didn't know what kind of peace offering was appropriate for a teacher…"

She said that he didn't need to give her anything, but he saw the slight way her shoulders relaxed and her smile now looked genuine instead of forced.

After a few pleasantries and an urging on Edward's part to address him by his first name, Edward watched the conversation shift to one of serious business. Miss Swan again told him that when he dropped Anthony off before the allowed time, he was alone and unsupervised.

And then Edward saw it. That look. That look that told him he was a selfish person and a fuck up. That he was a failure, doomed to spiral downward for the rest of his life.

The last time he'd seen that look, he was a twelve-year-old kid looking across a courtroom at his parents.

The same emotions that had welled up back then threatened to overcome him as he stood before Miss Swan. Before he could stop them, the words tumbled out of his mouth:

"I can't do this."

But instead of agree with him, Miss Swan sounded sincere as she insisted otherwise. Not only did she tell him that he could do it, but she told him he was doing it.

When Edward pressed to tell her of his insurmountable problem with getting Anthony to school while still getting to work on time, she seemingly solved the problem in seconds by whipping out a class directory and starring all the names of the households that would be able to give Anthony a ride to school each morning.

And if that wasn't enough, she pulled out a plethora of information, seemingly out of thin air: health benefits, social security…survivor benefits. Edward's mind raced to wrap around it all.

He had walked into Miss Swan's room, or Bella's room, as she had granted him first-name honors, a broken man, but he left it full of hope and promise.

The first thing Edward did once he and Anthony were home was retrieve his items from the apartment complex laundry room. He was surprised to find that someone had moved his items from the washer into the dryer. He would have thought it was a nice gesture had it not been for one problem: as Edward lifted the clothes from the dryer, out fell Anthony's puppet…in three pieces.

"Oh shit." Edward didn't know all that much about children, but it didn't take a diehard dad to know that if you ruined a child's favorite item, you were in a world of trouble.

While Edward tried to figure out what to do about Anthony's decapitated "toy", he went down the roster Bella had given him and circled the addresses nearest him and his job. He was happy to have three choices to work with, but it didn't take much time for the first two numbers he called to give him a negative response. One woman had five children, so there was no additional room for Anthony. The next family was only interested in an exchange – if she dropped off Anthony, she wanted him to pick up her kindergartener and fourth grader from school and bring them back to her house right afterschool. Since Edward wasn't able to do that, no arrangement could be made.

Luckily Edward struck gold on the third call. Not only was the mother willing to drive Anthony to school each morning, but also her son, Taylor, was fond of Anthony. Edward liked knowing that he would be leaving his son with a friend each morning.

As Edward's eyes browsed the list he'd received, he noticed that although Bella didn't add her address to the directory, her telephone number was listed among the class numbers. He considered calling her and asking her opinion of what he should do about the loss Anthony's puppet. She was really the only one who would understand why he felt it was important – as he hadn't really shared the emotional aspects of his situation with Anthony to his friends. Though he was sure they could figure it out on their own, he hadn't expressed it himself and it wasn't something he felt like getting into at the moment.

Despite that, he called Jasper. When he received no answer, he called Emmett, then hung up when he remembered he went to some realtor's dinner with Rosalie.

Pushing aside the thoughts that Bella was probably going to think he was the biggest creeper this side of Clallam Bay, Edward dialed the number as it appeared on the sheet of paper he was holding.

She answered on the second ring.

"Bella?"

"Speaking," she stated professionally.

"Um…so…I know this is weird, considering you just gave me your telephone number not even two hours ago," Edward stalled.

"Is this Edward?" Bella asked.

"Yes, and I'm sorry to bother you at home, but I figured you'd be the best person to ask, since you know about kids and all…"

"Okay…" Bella sounded nervous to hear what he was about to say.

"Today there was an incident with this puppet-thing Anthony has-"

"Gus?"

"What?"

"The puppet. Its name is Gus. Anthony brought him for sharing one day."

"Oh…really?"

"Yes. Gus has an entire family history. It's really quite fascinating. You should ask Anthony to tell you about it sometime."

"Yeah, well…that's the thing…Gus is…no longer with us." Edward paused when he heard Bella gasp on the other end of the phone line. At that moment he knew she understood. "Someone tossed my clothes in the dryer from the washing machine in the laundry room. I guess Gus wasn't supposed to go on the dryer." Edward left out the part that if someone else hadn't done it, he probably would have. How as he supposed to know that you can't wash then dry a cloth puppet?

"How did Anthony take it?" Bella asked.

"He doesn't actually know yet," Edward articulated slowly.

"Edward, you have to tell him," Bella instructed. "And the sooner, the better."

"Yeah, I know…I just wondered if it might…cause some other things to happen that I should know about."

"What kind of things?"

"Well…I'm sure it…Gus was some sort of security type thing and his grandma gave it to him and now she's gone and now the puppet's gone…see what I mean?"

"Yeah, I understand," Bella said, "but you're just going to have to face that. There's no other way to do it. You can't buy another one, not that I'd advise that…you are asking for my advice, right?"

"Yeah, totally."

"Okay, then I'd say, sit Anthony down and tell him the truth. And do it now. Don't wait until he's about to go to bed and he's looking for it. Give him time to process what happened," Bella said.

"And then what?" Edward asked anxiously.

"Well…honestly…that's about as far as my Child Development 101 takes me in this situation," Bella admitted. "But remember he's only five, Edward. If Gus made him feel safe and Gus is no longer there to do that, then he's going to need you to do that for him. Tell him that he's safe with you."

Edward hung up the phone feeling just as lost as he felt when he'd picked it up. But he knew Bella was right. The last thing he wanted was a meltdown before bedtime.

"Hey, Anthony," Edward said as he approached his son, who, as always, was sitting on the sofa in the small, silent living room.

Anthony looked up to acknowledge that he'd heard Edward, but he didn't speak.

"Um, I need to talk to you about something," Edward said awkwardly as he took a seat near Anthony on the couch. Then realizing that this was probably the exact way someone had approached him to tell him about his mother and grandmother, Edward hurried to state the facts.

"Gus was your puppet?"

"Yeah…but I can't find him. I thought I put it in my backpack, but it's not there," Anthony said. Suddenly Edward noticed that he looked stressed.

"Well…Gus was a little dirty, so I gave him a bath…and while he was in the washing machine, someone else, not me, some other person I don't even know, came and took him out of the washing machine and put him in the dryer. Well…Gus isn't supposed to go in the dryer…I'm sorry, buddy."

"Sorry for what?" Anthony frowned.

Yes…you actually have to tell him that part.

"Um…well…Gus kind of…came apart in the dryer." Edward held up the evidence of the beloved dismembered item.

Anthony's eyes grew large for a moment before his expression returned to normal. He looked away and again said nothing.

"Hey," Edward gently prodded him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," Anthony nodded. "I just gotta fix Gus," he said matter of fact.

Edward took one look at Gus and wondered if Anthony was seeing the same thing he was, because Gus was obviously beyond repair.

"Well…I think I might have an idea…" Edward began.

"What is it?" Anthony looked hopeful.

"Why don't we make a special resting place for Gus until we find someone who can fix him?"

"What kind of resting place?"

"Well…c'mon, I'll show you."

Anthony followed as Edward led him into the walk-in closet in his bedroom. Quickly Edward discarded some old baseball cards from a shoebox and presented it to Anthony.

"But it's empty. This will be too hard for Gus to sleep on," Anthony said as he peered inside the box.

"Okay…well…let's get some stuff to make a blanket and pillow," Edward suggested.

When napkins and toilet paper didn't satisfy Anthony, Edward cut the sleeves of a few old shirts of his and presented them to Anthony for bedding. Anthony accepted the remnants of cloth and worked up until bedtime making a bed and coloring the lid of the box so that Gus would have "something nice to look at while he waited".

There was no emotional breakdown when Edward told Anthony to climb on the couch and go to sleep, but as Edward turned to shut off the light, he caught sight of how small Anthony looked on that big couch all alone.

"Are you okay out here, Anthony? Or do you want to sleep with me?" Edward asked.

Anthony was up so fast that Edward didn't understand his response until Anthony was already halfway to Edward's bed, pillow in tow.

It was rare that Edward shared his bed with another individual for the purpose of sleep. Therefore, he was having an extremely difficult time falling asleep as he listened to the pattern of Anthony's breathing.

Images of lottery winnings and pinup girls lay just on the underside of Edward's eyelids, and he was just about to succumb to them when Anthony's small voice sliced through the night.

"If we don't hurry, Gus will have to go live with Mommy and Grandma," he whispered.

Edward lay still, momentarily considering feigning sleep just so he could wait to deal with this after he'd had a little more time to prepare what he would say.

"We'll fix Gus," Edward assured him. Then he thought of what Bella said and even though the words didn't seem to fit, he said them anyway. "Anthony, you don't have to worry, okay? You're safe here...with me."

"But what if something happens to you? Then who's going to take care of me?" Anthony wanted to know.

"Nothing is going to happen to me. I'm going to take care you, Anthony."

"That's what Mommy said, too. And she's not here anymore."

Edward lay on his back, staring up into the darkness, as he tried out words of encouragement in his head.

"Anthony, I know you probably have a lot of questions about everything and I want you to know that you can talk to me about anything. And if I can't answer something, then we'll find someone who can…together. Okay? Because it's you and me now, buddy. Okay? I'm not going to leave you."

Edward looked over in the darkness waiting for Anthony's reaction to his heartfelt words; his eyes, straining through the darkness, were met with the snoring form of a sleeping little boy.

The emotional outpouring, instead of draining, had left Edward energized and wide awake. As he beseeched sleep to return to him, he pondered the similarities between his life and his son's. The negative thoughts were before him in an instant and he tried desperately to suppress the fact that while both he and Anthony had lost their mothers at a young age, only Anthony's loss had been an involuntary one.