Chapter 9: The Space Between

The next little while was good, really good, as we settled into a groove that worked for us. Embry came over most nights, to help me prepare my lesson plans or to just sit and rub my feet if my day had been long (even if his had been longer). I would cook for him and he would laugh at how I always underestimated just how much he could eat. Didi would usually just leave the room, though she was getting used to his presence. She would listen to his commands, sometimes, even if she would always like me better.

Sometimes he would pick me up and we would go to his place. Quil babysat an awful lot, but sometimes he was there. Quil, I learned, was actually just a giant puppy, just like Seth, who showed up at the strangest times (I was beginning to think it might be all the muscles that made them so happy all the time). It was nice to think his friends were getting used to me.

I still hadn't met Jacob or Leah, but I was starting to accept that it would never happen. Something was going on with them, Embry explained, that meant it was just better for my self-esteem not to meet them.

I introduced Embry to the rest of my friends and they all seemed to like him. After a nice lunch with Lauren I think she even forgave me for not telling her sooner because she went out of her way to make Embry feel welcome the next time they met.

It was perfect, even if I hadn't explicitly told my parents. I was old enough to trust my own judgement and they were going to have to accept that one day.

I could only hope that was one day soon.

Embry was driving me home from his house one night when he pulled up at a small house that was most definitely not mine.

"Where are we?"

"Charlie Swan's. I have to pick up something for Leah. I thought you might like—wanna come in?"

"Sure." Even if I didn't understand why I would want to—Bella and I had been friends, but we hadn't been that close (she just didn't have many other friends). I had never been to her house before; I didn't want to be rude, coming by when she no longer lived there. And I couldn't see any reason why I would want to meet Charlie without Bella around.

"Seth and Leah's mom lives here, too," he explained. "Sue. That's why it's neutral territory."

"What?"

"Neutral territory," he repeated. "Because no one's crazy enough to fight in Sue Clearwater's house."

"Okay."

"Not that—don't be nervous about meeting her."

Until then I hadn't given the matter any thought. I liked Seth, but I didn't really need to meet his mother (not before I met my boyfriend's mother, at any rate). But Embry was looking nervous and suddenly I felt a little nervous myself though I still didn't know why I should be.

"Why do you want me to meet Sue?"

"It's one of the few ways to get Leah to do something she doesn't want to." He wanted me to make such a good impression on the mother that she would make her daughter come down from Seattle to meet me. No pressure. "And—if you can handle Sue, you can handle anybody."

Then he got out of the car, putting an end to my questions.

The woman who opened the door didn't look terrifying. She was almost short, or at least just average height, and her body was curving softly. The short hair didn't add any height to her. There was something about her brown eyes that took me aback, but she smiled pleasantly enough.

"Right on time, Embry," she said, pleased. "And you are?"

It was command.

I remembered the way Seth could draw me in with just his voice and realized that it was hereditary.

Her direct manner unsettled me, but after the introductions she held the door open for us and motioned for me to go inside. There was a tiny family room with a fireplace in it and a man in front of a television. Both Embry and Sue gestured for me to stay as they went to do whatever business it was they had.

"Hello, Mr Swan," I tried. It worked.

Bella's dad was the Police Chief—had been a police officer my whole life—so I knew him by sight. He would be retiring soon; the grey hair gave him away. But his handshake was firm and if his smile was slow in coming it was bright.

"You're with one of Jacob's boys? Small world."

"Small town." That's why I loved Forks.

"How are you doing?"

I was well and I told him so; he seemed to like hearing Bella's old classmate was happy. Our police chief had always been a nice man. He was doing well too, except for not being as young as he used to be, he said.

"And how's Bella?"

"Just got back from some place down south," he said. He looked worried, all of a sudden. "Her home. Not back here."

It was a shame she no longer lived in town; it would have been nice to at least run into her in the grocery store sometimes. I said as much.

I said the wrong thing. A strange expression crossed his face, his eyes darting over to the corner of the room, his eyes on a pile of…physics textbooks?

"Are you taking courses, Mr Swan?"

He blushed. "Those aren't mine. They're my gr—my daughter's."

"Good for Bella." I remembered her being a conscientious student—

"Just so she could get out of talking with the rest of us mere mortals."

"Thank you, Jess."

I remembered her being a conscientious student, but not a particularly brilliant one. Then again, I suppose all physics would look hard to me since I didn't understand any of it. Good for Bella, tackling that sort of stuff.

"Is she still in school?" I asked. "Or…what is it she does?

"I—I'm not really too sure. It's—uh—complicated. I don't really understand it much myself."

"I know that feeling. I like to think I'm not a dumb person, but I have no idea what Embry did to fix the leak in my faucet. It just looked like he hit things a bunch of times, but he swears he knew what he was doing and it worked, so he must be telling the truth. It's a strange world where we all get by having no idea what anyone else does, isn't it?"

"Very strange." Charlie Swan sighed. "Can I get you something? Sue makes the best muffins."

"Yes, thank you."

He nodded and left the room, leaving me alone with the television. Something else caught my eye. Above the mantle were a row of photographs. I didn't mean to be a snoop, but if they were displayed the family must be okay with people looking.

I noticed the ones of Bella first, especially an adorable picture of baby Bella and Charlie and her mother, whom I vaguely remembered from Bella's wedding. There were a few other school pictures. She had been too cute back then. Still pale, of course, because Bella was always pale, but adorable. Among the pictures of Bella were pictures of two native children, a boy and a girl. Seth and Leah, I assumed. They were sweet too, though to my surprise the girl was significantly older; when Seth stood grinning with his tenth birthday cake smeared all over his face, a girl in her mid-teens was refusing to get close to him in the picture. I had pictured her Embry's age, not somewhere closer to thirty.

Leah was a lot prettier than I had pictured her (the dragon woman of Embry's stories should have been grotesque, not modelesque). Not that I was jealous of the thick dark hair that was to die for. Maybe because she was so pretty, but I didn't think she looked as terrifying as Embry kept describing.

Until I found what was probably the most recent picture. I noticed Quil first since he was the broadest. Just looking at the picture gave me the urge to hug him; he looked so joyous, grinning like a child. Embry was beside him, looking slender in comparison, talking to someone not in the picture. Seth stood beside him, laughing at some joke. Despite his casual stance I knew he was the center of the picture (even the too long hair couldn't make him look less imposing). In the front there was a younger boy (who looked identical to the photos of the younger Seth, until I started wondering if there was also another brother) and a woman who was scowling at the camera.

It was amazing the misery a photo could convey. My heart went out to her, suddenly, even if she was surrounded by very nicely shaped half-naked men. She didn't seem to notice anything, just stared dully at the camera, her expression making me think of the day I had picked Didi up from the shelter.

The men should have been able to cheer her up—I could tell from the photograph that they could cheer anyone up. Their smiles weren't starched or forced; they were happy people. Their friendship was obvious as well. From the way their arms were wrapped around each other, to Leah casually leaning on Quil's legs, to Seth's hand on the boy's shoulder, it was all the little touches that made it clear that these people knew one another.

Loved each other.

Would die for each other (Embry had once said me). It made me shiver, all of a sudden. I guess I finally believed him.

Putting down that picture another photo caught my attention. It was a picture of a girl—not of Bella as I had initially assumed. Younger Bella was adorable; this girl was perfect. I had never seen a child so still or so clean or so serene. Her bronze hair was draped like someone had spent hours positioning it and her smile showed off perfect teeth. Like an angel from heaven she lit up the space she was in. Her brown eyes were captivating, even if they were not quite as wide-eyed as my kids could be. Seth had crouched beside her, to fit in the picture with her, and was smiling at her so much I thought he would hurt himself. It was the sort of smile I saw on fathers' faces when they picked their child up after the first day of school, a smile filled with pride and relief that they were safe and joy that their child was that extraordinarily brave.

But there was something a little off about everything. She couldn't be real, I decided. It was photoshopped. Someone had shrunk a picture of an older woman and scaled her down. There was nothing childlike about this girl even if I couldn't stop looking at her.

"Like the pictures?" Embry asked as he came up beside me. He handed me a muffin. I wanted to wait until Charlie returned, but Embry just shook his head and repeated his question. Apparently being neutral territory meant that Charlie and Sue let strangers have free reign of their house. They could probably hear us from the kitchen, though, the way I could sort of hear them bustling about the other room.

"Yeah. Who's the girl with Seth?"

"What year are we talking about?" Embry sighed taking the picture out of my hands. His expression when he saw it was a little hard to describe. I couldn't say what it was; but he was not happy about having to answer. "That's not Seth. That's Jake."

"No, it's not," I said as I took the picture back. "I've met Seth. That's him."

"I think I would know," he teased, wrapping an arm around my waist, kissing my cheek. "That's Jake. A good rule of thumb—if she's in the picture, it's Jacob."

Even though I stared at the picture for a long while, I still couldn't quite believe Embry. While Embry and Seth could have passed for brothers, Jacob and Seth, it seemed, could pass for twins. The more I stared, the more confused I got, trying to keep them straight in my mind.

"Who is she?"

"Oh. Uh...that's, uh, Nessie. She's related to Charlie. Somehow. Comes by to eat sometimes, since her family…they're kind of funny. And Sue likes taking in strays. She...she helped my mom, a lot, before I was born."

Knowing he just wanted to me to listen, I leaned against him and waited for whatever it was he was able to tell me. What was so wrong about the girl, I couldn't help wondering, that he would rather tell me about the mother he hated talking about than her?

"Sue's why most people thought my mom moved to La Push in the first place. My mom is actually from Makah and Sue's got a lot of family there, so they knew each other before my mom—she was just a kid back then and Sue's a nurse—and just as scary as she is now. She got my mom help, looked after her, told everyone else to mind their own business."

"It still must have been hard for your mother."

"Yeah, it was." He laughed, eager to change the subject. "I can't believe you thought that was Seth."

"They look the same," I protested. Then I realized something. Taking up the group picture I had been studying before I asked, "That's not Seth?"

"That's Seth," Embry said, pointing to the boy in his mid-teens kneeling beside Leah. "That's Jacob."

Their leader. It seemed obvious, all of a sudden.

"How old is this picture? You look like it could have been yesterday but..."

"Six, seven years ago."

"Embry? How old are you all?"

It seemed like such a stupid question, since I remember Jacob Black from high school. Evidently, his friends couldn't be more than a few years older than me.

"I'm two years younger than you. Seth is two years younger than that."

Since I was utterly embarrassed at having guessed so wrong about my own boyfriend, I concentrated on the other surprise.

"Seth is twenty-one?"

"His maturity confused you?"

"I thought—I don't know what I thought. Sometimes he acted—but I thought he was just—he looked—he looks like he could be older than me—I thought you called him kid to be ironic." Because if Seth was younger, why did Embry always seem to defer to him? "Like Little John, or something. He really is just twenty-one?"

"Yeah. He's the baby of the—group. And Leah's our Mom. She's a year older than you. When you meet her, make sure to let her know that she looks like the older sibling. It pisses her off when people get confused. And people always get confused."

"Okay. Is there anything that doesn't piss Leah off?"

He laughed as I put the picture back. "Nope. Jacob. On a good day. Maybe beating the rest of us in a race. Not much else."

But Embry was grinning like a maniac.

"Had he slept with Leah?"

"No."

Jessica gave me a look that said exactly what she thought of my overly defensive tone. I had to explain, "They have a complicated relationship, that's all. But they never…I don't think. It's not important, anyway. I'm continuing."

"You seem very fond of her." Not that I was trying to figure out if he had slept with her.

"Please." He laughed. "I had a tiny crush on her a long, long, long time ago, but then Sam broke her heart and she went crazy insane. Come on. Sue's probably got the tea ready by now."

She had. We crowded around the small kitchen table—no one blinked at Embry seating me on his lap because there were no other chairs in the room. It was too much trouble to bring them from the closet, Sue explained, before pouring the tea. I think they were doing it just for my sake, since Charlie didn't seem to like the drink and even Sue didn't seem to know what to put in it, though she downed it like a pro. I appreciated the gesture.

Sue had an impressive knowledge of arts-and-crafts (and exactly what children could survive swallowing) and so by the time we left I had enough ideas for the rest of the year.

"And ask Tiffany where she bought those scissors," she instructed me. "It's an easy cheat and it makes everything look so much nicer."

I glanced at Embry, wondering if Tiffany was yet another Clearwater woman he was scared of. It was the wrong thing to do. The glare on Sue's face explained why Embry had been nervous about introducing us; irrational as it was, I was worried something (mainly us) would catch fire as she stared.

"You haven't taken her to your mother?"

"Sue—" Embry didn't dare complete the sentence. He looked down and muttered, "We're going soon."

"Good."

And as Sue commanded, so it was done.