Chapter 10: Fatherhood

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Wednesday, September 7th, 2005,

Hello Sweet Pea,

Sorry I haven't written you in a few days, but I don't really think you want to know much about what I've been up to. Hah. I know, I know, TMI. Well, apparently I'm getting good at giving TMI. Just ask Granddad Carlisle. I knocked his socks off today, just for the fun of it.

By the way, I've decided to call him 'Dad' from now on, because that's what he is and he deserves the respect of hearing it.

I'm sitting at the breakfast bar in our new kitchen, writing this. If you're wondering why the ink has changed, it's because I now have my favourite fountain pen at my disposal. It feels really good in my hand. Funny how one gets attached to mundane objects.

Before I unload my pent up words, let me tell you that you've now been percolating for 50 days. Your mother appears to be 16 weeks pregnant, based on human measurements, which means you are really starting to resemble a little person. And you're very active. Even Charlie and Sue can feel you moving around in there. And Mommy told me you were dancing on her cervix the other day. That's not nice. I told you to 'cuddit-out'.

You dance when I sing to you, and poke me when I call you 'Tigger'. I can't tell you how much I love that. Well, everybody loves it. You get a lot of laughs.

Eleazar says you're talented, and he can't wait to meet you.

Your mother is sound asleep. The past couple of days have been rather wearing, not that they've been bad days. There have been moments... well, lets just say I'll treasure them forever. As usual, there were a couple of bad apples somewhere in the barrel. The trick is to pick the rotten one out before it corrupts anything else.

That must sound very cryptic and melancholy to you. Trust me, it's just the fall-out of my typical tendency to over-think things. And my nature really can exacerbate that, when there's a bee in my bonnet. Not sleeping gives me plenty of time to ponder. I had gotten pretty much completely away from it on our trip, but being back with other people, some of whom have difficult personalities, has brought it back with a vengeance.

So... Saturday was our last day in Brazil. Before we left, Mom and I saw Gabriela and her family. Great family, the Pereiras. Then, we got a few hours to ourselves before flying up to Grandma Renée's. Thanks to Hurricane Katrina, a couple of dozen of Auntie Alice's relatives have been using Grandma's house as a stop-off on their way to the temporary refuge in Forks. The Kwoli Warriors have been helping them evacuate and get settled, and Eleazar has been airlifting people all over Creation.

Funny, how we're all referring to them as 'The Brandons'. Since the line is feminine, there's not a Brandon amongst them, unless you count Auntie Alice's sister, Cynthia, whose maiden name was Brandon. Now, she's a Richards.

There's not much I want to tell you about that situation, except that all of us have been happy to use our talents and resources to help people.

I hope you get to meet Cynthia. She's 97, and rather eager to go and meet up with her vampire sweetheart, Albion ap Wellins, who's waiting for her in the Great Hereafter. However, she's a pretty tough little birdie, so I think she'll be hanging around for a bit. Certainly long enough to meet you, but hopefully long enough that you will be able to remember her, because Auntie Merrytwinkle is pretty special and I want you to know her.

We've had a few sorta squicky experiences with certain individuals, and it's made me think a lot about family, and how I want to raise you. So, I'm going to give you some background info, just in case you need to understand the way things are, someday, and you're afraid to ask.

As you know, I tend to journal so I can wrap my head around stuff. Yeah, yeah, quit making fun of me! You might be a chip off the old block, peanut.

Hopefully, you won't think it a bad thing.

We had a few rough moments with your Grandma. I hope you'll say 'what?' in response to reading that. I hope she'll change. Basically, your mother raised her. Renée is a kid in an adult's body. Sometimes that's fine. She's funny and the direct simplicity of her thoughts can be refreshing. But every once in a while she has a tantrum, and it's just not pretty. I've had to be very firm about setting limits for her, to keep our relationship respectful, and your mother is on board with that. She's agreed that we can't have a relationship with Grandma if she fails to treat us nicely.

Alice says things won't be perfect, but they will be good enough that you will be able to know your Grandma, which is a good thing. So I'm feeling pretty satisfied with that.

I think I've told you about Jacob before. Well, we've seen him now, and despite a few very bad moments things are looking up. His Dad, Billy, is a nice man. Very decent. He admits that for some years, he didn't discipline Jacob when he misbehaved, out of guilt over his wife's death. So now, he has to re-establish discipline. Now Jake's a nice kid, basically, but he's got a bad temper and he needs to learn how to control it. With fair, consistent discipline and a decent mentor or two, his life might not have become quite so messy.

Confidentially, sometimes I wish Carlisle had shown me a little more tough love. I think he was afraid I'd just abandon him, not understanding how much he really loved me. I had a typical adolescent chip on my shoulder, which lasted far too long. The one that says, 'I'm so misunderstood. Nobody 'gets' me. I'm all alone'. Let me tell you, just because a parent doesn't seem to 'get' you, it doesn't mean that's the case (although Carlisle admits he didn't 'get' me). It also doesn't mean your parents don't love you.

So what have I shown you so far? A parent who refused to accept adult responsibilities, and a parent who chose not to enforce rules (talking about Billy, not Carlisle). Both parents love their kids, trust me. But they didn't parent effectively.

And then, there's another kind of parenting. The kind that squashes the spirit out of a kid.

Today, one of Bella's friends came to our housewarming (unexpectedly, and we were kind of put on the spot, trying to keep you safe from prying human minds) in the company of her mother, who is a real control freak if you ever saw one. This woman (who made Carlisle think a word I haven't Heard from him before) does not seem to want her daughter to be more successful than she is. It boggles the mind, really. Made Mom and me sad.

See, the girl is really bright, and she got a scholarship to Washington State, and her parents made her turn it down. They don't feel she needs to broaden her mind. They want her to work a job, rather than have a career, and they want her to get married. Oh, not to marry 'young' like Bella and I did, but within a few years from now.

When she decided it was time to leave, this woman snapped her fingers to summon her daughter as though she was a dog. It was appalling. What a bully!

Be assured that we will help you reach your goals, no matter what they may be.

Yeah, Bella and I really would like to help this girl, but we're a little stymied as to how to do it. I mean, she dutifully canceled her plans for school on her parents' orders. She's always been a follower. Until she takes charge of her own life, it's difficult to know how to help her. Bella's under the impression that if we anonymously provide enough cash to make her independent, the parents will somehow get control of it. It's frustrating, and even though this girl has sometimes been a bit of a pain, we can totally see why.

So. We will guide you. We won't force you into anything. Which brings up another point. One I'm completely freaked out about writing down, so if the penmanship is a little shaky, you know it's because of that. Uh, writing it down makes it more 'real'. That's the only explanation I can give for my anxiety.

I really can't believe I'm going to put it on paper. But I have to set it down somewhere, and I'm trusting that you will be the only one to read this journal.

Mommy and Granddad were pretty freaked out today, because I reacted negatively when this nasty woman compared me to a picture that was supposedly of my father (really, it was me, taken back in the 70's). The battleaxe said 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree', and I've got to admit that idea really hit me hard, considering Bella and I have recently been discussing the way I was raised.

Mom and Granddad think my father was abusive. Like, on a regular basis. And it might be wishful thinking, but I don't believe he was, except for the one time, which turned into a huge tragedy. Well, it was tragic in that a whole lot of bad things happened, starting with my catching the influenza when I went to get my cuts treated. I mean, they died. And I ended up transformed, and at one point I rebelled, to the detriment of a lot of people. But eventually, it led me to your mother, and you were created. So everything works together for good, even if we don't see it at the time. And I'm not saying their illness was a Godsend. Far from it. They didn't deserve it. What I'm trying to say is God took something bad, and eventually brought something good out of it.

For the record, my parents were strict, and very opinionated as to what constituted moral behaviour, and I was a scamp, but they never were arbitrary about thwarting any goal of mine, and they were generally very loving. They both talked to me like I was an adult, and they never were stingy with their time, or attention. I remember wonderful discussions around the dinner table every night, and rides on Father's shoulders when I was little, and that he played Tin Soldiers with me, and that he took me all kinds of places with great enjoyment. In fact, when I look for him in my fuzzy jar of memories, he's usually either looking proud, or he's laughing.

He gave me a beating. Not with a hand, with a belt. Yeah, I know he did it. I know. But I don't know why. I can't reconcile the two images of him in my head.

I don't want to know why. I must have done something that he considered horrid. I know I could be highly exasperating, but I don't remember being bad. And the truth is, I don't think I did anything to warrant that. I would have brought any nasty traits forward into this existence, and I just can't see a nasty streak being expunged with venom. It doesn't happen.

I've been examining myself for years, and my soul isn't any blacker than that of anybody else. Like I said, Mom was right about me, and hanging onto the idea that I was bad, without evidence, would just be self-destructive.

If I did something evil, I don't want to know. And if I did something he considered morally abhorrent, which is the only thing I can think, then perhaps his response was over-the-top. Perhaps it was something considered bad by a repressive culture which is now virtually extinct.

Yeah, I can be exasperating. I've made Carlisle lose his cool enough times to know that. I mean, making Dad lose his temper is a real feat, trust me. Not to mention your Mom. Hah. At times, they've both been really fed up with me. I'm assuming I'm at least a bit more exasperatingly stubborn, and bratty, now than I was as a child, since traits tend to intensify. And in this day and age, people are much more emotionally intelligent than they were back in my day. People have skills now, to recognize and solve problems, that were not available back then.

Between you, me and the fencepost, Carlisle's society was in some ways more emotionally intelligent than mine, Jasper's or Em's. At least the men Carlisle grew up with weren't taught that the sense of touch was linked to the Devil and ought to be eradicated from the human body.

That's not what I'm trying to get at. Cut it out! I'm talking about something else.

I once asked Em and Jasper, during one of our frequent discussions about life Pre-Transformation, whether either one of them could remember their father. Jasper remembers very little, of course, but Em recalls quite a bit. So I asked whether they could remember if their father had ever kissed them. The answer was 'no'. They said showing affection like that just wasn't done. Well, I can't remember my father ever doing anything more demonstrative than shaking my hand. I can't remember him ever saying he loved me, although I know he did.

Later, I asked Carlisle the same question. "Oh, yes," he beamed. "I can remember my father sitting by the fire, tickling the perdition out of me whilst he minded the stew pot on the hook. I was quite small, and he always surprised me after giving me a fierce look, by jest. He was generally a frightening man, and determined that I should not disappoint the memory of my mother by being less than perfect, and yet a tender moment such as this would overtake him, when I was reciting my verses. I can mind him gathering me up, squealing, in his arms, and kissing me, and then, he would tell me he didn't know what he would do without me, to keep alive the light, that was Amelia, in the world."

Do you see what I mean? Does that not bring a lump to your throat? And Dad describes his father as a Fire and Brimstone, demon-hunting fanatic. That proves to me beyond anything else that people have things inside them that are hidden (if only circumstance allows the discovery), and sometimes those things are very endearing.

That's what I want you to remember about Edward Masen Sr, okay? Not his mistakes or weaknesses, or the fact that he beat me badly, one time, but rather, how much fun he could be.

Both your mother and I have some worrisome elements to our backgrounds, that could have made us really bad parents. And a small thing happened, that I want to talk to Carlisle about, which hopefully he won't dismiss as -I quote- bollocks.

I know damn-well that I'm bossy. Well, something happened on our honeymoon that left me kind of uneasy about my parenting ability. But I'm sure Dad will mentor me, and keep me accountable.

When we found the hybrid toddler, that Aro named 'Theofilo', he was killing somebody and I couldn't get him to stop. He was feral, unable to talk or think at the level of a normal child, and I couldn't figure out what to do. My communication skills failed. So I hit him. That scares me.

Deuteronomy 5:9: "I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me"

The idea that I could perpetuate a cycle of abuse, or that Bella could perpetuate a cycle of neglect, scares the ever-loving venom out of me, okay? Not that I could ever imagine your mother being like that. She nurtures everything she touches. No, it's not her I'm worried about. It's me.

But most people fail to read the next line, verse 10: "And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments."

So let's just say I'm begging for mercy, yeah?

I don't know where I'd be today without Carlisle. He claimed me, he kept me, he taught me by example, and he has loved me at times when I have simply been a bear to live with. Eventually, he found out how to parent effectively, and he's been doing a spiffy job of making sure I know how much he loves me.

So, Dearest, I'm not going to be like the bad side of Father. I'm not going to bend you to conform to what society considers 'normal', and I'm not going to judge you when you fail. And I'm not going to use aggression to manage you.

I want to be like both my fathers, in that I want to take an active role in your life, and spend time learning about you and your interests, and playing with you, and being proud of your successes. But even more than that, I want to be like my Dad: Carlisle Cullen.

I want to love you unconditionally. I want to give you my affection. I want you to know that any temporary separations we may have during the course of our lives will be hard to bear. And I want you to know I love you. I want you to see me be demonstrative, not just with you, but with lots of people.

Love is a verb, and I intend to show (and tell) you that I love you, every day for the rest of my life.

Hugs, kisses, tickles, and words,

Daddy