Chapter 10: Home

When I awoke the next morning, I was greeted by the smiling, yet overly tired, face of Esme. Slightly disoriented—as I had been the morning before—from awakening in the hospital, I greeted her. "Good morning," I said fuzzily. Then I remembered that I'd not seen her return the night before. The last time I'd opened my eyes, Edward had been sleeping near me. A quick glance told me that the recliner was moved back to where it'd been yesterday afternoon. I shot Esme a puzzled look.

"Edward had to work this morning," she said in reply to my unasked question.

Her answer only served to confuse me further. "He had to work this morning?"

She nodded. "Yes. He had to be on the floor at seven."

"Then why did he stay if he had to work? That can't have been a very restful sleep for him."

Esme seemed incredibly pleased at the direction of our early morning conversation. "I think he got a far better night's sleep in here than he would've at the nurse's station."

I scoffed. "You can't honestly expect me to believe that he would've spent the night at the front desk if he hadn't been in here."

Esme looked at me critically, as if to challenge my words. Obviously, she fully expected that he would've done exactly that.

Huh. I found myself wondering what to make of that but decided that it was too much for my brain to contemplate so early in the morning. "Wait. Is everything okay with you?" I suddenly asked, changing the direction of the conversation. "I'm not upset that you didn't return last night, but you look like your son after he's worked a seventy-two hour shift."

As if on cue, Esme yawned. "Excuse me. I'm sorry that I didn't make it back in here until very early this morning. I thought that Edward would have told you what happened when I called him last night."

I shook my head. "If you're talking about the phone call that Edward received at around nine-thirty last night… I was asleep when he came back in."

"Ah. Well, I was actually here most of the night. We all were."

"What?"

"Tanya went into labor late last evening. She delivered a baby girl at four o'clock this morning."

"Oh, that's… nice." I didn't know what else I was supposed to say to that. All of the Cullens had said wonderful things about Tanya, and obviously Edward liked her enough to confide in her, but all I could think of was the one time that I'd met her she made me feel like a piece of gum being scraped off of her shoe.

Esme was unaware of my lack of enthusiasm as she beamed with delight and pride. Immediately she launched into extensive detail of Tanya's labor and her newborn baby girl, Kirsten. She went on to show me some images of the little girl on her digital camera. She bragged about how well Tanya did during labor and how she'd gone through the entire ordeal unmedicated. Then she went on and on and on about Kirsten's perfect pink cheeks, her perfect tuft of light blonde hair on her head, her ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes….

There was no doubt about it: Tanya and her newborn daughter were the models that all women and their babies should hope to aspire to.

The very thought made me want to gag, and I fought against the jealousy.

Yes, it was irrational. It made absolutely no sense, whatsoever. My current problems were completely outside of my control. The fact that I had been told that I'd likely end up having a scheduled surgical delivery, and therefore be on copious amounts of medication, was not something that I could change.

But it still brought a surge of bile up my throat that I had to struggle to keep down.

Esme noticed my pained face and immediately asked if I was feeling all right.

I grabbed at the water on my table and swallowed some down. "Yes, I'm sorry," I managed after I drank a hefty gulp. "You must be exhausted after such a long night. Maybe you should go home and get some sleep."

"Oh, I'll be fine. This certainly isn't the first time," she reassured me. "Besides, I want to wait here until your doctor comes in for rounds this morning."

Before I could even respond, she pulled out a deck of cards and began shuffling for another hand of cards.

When my doctor finally came around to see me, she told me that I seemed to be doing well and that she'd shut off the magnesium sulfate. If all went well, then I could likely go home the following day.

"However, if I send you home, Bella, you need to promise me that you'll stay on bedrest through the weekend."

"Of course," I quickly promised.

"That means that someone should stay with you."

"Oh."

"Bella, you can come stay with us," Esme interjected.

"Um."

Dr. Swanson nodded. "That would be good," she said with a smile. "Okay, I'll be back again tomorrow morning."

Once she walked out the door, I turned my head towards Esme. She was grinning at me broadly. "I can't stay with you."

"What?" Esme asked, her pleased expression dropping instantly.

I sighed. "It's not a good idea. I just…."

"I thought that you and Edward were working things out."

I thought about that for a moment. "It's not…. We haven't…." I groaned, and attempted to compose my thoughts before speaking again. "Edward and I haven't worked anything out. We've only managed to stay in each other's company for more than two minutes without screaming at each other, and I really only think that's because I've been drugged up to my eyeballs."

Esme just looked at me with sad eyes and shook her head and mumbled something that sounded like, "So damn stubborn," under her breath. I didn't know whether she was referring to me or her son, but I never got the chance to ask as the nurse came in to start fiddling with my IV.

The conversation wasn't picked up again after the nurse left. Truthfully, I believed that Esme was too tired and neither one of us had the energy to discuss it further. All I was able to do was ask Esme to deal another hand of cards.

The distraction of the game served to help keep me from thinking too hard about anything else. Though, as Esme grew sleepier, she began to pay less and less attention to the game or the idle small-talk that we'd become accustomed to, and my mind wandered more.

What was I to do now? I'd told Alice and Esme to leave me alone because of how Edward had been behaving, only to call them when I feared that something was wrong with the baby. Now, what? Did I cut them all back out again?

The answers to those questions all hinged on one person: Edward.

He was the reason why I'd cut his family out. However, when I'd seen him the night before, he had been almost cordial. Well, perhaps that was overstating things a bit. He hadn't been as adversarial as he had been.

What really caused me to pause were the things that he'd said when he'd thought that I was asleep Monday night… or, early Tuesday morning. It was all only a hazy memory to me, but one thing shouted out loud and clear: he was conflicted and confused. Part of me could understand that; after all, I had been too. But he's had three months to figure things out, and only now he was beginning to realize what all of this meant?

Really, it made me want to smack him upside the head with a package of diapers, or a crib.

A crib was heavier.

Which led my mind down a completely different trail of thought: I had nothing for my baby. I'd done nothing to prepare for him. No clothes, no furniture, no diapers. I hadn't even thought about names for him.

I sighed loudly.

"Are you okay, dear?" Esme asked, my sigh seeming to snap her awake.

"Sorry. I'm just thinking."

"About?"

"I don't know. Anything. Everything. My mind is going in a dozen different directions at once. I just don't know how I'm going to do this."

Esme reached her hand out to mine. "I know that you need to make the decision that's best for you and your son, but please know how much we want to help you. I know how you are feeling, and I know that no woman should ever go through this alone."

I felt the moisture begin to pool in my eyes as I looked at her.

"I'm just scared," I whispered.

She squeezed my hand. "I know you are. But even if everything was perfect, you would still be scared."

After a moment, she added, "Trust me on that."

I sniffed, nodded, and then turned my attention back to the card game.

~X~

Wednesday night, I'd been alone, and without any nighttime visitors. Esme had gone home by five in the afternoon, nearly falling asleep on her feet. Alice, who had stopped by earlier in the afternoon, seemed to be in the same shape. I had assured them both that I would be fine by myself, and they'd finally left. I thought it had more to do with the fact that they were tired and in no condition to argue. Just before ten that night, my nurse came in and told me that Dr. Cullen had left a message that he wouldn't be stopping by because he was on-call and he was horribly busy, something about being down a doctor, but I wasn't sure. He just didn't think that he'd be able to pull away.

When the nurse delivered the message, I seriously had to wonder why Carlisle was having her tell me that. And then, after another moment, I realized that the message was from Edward, and I wondered why he would even bother. I wasn't sure if he perhaps felt obligated or guilty or… I had no idea, and frankly I didn't want to think about it until I could actually talk to him.

My doctor officially released me from the hospital on Thursday morning. I was thrilled. But, Esme and Alice were still insisting on taking me home with them. And that was something that I really couldn't do. It took a lot of convincing and bargaining, but I finally convinced them to take me home.

Of course, that meant that I wasn't going home entirely alone. Alice insisted that she would be staying with me until my doctor's appointment Monday morning. I was hopeful that Dr. Swanson would actually release me back to work then; even she had admitted that the treatment I'd received had been more aggressive than she normally would prescribe. Aggressive wasn't necessarily a bad thing. All that mattered to me was my baby's health. If he was okay, then I was okay.

However, I found myself thinking that I likely stood a better chance of being released back to work if Alice didn't go with me to my appointment. Not that I blamed Alice for anything, I just had the feeling that the entire Cullen family was overprotective and Dr. Swanson seemed to know them. It didn't take a genius to deduce that the aggressive treatment probably had something to do with them. Esme's words about being among a family of doctors ran through my head. If I wanted Dr. Swanson to only consider me as her patient, not associated with the Cullens, I'd have to do what I could to ensure that Alice and Esme had other plans by Monday morning.

The pair of them helped me out to their car, and I was honestly surprised when Alice actually turned the car onto my street, taking me to my apartment. I had half expected them to try to kidnap me and hold me hostage for the next several days.

Naturally, nothing is ever simple. Once I got the door unlocked to my apartment, Alice and Esme both took complete control. They stuck their noses into everything. Alice ran around squealing about how cute everything was, how she loved the coverlet on my bed, adored the decorations in the bathroom, and she began gushing over my music collection. All the while, Esme poked through my closets, pulling out extra blankets and pillows for me to stay on the couch during the day. She then went into my bathroom, started the shower for me (because apparently I wasn't able to do anything for myself anymore), and grabbed me some clean clothes that would be comfortable for lounging around the house, all before going into the kitchen to start lunch.

With a sigh, I simply gave in and went into the bathroom to get cleaned up.

When I emerged nearly thirty minutes later, Esme was finished in the kitchen. She and Alice were sitting at my kitchen table, eating and there was a tray with food on it for me on the coffee table. They both began to talk, though most of it centered on Tanya and Kirsten, quickly turning my stomach and causing me to lose my appetite. After lunch, Esme gave me a quick hug goodbye so that she could go over to Tanya's house to "get things ready for them" when she and the baby were discharged later that afternoon.

Alice insisted that she wasn't leaving. She went over to look at my meager collection of movies, found something that she dubbed as "acceptable," and popped it in.

"Bella," Alice began in a tone that was too sweet even for her as she sat down on the sofa next to me, "where is the nursery?"

"The spare bedroom is right down the hall," I said simply.

"Bella! My nephew is not going to sleep in that room. It's cold and dreary and… and… boring!"

"It's only cold because I never open the door. It's nothing more than a storage room right now."

"So what are your plans for it, then?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it."

Alice's mouth fell open in a mixture of shock and horror, and I felt the need to try to explain myself. "It's just a room. It doesn't matter. I mean, I'll find a crib and maybe a dresser. What more do I really need?"

She gave an exasperated sigh as if I missed the point entirely. "But a baby needs a nice room that's homey and comfortable. You need to paint the walls and get all of the boxes out of there." She tapped her lips with her finger. "And maybe hang some wallpaper."

"It's for a baby. I highly doubt that he'll know the difference," I snapped, interrupting her thoughts. Really, I didn't want to bother with paint and wallpaper. In my opinion, there really wasn't any point to it. Maybe in a house, but this was just an apartment.

"Sure he will!" she insisted loudly. "Studies show that a baby who has a nicely decorated room and is surrounded by calming things will sleep more peacefully, cry less, and grow up to be smarter."

I snorted. Now she was being ridiculous. "What studies?" I challenged.

"Well, I'm sure that there are some out there somewhere!"

I rolled my eyes. "Sure there are."

Alice pursed her lips and glared at me for a moment.

"Just tell me what it is that you want," I said.

"I want to decorate the nursery."

I started to shake my head, whether it was to deny her request or simply because I was too stunned to actually say anything, I'm not sure.

"Please, Bella. Please, please, please," she begged. "Think of it this way—it'll give me something to do while I stay with you for the next few days."

"Alice, I don't want you to stay for the next several days."

The pained look that suddenly crossed her features made me feel instantly guilty, but before I could apologize she looked at me and said, "I know that you had valid reasons for telling us to leave you alone and for refusing to return my calls. But, you are the one who called us, Bella. You were scared and you called me. Don't shut any of us out again. Please don't. You…. You'll…."

"I'll what?" I asked after her words trailed off, though I had a feeling that I didn't want to hear the rest of her sentence, I already felt horrible as I looked at her sad face and her tear-filled eyes.

"If you cut us out again, Bella, you'll not only hurt me, but you'll absolutely crush Mom."

I hated myself at that moment.

I hated hurting people, especially as sweet as Esme and Alice had been.

But what I hated more was that I was a sucker for guilt trips. And Alice, like her mother, was a pro at them. They're both damn lucky that I liked them.

~X~

I must've fallen asleep during the movie because I jumped when the phone rang sometime later and the credits were rolling.

Alice wasn't anywhere in the living room, and it took me a second to find the handset.

"Hello?"

"Bella!" the voice on the other end of the line exclaimed.

"Hi, Angela," I said, smiling.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine. Tired. But, fine."

"When did you get home?"

"A couple of hours ago. I fell asleep, or else I would've called you myself."

"No problem. I'm glad that you're home. I tried calling on your cell earlier."

I shook my head at her words, even though I knew she couldn't see me. "I don't have my new one yet."

"Oh. I gave it to Alice this morning. I'm sure she probably just forgot. I was only calling because I need to know when you think that you'll be back in."

"Oh, Monday, I hope. I have a doctor's appointment early in the morning, and if everything is okay, she should let me go back to work."

"Good. That sounds… that's very good," Angela said, sounding a bit distracted.

"I'll go through my work emails this afternoon. Is there anything that I need to address immediately?"

"Um." I heard the shuffling of paper, followed by some muted voices in the background. "No. Nothing to worry about, Ms. Swan."

I frowned. These days, Angela only addressed me as Ms. Swan if there were clients around or if she felt the need to distance herself from our friendship, which was a rarity. Besides, she'd already screeched my name when I answered the phone. "Is everything all right there?"

"Oh, yes. Nothing to worry about," she repeated again quickly.

"Okay. Well, send me the rest of this week's schedule so I can see what can be done over the phone or on the computer tomorrow. Barring any other complications, we can probably schedule any meetings for Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning."

"I'll go through your schedule," she assured me.

I waited for a moment before saying, "Angela, are you sure that there isn't anything else?"

"Nothing that can't wait until Monday."

"All right. Thank you. If you need anything call or email. And I'll find Alice and get my cell, so you can reach me that way, too."

"That's good to know. I'm glad that you're home."

"Me too. Thanks again, Ang. I'll talk to you later."

"Goodbye."

I hung up the phone and stared at it, puzzled for a moment, before getting up from the couch. "Alice!" I called.

The door to the spare room opened, and Alice emerged with a pad of paper, a pencil behind her ear, and a tape measure. "What?" she asked.

"What are you doing?"

"Just sketching," she said too innocently.

I just shook my head and decided it was best to leave her alone. "I need my phone," I said, changing the subject.

"Oh! I forgot!" Alice walked quickly past me and to the kitchen where she pulled my cell phone out of her purse. "I picked that up from Angela this morning before bringing you home."

I took it from her and walked over to grab my laptop off of the counter. Knowing that I was about ready to open Pandora's Box, I plugged everything in once I settled onto the couch and booted up both my new phone and my computer.

There were thirty-two texts and forty-eight voicemails on my phone. Angela obviously had obviously purchased the new phone bright and early Tuesday morning and aside from setting up my voicemail, she hadn't done anything else with the phone. I appreciated that she respected my privacy, however, it was her job to take care of some of these details. It only took me a moment to realize that the majority of the messages were from Jacob. I groaned. I'd forgotten to call him, and now he was panicking. I sighed, hadn't he realized that my phone broke?

The latest voice message from him said, "Bella, where in the hell are you? The hospital says they've never heard of you. You're not home. You're not answering your house phone, and your cell number is ringing, so I'm assuming that it's fixed. You're not at work. Your assistant only told me that you were out for a few days and to 'call back later.' Nobody is telling me anything! If you don't call me by five o'clock this afternoon, I'm calling Charlie, and I'm sure that you're aware of how horrible that would be."

Of course, I'd had so many messages to listen to before then, that it took me close to an hour to hear that one. While I was doing that, I was sifting through my email inbox sorting the messages between work-related, personal, and spam; and then sorting them based on priority. Nothing jumped out as something that was life or death, but there was plenty there to keep me busy for awhile.

"Alice!" I yelled again.

This time when she came out of the spare bedroom, she had a light sheen of sweat on her forehead, and she looked as if she'd been doing a workout.

"What are you doing?" I asked after taking in her appearance.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm rearranging some things. Honestly, Bella, I don't know what you thought you were going to do in there by yourself."

I crinkled my forehead and briefly wondered what in the hell she was talking about. All that was in that room was a spare bed—which if she was insisting on staying, she would be sleeping in for the night—and boxes of books and old clothes. Maybe she was moving the bed around. Really, I didn't want to know.

"What did you need?" she prompted me.

"Jacob left me dozens of messages on my phone, and more than once he said that he tried calling the hospital only to be told that I wasn't there."

"Oh. That."

"That what?" I asked, starting to get angry.

"Dad had them list you as private when he got there Tuesday morning."

"What does that mean?"

"He was just trying to protect you and prevent too many rumors starting. People could call you, but only if they knew your room number. Everyone else would be told that you weren't there."

"That's just…" I shook my head, "odd."

Alice shrugged. "He said that he told you about it, but it's really possible that you never understood. You were pretty stoned on Tuesday."

I nodded. That much was true. It seemed odd that Carlisle would do something like that, but there was nothing to be done about it now. And really, I didn't want to think about why Carlisle would even begin to think that it was necessary to list me, Isabella Swan—a nobody—as private. Wasn't that something used by either women hiding from abusive boyfriends or people who wanted to hide from the press? Unless he was worried about the hospital gossip spreading beyond the maternity floor, my actively working mind told me.

Alice just flashed me a grin as she decided that the conversation was finished for now and turned her attention back to my spare bedroom, while I opened my phone, found Jacob's name and number, and pressed send.

I was equally annoyed and pleased when the call went to the answering machine at his apartment. "Jacob, it's Bella. I'm fine. No need to call Charlie. I was at the hospital. Long stupid story. I was there until a few of hours—"

My message was cut off when by a loud screeching noise, and then Jacob's worried voice, "Bella?"

"Yeah, Jake. It's me."

"Sorry, I was helping my dad, and I couldn't get to the phone before the machine picked up. Is everything all right? What happened? How are you feeling? Is the baby—"

"Calm down. Everything is fine. Honest. The baby is healthy. My doctor just wanted me to stay for a couple of days."

"Good. I'm on my way over. You can tell me all about it," he said. In the background I could hear the jingling of keys.

"Stay right where you are," I rushed to tell him before he ended the call and walked out his door.

"I want to see you, Bella. Just to make sure you're okay." The pleading, desperate tone in his voice once again worried me as to how seriously he was considering our "friendship." I'd thought that I'd been very clear on what I thought of our relationship. But to be fair, it did sound like I had done a disappearing act on him since Monday night. That would make any friend nervous.

"I'm sorry that I worried you, but I'm fine."

"I just hate the idea of you home alone, Bella."

"I'm not alone. Don't worry about me."

"Who's there with you?" he asked, sounding slightly irritated and even more concerned.

"Alice is here."

"Alice? The woman from Monday night? His sister?"

"Yeah, that's right."

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. "Is that Edward guy still being a jerk to you?"

"That's none of your business."

"I think it is. You're my friend, and you deserve better than for some asshole to treat you like crap."

"You and I have known each other for two weeks. It's not your place. Besides, I've been dealing with the asshole just fine on my own, thank you very much. I don't need some knight in shining armor to come along and rescue me. I'm not a damsel in distress."

"Now that you're done with all the clichés," he snapped. "I've known you practically my whole life. And I think that whether you believe it's necessary or not, everyone could use a bit of rescuing."

"Just because my dad used to drag me out on fishing trips with your dad does not make us lifelong pals. I already told you, I don't remember any of it. I try to block those memories out of my head. If you're feeling this incredible desire to go out and save someone, go become a fireman or something."

Silence followed my remarks, and I began to bite my lip, nervously. I didn't really feel guilty about what I'd said, but I knew that it probably hurt his feelings. I chose not to think about those fishing trips with Charlie when I was younger. There had been nothing about them that I'd found to be enjoyable. A lot of cold, wet, rainy days spent sitting in front of a body of water and a lot of dirt. Not my idea of a good time. It had been those activities, when Charlie forced me to do something that made me so horribly miserable, that had begun to plant the seeds of my resentment towards him in the first place.

When the phone remained silent, I sighed. "Listen, Jake. I really am fine. I can take care of myself. Why don't you plan on coming by on Friday? If I'm lucky, I'll be able to convince Alice to go to work, but even if she won't, I'm sure that she'll leave us alone for a bit. Right now I need to go through some stuff for work. Please, give me through tomorrow morning to get some things caught up at the very least." I bit my lip, hoping that he'd hear the genuineness of my words. He had been very sweet to me these last couple of weeks. It made me think that on some level he felt as if he were my dad's eyes and ears in Seattle, which led me to some very uncertain feelings to say the very least.

"Okay. I can do that. Name the time, and I'll be there."

I gave him the directions to my apartment and asked him to come by early afternoon.

Once Jacob was assured that he could stop by and see me, he was much less overbearing. I was actually able to hold a legitimate conversation with him. He told me that he'd not told Charlie anything yet. Thankfully, Jacob had wanted to have something to tell him; otherwise Charlie would've been in Seattle before I'd awoken Tuesday morning. I said a silent prayer of thanks that Jacob didn't call Charlie or my mom as soon as he couldn't get a hold of me on Tuesday morning. Really, he'd been very patient when the hospital said that they'd never heard of me.

Finally, I used the excuse that I needed to get some work done and ended the call.

After I pressed end, I began the tedious chore of reading all of my emails.

Esme and Carlisle brought dinner by that evening because, apparently, Alice didn't know how to cook. Esme and Carlisle were both very sweet, but their stay was short. Aside from bringing us food, their main reason for stopping by was to bring Alice a suitcase of "necessities."

Those necessities included more beauty products than I had purchased in my entire lifetime. It was completely ridiculous. Before they left, Esme gave me a hug before kissing her daughter on the cheek and handing her a folded piece of paper. Then both she and Carlisle were gone nearly as quickly as they'd arrived.

After we ate, Alice began shopping online with the computer her mother had brought her, and I excused myself to go get ready for bed. I was still horribly tired.

I cleaned up and changed. Just as I was getting ready to get into bed, Alice knocked on my door and came in.

"Do you need something?" I asked her. It wasn't until that moment that I realized that she was a guest in my house and I'd done nothing for her. "The sheets are—"

Alice stopped me as I started walking towards the linen closet in the hallway. "I'm fine, Bella. I'm not a guest—I'm here to take care of you."

"I appreciate that, but I really don't need it."

"I know that you feel relatively normal, but really, it will make all of us feel better if you just follow your doctor's orders and allow us to dote on you."

My lips formed a tight smile as I shook my head. "I don't like to have to rely on anyone."

"Really? None of us ever would've guessed that," Alice retorted, sarcasm positively oozing from her.

I felt my smile grow more genuine. "You should go into work tomorrow, Alice. I don't want to be responsible for you losing your shop. Besides, I have a friend coming by in the afternoon."

She was waving her hand to dismiss my concerns until I mentioned that someone else was stopping by. "Who?"

"Jacob."

"He was at the hospital Monday night."

"Yes, he was the one with the long black hair."

Alice studied my face for a moment and then nodded. "Okay. In that case…"

I waited for the shoe to drop and for her to announce whatever plans she was now concocting for the three of us Friday afternoon. I had a funny feeling that an afternoon of Jacob, Alice, and me would be more than a little bit uncomfortable.

My dread must've been apparent on my face because the next thing that Alice said was, "Cheer up, Bella. I know you'll miss me when I'm gone."

My ears perked up. "You're going to work?"

She nodded. "I think that you're right. I probably should run down to the boutique for a bit tomorrow. I haven't been in much this week, so I should at least make an appearance."

"As I've said before, I'll be fine. Besides Jake, I have work that I need to get caught up on, so feel free to take as long as you need."

She gave me a disapproving look. "Don't overwork yourself."

"I won't. I promise."

"Okay, then. I'll go into the shop in the morning to make sure that everything is fine, come back here with lunch, and then leave when your friend comes by to visit. Does that sound all right with you?"

I smiled and nodded.

"I'll be right back." Alice walked out of the room and was back moments later. Walking over to my dresser, she set two bottles on top of it. "Your medicine and your vitamins."

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, mother."

Then she handed me a folded piece of paper. I was fairly certain that this was the same thing that Esme had handed her earlier. "Those are numbers for everyone. You have to promise me that you'll call if you need anything."

I studied the list. It was indeed phone numbers for every member of the Cullen family. There were the numbers for the cell phones for every family member from Carlisle to Edward to Jasper, followed by office numbers, backline numbers to end-run the receptionists, to pagers. There were even numbers for Emmett and Rosalie who I hadn't even met yet.

"Don't hesitate to use those."

"I promise, Alice, if something happens during those entire three or four hours that I'm left here by myself, I will call... someone," I said with a chuckle. She looked indignant, so I added, "Thank you. This is more than sweet of you."

"You're welcome."

After another moment, I couldn't fight off a yawn. "I really am tired," I said needlessly.

"Of course. You'll let me know if you need anything?"

"Yes, Alice. I'm really all set."

"Okay. Have a good night, Bella." Then she did something she'd never done before, Alice placed her hand on my stomach and leaned her head towards it. "Good night, baby."

Alice looked up and grinned at me broadly, and I couldn't help but laugh. "We will both see you tomorrow, Alice."

Deciding that was a sign of encouragement, Alice squealed and hugged me before she left the room, leaving me to relax in peace at last.