A/N: Another pretty short chapter, so I'm posting it early. Sorry for the drastic change in tone from that last chapter - it just kind of happened that way! More information about Edward's backstory to be revealed later on...
I dated a guy who called his dad (biological - not a stepfather) by his first name, so...apparently this isn't that unusual.
Thank you for reading and reviewing! I appreciate all of your comments!!
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight.
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Chapter 12: Paternal Inheritance
EPOV
I didn't have even a second to think about what I had just done, as I closed the car door and watched the cab take off down the hill. Jasper suddenly appeared at my side, looking panicked.
"Someone's coding," he said, looking toward the hospital entrance. "I'm sorry, I saw you come out here—"
"Let's go," I sighed.
I could see a very long night ahead of me.
***
I spent the entire night in the hospital, sleeping at my desk for an hour or two, hounding residents and attending to patients whenever someone had the nerve to page me. It turned out a bus driver had nodded off at the wheel somewhere on Haight street, and we ended up with the casualties. But I knew that as bad as Monday had been, it couldn't possibly compare to Tuesday.
Fortunately Jasper seemed to be on some kind of amphetamines, or maybe it was just Brandon's presence, and he happily obliged every one of the tasks I gave him. Brandon was her usual chipper, competent self, and I thought about thanking her, or complimenting her—but no, that would be too much. She knew I valued her presence on my wards; she knew me better than I liked to think.
At 5 pm on Tuesday evening, when the chaos was just beginning to ebb, I slipped out the back door and into the breezy afternoon. I was irritable, and anxious, and not at all excited about this yearly ritual. But it was inescapable, as regular as a birthday or Christmas or any other day of the year that no matter how hard you tried, no matter what you did, you simply had to endure it.
I walked to my Volvo in the corner of the parking garage, grateful for the few moments of peace its silent interior could offer me. I began my slow, long trek across the city, climbing the hills and meandering through traffic, annoyed by the congestion on the streets. I never drove during rush hour. Fucking stupid, but unfortunately, unavoidable.
We met at 6 pm for dinner, at the same place, on the same day, as we had for over a decade. And when I walked into the cramped, dimly-lit dining room at precisely six o'clock, he was sitting at his usual table, sipping club soda and lime.
"Edward," he said in greeting, standing up.
He shook my hand firmly, exactly the way he taught me, so many years ago. One of my first memories was the grimace I fought as he shook my tiny hand, feeling the pain from his strong, fatherly grip. As a boy, I hated to disappoint him. As a man, my attitude was much the same, though he never knew it.
"Good to see you, Carlisle," I said, taking my seat across from him. The waitress descended on me immediately, and I waved her away. "How have you been?"
"Can't complain, aside from the usual aging process. You look well, Edward."
I cleared my throat, my usual reaction to Carlisle's strained, rare compliments. I knew he meant this one purely as a formality, but it still unsettled me. It disrupted the flow of our usual businesslike tone.
"How was your flight?" I asked, suddenly wishing I had ordered a gin and tonic from that damn waitress.
"Fine. A bit of rain leaving Seattle, but otherwise uneventful."
"How are things in Forks?" I asked, trying to sound casual.
Carlisle still practiced there, as he had since I was born. He embodied the true small-town doctor, the benevolent soul who knew his patients better than his own family. This stereotype, I realized, certainly applied to him.
"The same, I'd say. Do you remember the Weber family?"
I nodded, vaguely recollecting some distant high school memory. I might have taken a Weber girl to the prom one year. I couldn't remember; hell, I'd probably blocked it out.
"Well the youngest just finished nursing school, and she's working in my office."
"You could use the help," I commented.
"I suppose so," he said. He sounded resigned, almost like an old man. Every year he seemed older, somehow; physically, I noticed the grey streaks in his hair, the creases around his eyes. But it wasn't his appearance that made him older; it was the way he spoke, the words he used. At some point, he had stopped looking ahead; now, it seemed, he only looked back.
"That's one of the reasons I'm here, Edward," he said, keeping his eyes on mine, a true creature of habit. Carlisle understood the importance of a visual connection—not just in medicine, but with every human being he had ever encountered. He commanded people's attention, just as he commanded mine.
"One of the reasons?" I said, eyeing him quizzically. He didn't usually approach the topic so directly.
"Well, of course I'm here for your mother."
I grimaced infinitesimally, and his eyes softened. I felt like a fool for reacting so transparently in front of him, but I couldn't help it. Any mention of her was like a siren in my brain.
"I know," I said, noticing the edge to my voice. I hated how fucking weak I was; I hated that Carlisle could do this to me.
"But I'm also here to ask you to come home."
His words thundered in my ears, choking the air out of my lungs. I felt my whole body tense, and I was suddenly aware of the hard edges of the chair pressing into my spine. Carlisle's stare was unwavering, and somewhere in the shadows of his green eyes, I could perceive a silent, desperate plea. I wanted to answer, to say anything at all, but the words caught in my throat.
"Not now," he said finally, taking a long, slow sip from his glass. "In a few years, maybe. Forks needs a good doctor, and I won't be around forever."
"No," I choked out, taking a swig of water, because goddammit, that waitress had disappeared. "Why would you even ask me that?"
"Forks is your home, Edward."
"I haven't lived in Forks in fifteen years."
"That doesn't change a damn thing," he argued, his voice rising. Carlise had raised his voice only once in his life, and it was a little over fifteen years ago, the day the Cullen family began its slow, torturous downward spiral that brought us to moments like these, when father and son acted like strangers.
"Carlisle, I'm sorry," I said, forcing myself to breathe. "It's just unrealistic."
"How?" he pressed. "You can practice anywhere."
"I'm established here. I like it here."
"I'm not saying today, Edward. I'm just asking you to think about it, for the future."
I sighed, long and deep and painfully silent. I knew what I wanted to say, I knew what I should say, but I couldn't break the one fraying shred of contact I had with my father, as much as I dreaded this day, year after year.
"I can't ever go back there," I said in a hushed, strained whisper.
"Edward," he sighed, his expression bitter, his eyes an angry, piercing green. "Hasn't it been long enough?"
"No," I said, because it was the fucking truth. It would never be long enough.
"How can you say that when you live here? Does it not occur to you that Esme grew up here, that her family is here, that she's buried here? How is it that you can handle this place, but not Forks?"
"It's different," I muttered. "It's completely different."
"How, Edward? " he pushed. "Tell me how."
He would break me, I knew. He often did, when he came here, if he felt like I needed to hear it. I wondered if he was trying to chase me away, if he was hoping that one year, if he pushed me hard enough, I would cut him off completely, annihilating the last remnants of the Cullen family.
"Why does it fucking matter?" I spat.
"Don't you think about her? After all she did for you? How can you live here, two miles from her grave, and not think—"
"Don't pretend to know what I'm thinking, Carlisle. You have no fucking idea what I'm thinking."
If Carlisle had come here to provoke me, he had succeeded. Of course he would, on this day, of all days. The day she had begged me to let her go, begged me to understand that no matter how much she loved me, she couldn't live through it anymore. She just couldn't fucking take it. And finally, because the tears were streaming down her face and she was pleading with me like I was the only one who could grant her the absolution she so desperately wanted, I had given in. And it was that simple, really. Dying was simple. Living was complicated as fuck.
"I didn't come here to upset you," he said, inhaling sharply.
"Then what did you come here for?"
"I just…I don't understand you, Edward. I thought that after Esme died, you and I would have…"
"Would have what?" I demanded.
"I didn't think we would end up like this." He paused, looking toward the window for peace, or maybe for release. "Like strangers."
"We aren't strangers. We're two pathetic, dysfunctional pieces of a broken family. And it isn't salvageable, Carlisle. You just don't seem to grasp that."
"This isn't what Esme would have wanted." His voice cracked as he spoke her name, and I felt a hot rush of anger, grief, and frustration fester in my mouth, lacing my tongue like acid.
"No," I agreed. "It's not."
Her face flashed before my eyes, clear as a photograph, tinged with nostalgia and desecrated by years of sorrow and failure and defeat. I wondered what Esme would say, if she could see us now. I wondered everyday, what Esme would say, if she knew how desperately I tried to save every one of my patients, as though I were saving her.
We sat in silence for a few pained minutes, and the waitress finally came over and took my drink order. She returned with a pint-sized glass of gin, and I brought it to my lips in a swift, fluid motion, savoring its bitter burn down the length of my throat.
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