I found Esme in the garden, planting a few flowers. She looked up and smiled at me.
"Oh! Hey there," she smiled, "I'm almost done."
I watched her while I waited, and once she was finished she led me indoors.
"Was there anything you wanted to do?" Esme smiled, but I shook my head, "Have you done any sewing before?"
I shook my head again. I'd wanted to make clothes since I was quite young. Mom never bought me many clothes, so a lot of the time I was forced to squeeze into clothes designed for kids at least five years younger than me. Clothes that fit were always at least two years younger than my age, and due to rarely acquiring new clothes, I was often in tiny, uncomfortable clothes that didn't fit at all. This had been one of the causes for all the teasing I got.
"I think I have some spare material somewhere, if you'd like to try it," Esme thought aloud, "I used to make Rosalie little dresses all the time. She'd never go near one now."
She sighed wistfully, leading me upstairs to a room I'd never noticed or entered before. It was just down the hall from hers and Carlisle's room. It looked rather unused.
In the corner stood two different dressmaking dummies. One was child size, one was adult size. A sewing machine sat on the table. I looked around the room in awe.
"I was in here all the time when they were babies," Esme smiled, "Such beautiful babies."
What did they look like?
"Aww," Esme laughed, "You'll make me want more babies!"
I watched as she left the room, and she returned with a photo album. She sat me down at the sewing table.
"We took in Rose and Jasper first," Esme said quietly, "Me and their mother were like sisters. I'd known her since we were in elementary school. I was there when the twins were born."
She pointed to a photo of herself with a blonde woman, each of them holding one baby. Tears filled Esme's eyes, and she put an arm around me and rested her head on mine.
"And then I got a phone call six months later. Her and her husband had been involved in a car accident. They'd left Rose and Jasper with me while they were out," her voice cracked, and she wiped her eyes, "Their only relatives were their grandparents, two of them were too frail to bring them up, and the others didn't want to know. The poor things would have been sent to a family of strangers! I couldn't bear it. Carlisle and I had tried to have children for so long, without success. We'd paid thousands for treatment. I'd fallen in love with Rosalie and Jasper the moment I saw them, and I couldn't let them go, so I insisted they came to live with us."
She showed me photos of Jasper and Rosalie growing up. I couldn't help smiling at them, they really both were adorable. Especially Jasper, whose honey blonde hair was in soft, curled wisps and sticking up all over his head. A new baby joined the photos, and I didn't need Esme to tell me who it was.
"Carlisle treated your Mom when she'd just given birth to Emmett. She told him she wanted someone else to look after him, because she wasn't ready and was too ill. Carlisle immediately thought of me, but he wasn't sure if we'd be able to cope with a new little one. When he asked me, I became determined to try. The adoption services weren't very sure, seeing as we'd only had the twins for just over two months, but they gave in eventually."
She crooned softly over the photos of Emmett. His hair was a dark, curly mop, and he had chubby, dimpled cheeks.
"Gorgeous little thing," Esme sighed at the nostalgia, "Although he liked keeping us up at night. He cried about the slightest thing!"
I did too.
"I can't imagine you being like that!" Esme smiled at me, "I imagined you as a very quiet baby. And very tiny!"
I nodded and excused myself for a moment, rummaging through my few belongings to find the small book my mom gave me the first time I was taken away from her. It contained a few photos of me as a baby, as well as photos of her and my dad. I never met my Dad, but Mom said I had inherited his eyes and sensitivity.
I showed Esme the photo of me on the day I was born. Esme cooed to the photo, stroking it like it was a real baby.
"Look at you! Just like your brother," Esme grinned at me, "So tiny. And so beautiful!"
Big ears, I reminded her.
"No, they're so sweet! And you've grown into them," she laughed quietly. I put the photos aside, as I could see she was desperate to continue her story.
"Just after Emmett joined us, a miracle happened," I was sure the tears had returned to Esme's eyes, "I found out I was pregnant."
There was a silent pause, and Esme squeezed me affectionately.
"I was worried at first. Worried that we'd favour our biological child over our adopted children. Unintentionally, of course. But I loved Rose, Jasper and Emmett so much that genetics didn't matter. They didn't complain about them being second best, because they weren't. Although, because he's the youngest, I guess I have babied him all his life."
Edward was a small baby. He had bronze hair right from birth, it appeared. And he was very popular among his siblings back then, juxtaposing the present. They all seemed to leave him too it now. I wasn't sure I'd really seen any of them talk to him, besides a negative remark. I felt bad for him. Perhaps I'd taken the attention away from him, and perhaps that was the reason he primarily resented me.
Esme stroked the photos again. This time, photos of all four of them together. Rosalie was often holding Edward protectively or had him sat on her knee.
"Aww, my babies," Esme murmured, wiping a few fresh tears away.
I admired Esme and loved her like a mother, but I couldn't help feeling like an outsider. She'd promised that I was special to them, but I wasn't, and wouldn't ever be, their baby. Not even really their daughter. I felt like I'd joined the family too late to qualify as that. I'd been so excited to join a real family, but after some of the recent events I wasn't sure how I felt anymore. I knew who was to blame. If Maria hadn't intruded on Jasper and I, and if she hadn't ripped me away from him, then I'd probably feel differently. I wished everything was like it had been, without her.