Notes: There are bumps, and Bella has an enlightening conversation with Esme.


Hannah Jones and her children last seven days -- one week -- before giving up and returning home. By that point, the McCarty House hosts a second family, but to see their first clients back out is still disappointing -- for none more so than for Esme. Perhaps Bella should've anticipated Esme taking under her wing every woman who came through their doors, but she didn't. She'd spoken to Rose at the outset and knows that Rose entertains few illusions about shelter success rates, having worked with them in Nashville, and she had similar chats with Emmett, Alice and even Edward, who'd read articles about spousal abuse while in med school. But she overlooked Esme, probably because she'd assumed Esme's contribution would be fixing up the house itself, not its occupants. Yet Hannah is only a little older than Esme was when she left her first husband -- plus Esme was the one to find her.

It's classic projection. Esme sees herself in young Hannah, and for the seven days Hannah had stayed there, Esme had spent hours with her, teaching her the basics of interior design, or sharing experiences (her own much modified). So when Hannah gives in finally to the persistent attempts by her family and in-laws to convince her to go home, Esme is heartbroken.

"She's out back in the garden gazebo," Rose tells Bella on Sunday morning. Rose had, actually, tried hardest to convince Hannah to stay, using her usual blunt honesty. "You can go home if you want to, but we'll see you here again in three months, or four, or five . . . however long it takes to realize this new leaf he's turned over will last only till he's really frustrated again and takes it out on you. Or your kids. That's what'll make you stay away finally -- when he starts hitting your daughters."

"What a horrible thing to say," Hannah had snapped even as she'd shut the small bag of personal items she was taking with her.

"I'm honest."

"And he's a good Christian man! He just strayed and this was his wake-up call. But he found the Lord again -- which is more than I can say of you, Ms. Hale."

"He found an excuse to bring you back so you can clean his house and cook his meals and be his punching bag when he's mad at the world."

"I wouldn't expect somebody like you to have faith."

"And I don't -- because I have yet to see a single one of these instant-change cases turn out to be real. It takes anger management classes and some serious marital counseling. If he really wants to change, he'll go to therapy."

Bella had sat in her chair in the corner and listened . . . and thought of Edward. Change was possible, but Rose was right -- it didn't happen overnight.

So Hannah had left that morning, Rose driving her to the prearranged drop-off place where her mother and husband would collect her and the kids. At departure, she'd hugged only Esme. "I'll be okay," she'd promised.

"I'll pray for you," Esme had replied. And it was too sincere for any irony at the notion of a vampire praying for a human.

Now, Bella makes her way out to the small gazebo in the back rose garden. The garden is Esme's indulgence. Bella had insisted that she not go all-out remodeling the house. "Make it nice, but it should look like it was done on a budget. We have to account for all in-coming funds and out-going expenditures. Even more, we don't want to overwhelm the clients. They won't all be poor, but humiliation from charity doesn't help anyone." Bella could recall even now how the Cullens' wealth had once made her feel small and worthless.

And so Esme had restrained herself . . . until the garden. "They need a beautiful place," she'd told Bella -- and had refused to back down. So Bella had given in to the shadows of remembered ugliness in Esme's gold eyes and let her create her garden.

So Bella wheels her way down the pavement past roses of every description, climbing clematis covering trellises in purple and white, rich pink honeysuckle and yellow jasmine, all under the shadow of a Muskogee Myrtle. It's late in the summer and the tree's purple blossoms have finally faded, dropping onto grass and concrete indiscriminately.

Esme isn't sitting in the gazebo, as Rose had said. She has pruning sheers and is working, her lips set hard but her clip-clip gentle. She won't punish the roses. "I'm fine," she tells Bella before Bella can even speak. "But the roses have aphids."

"Leaving an abusive husband is like quitting smoking," Bella tells her. "You know it's good for your health, but it usually takes more than one try before you're successful."

"I never smoked. Proper wives didn't, then." Three snips sound before she adds, "And I stayed away the first time."

"You had strong motivation -- protecting your unborn baby."

"She has three children!"

"But the abuse has been getting worse gradually. There's not been a sudden change. My dad told me that he just decided to quit smoking one day and threw away a brand-new carton of cigarettes he'd got from Billy Black for Christmas. But most people don't quit cold turkey like that. Likewise, it's common for battered wives to go back at least once, sometimes several times until there's a real crisis -- when he pulls a gun or a baseball bat instead of just using his fists and she winds up in the hospital. This was Hannah's first taste of freedom and she's fighting everything she's been raised to believe about good wives and marriage. Plus her husband is making all the right noises. He might even mean it. But abuse is systemic and the system works to keep women in abusive situations just like it works to turn boys abusive in the first place." Bella takes a breath, then adds, "You can't get attached Esme. We can't save them all -- "

"What do you know about it?" Esme hisses suddenly, throwing the pruning sheers with such force they embed a foot deep in the earth at Esme's feet and send dirt flying up like a mad mole. "You've not lived it! You don't know what it's like to be . . . to be terrified every day of your life! To think there's no escape except death! To believe you're just a bad wife and if you could be good enough he'd love you instead of hate you! Edward adores you and thinks you can do no wrong!"

This outburst takes them both aback. Bella has never seen Esme lose her temper like that. She's normally so gentle and understanding, it's unnatural. And perhaps that's the problem -- it is unnatural and Bella realizes that for the first time, she's heard the real Esme, the one who typically hides under Nineteenth Century ideas of a proper woman.

To be honest, Bella likes angry Esme better.

"You're right; I've never been through it personally," she answers simply. "But I never pretended that I have, either."

The fight goes out of Esme and she sinks down on the earth, arms wrapped around herself as she kneels in the dirt. She's wearing a straw gardening hat with a bright yellow bow. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have spoken like that. I'm glad you've not been through it."

"It's all right," Bella tells her, leaning forward a little in her chair but not rolling toward Esme yet. "I'd rather you were honest, you know. You don't have to censor everything you say. The fact you have been through this makes you invaluable. But it can also . . . it can be a pitfall, Esme. If you start seeing yourself in them, instead of seeing them, then we've got a problem. You'll be trying to rescue Esme, not Hannah -- or whoever's next. It's called projection. Not only is it okay for you to be honest, you need to be honest so you know what you're bringing into the room."

Esme doesn't answer immediately, but after a moment, she looks up at Bella and her face seems old. "I don't . . . I don't regret what happened to me, not really, because look what came of it. Carlisle and I have talked about this -- several times. But sometimes I'm still so angry that it had to happen at all."

"Of course you are," Bella says. "It was wrong, and it shouldn't have happened in the first place."

"I want to move on, but I'm not sure how, except not to think about it."

"That won't let you move on," Bella says and rolls forward finally as Esme pushes herself to her feet. "There are two mistakes survivors tend to make. They either try to excuse what happened to them by saying, 'Look where I am now; it all worked out.' Or they try to bury and forget about it. Neither works. Even if you came out stronger for it, that still doesn't make what happened to you right. And you can't bury it, or like a corpse, it'll start to stink up your life."

"But it's overwhelming!" Esme says and rubs beneath her eyes. "Even now. I tell Carlisle I don't remember. I pretend the change made me forget. But I do remember. Oh, Bella -- I do. I remember what Charles did to me, how it hurt. I remember huddling up in the back of the broom closet when he'd come home angry, hoping he'd get a few glasses of whiskey in him and mellow down. But sometimes, it just made him angrier. He broke my collarbone, and my ribs, and I had to hide it. He used his razor strap on my backside and thighs where nobody else would see -- " She breaks off speaking and sobs dry tears. Bella rolls even closer and reaches out to grip her hand, damning the chair and how it prisons her.

"Nothing I did was ever good enough. I burned the bread, or made the soup too watery, and I couldn't sew to save my life. I was terrible at it -- I still am." She laughs. "Alice has tried to teach me time and again how to sew my own curtains, but I can still barely sew a straight stitch as a vampire! And you think you're clumsy? I was no better and probably worse. I broke things constantly, I was so nervous of him.

"I'll never forget the day I left -- what that felt like. I was so . . . free. I remember that I saw a red-tailed hawk when I was walking to the train station. I ran when he was in Columbus on business, and that morning, as I was walking to catch the train to Wisconsin, there was a red-tailed hawk sitting on a fence post up ahead of me on the road. He was just sitting there, watching me. I got quite close before he took off in a burst. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. That's how I felt -- like that hawk. No jesses, no hood. Free."

She is gripping Bella's hand hard enough it grinds the small bones together and Bella tries not to wince, but can't quite manage to keep the pain off her face. Realizing it, Esme makes a little sound and releases her hand. "Sorry!"

"It's all right." And it is, but she still rubs her fingers. "Thank you -- for telling me all this."

"I told Hannah too," she says. "A modified version -- but it was true, about the hawk. I thought she might feel the same . . . "

"I think she did, Esme. But I also think you're a lot tougher than people think. You managed to free yourself on a first try; a lot of people can't."

"I gave Hannah my cell phone number and made her promise to call me if she needs help -- no matter what happens or what time it is. Or to call if she just wants to get coffee and visit." Her face is thoughtful. "I think she actually might call."

"That trust is more than Rose or I built with her."

"Rose is sometimes impatient. She means well, but -- "

"Both approaches are important," Bella says. "Sometimes it takes some empathy, but sometimes it takes a kick in the pants. I'm not that good at either one, really."

"You are," Esme protests. "Look at you now." She smiles. "You're listening to me."

"After torquing you off first," Bella points out. "But like I said, I prefer it if you're honest. And you're still much better than I am at the empathy thing. But I do know a little about the whole psychology of battered wives. I'm not a therapist, but I've read a lot and it's not uncommon for them to wind up going back to their husbands at least once, and sometimes twice or three times. Some never really get out of the cycle at all. You can't take that personally. You aren't failing. All we can do is offer an opportunity and do our best to help them accept it. Not everybody will."

Esme nods, but Bella isn't sure whether the words got through or if she's just agreeing to be agreeable. They sit in silence for a minute, and Bella debates going back to something else Esme had said -- or whether she even wants to open that can of worms. But she might never get another opportunity. Esme is rarely so forthcoming about her real thoughts and feelings.

"You said that Edward adores me and thinks I can do no wrong," she begins after a minute, cautiously. Esme is looking down, but doesn't deny it. "You do realize that once-upon-a-time, I felt completely unworthy of him, right? I had the same feelings of inadequacy around him that you had around your first husband."

Her mouth falls open in clear shock. "But Edward never beat you!"

"No, of course not. He just protected me to death and tried to make my decisions for me."

Esme's face hardens again. "Well, you were very young, Bella, especially to us. A good husband or boyfriend protects his wife or girlfriend. Edward was being a gentleman."

"Overprotection doesn't make an equal partnership. Looking back, I realize that a lot of why I felt inadequate was helped along by Edward's so-called 'gentlemanly' behavior. When he stopped trying to be such a gentleman and let himself be just Edward, we got along better."

Esme still seems to have trouble either understanding or accepting what Bella is saying. "He was raised to treat a woman with respect."

"Overprotection isn't respect, Esme. It just turns one of a pair into the child in the relationship. Carlisle doesn't treat you like that. He asks your opinion and he doesn't . . . hover . . . when you don't need it."

She still seems confused. "But I'm a vampire. Of course he doesn't hover. You're human. You're breakable."

It makes Bella smile. "Breakable, yes. Obviously. Helpless, no."

Realizing what she just inadvertently said, Esme's hand goes to her mouth and her eyes drop to Bella's chair involuntarily. If she'd had blood, she would've been blushing. "It's okay, Esme," Bella says. "You're right. I am breakable compared to you. And I've stopped being quite so twitchy about accepting help from people. Being in the chair aided that, ironically. Like Mark used to say -- it's a weak person who can't let anybody do anything for him. It's all in how it's offered. Edward's gotten a lot better, and more to the point, he lets me do things for him sometimes. Even in your day, isn't that what good husbands and wives did? Take care of each other? Lean on each other? Even if both of them did the most traditional jobs possible for their gender, if it's a partnership, that's what makes it equal. Back in Forks, Edward didn't let it be a partnership -- so I felt unworthy."

Esme tilts her head. "Oh, Bella. You're only half right. Back in Forks, you did something for Edward no one has ever been able to do before -- you taught him how to open up and really love. He was . . . closed . . . for so long. But with you, he was a different person -- not so distant . . . ready to risk. It was just hard after being closed for so long -- like watching a rose bloom." Reaching out, she touches a white bud. "They don't open in a day like a morning glory."

It is, Bella thinks with surprise, an insightful observation, and not something she'd really considered before. Edward might have been over a hundred when she'd met him, but it had been his first time being in love, too, and coming to it at such a late age, it must have been harder. "He's open all the way now," she says thoughtfully.

"Yes, I think so," Esme replies, and eyes Bella. "Don't let him turn brown on the stem."

Bella shakes her head. "I'm not ready for that, Esme. I still miss Mark."

"Of course you do. You'll always miss him. I still miss my baby. But wouldn't you also miss Edward?"

"Well, yes, of course." But her words are more a reflexive than honest answer, Bella realizes. She doesn't want to examine too closely what Edward makes her feel. "It's not the same, though."

"Not yet," Esme agrees.


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