Part Summary: Martha Jackson, Mark's mother, is coming to Helen. Bella talks to Alice about how to maintain their facade ... among other things.
(Sorry for the delay. I've been working on 2 chapters at once, so the next might be up soon! No promises, though.)
Bella isn't ready.
She isn't ready for her Mark to have been dead a year. She isn't ready for this . . . whatever it is that's been blooming between her and Edward. She isn't ready to start writing her dissertation although Lorraine has been asking for her methodology chapter for the last four months with ever-increasing but unspoken concern that Bella will turn out to be just another ABD (all-but-dissertation). But Bella isn't a quitter. She's just tired, and has been focused on the shelter.
She also isn't ready for Martha Jackson to come to Helen for a visit, but coming she is. In the midst of all the other things preying on her mind in the last weeks of September, Bella receives a phone call from Martha to ask -- gently -- whether she might not like to have company on the anniversary of Mark's passing? And what is Bella supposed to say? "No, I'm sorry, but you might discover I'm living with a coven of vampires?" So she says the only thing she can, "Let me check with Rose and Mac, but I think it'll be all right."
She knows Martha isn't checking up on her, but they've talked less and less as time has passed and Bella suspects Martha is worried. Even more, though, Martha may need to be with Bella just as much as she thinks Bella needs her there. She still has two daughters, but Mark was her baby.
There's just the little problem of the Cullens. Unlike Renee, Martha is observant. So instead of talking to Rose and Emmett about having a house guest, she goes to Alice's shop that afternoon. It's a Sunday and she drives herself in the shelter van. It's nice to be able to come and go on her own time after bending her life for so long to bus schedules. The handicapped spot near Alice's shop is open and Bella pulls in, turning off the engine. Spinning the driver's transfer seat around, she levers herself back into the chair, opens the door and lowers the ramp.
Alice is waiting, standing in the open shop door to catch the cool autumn afternoon breeze, and Bella is glad she doesn't have to fight with the door. Nobody is browsing and as it's 3:30, Alice turns the sign to "closed" then locks the door behind them. Bella opens her mouth to explain why she's come but Alice cuts her off with, "Oh, I know Reverend Jackson wants to visit you," and heads for the back of the store. Bella follows.
Alice's little corner shop is a study in organized, artful chaos. She sells "accessories" but what she actually sells is folk art by local craftswomen -- handwoven scarves, hats and shawls; original jewelry; leather belts and purses; tatted doilies and crocheted throws; knitted socks and gloves; even hand-painted dolls and wooden toy animal sets -- zoo, sea, barnyard. Bella likes the latter and picks up a little wooden lamb to turn in her fingers.
Alice hops up to sit on the counter, legs swinging. "Okay," she says. "So Reverend Jackson will be coming; I've seen it. In most cases, the visit goes fine, as long as certain conditions are met -- namely that she doesn't meet too many of us at once and Rose and Emmett aren't in the house much. I've talked to Jasper and he's happy to go hunting with Emmett for several days. The eighteenth is in the middle of the week, but it's also the first day of deer season so she won't even question why they're gone. Edward can just stay in his apartment in Atlanta. Rose works all the time anyway so for those days, she can do it at her firm instead of the house office. It'll seem less strange to Martha if Rose doesn't eat much when she's home than if somebody the size of Emmett doesn't.
"That's the biggest issue we need to navigate -- having a human stay in a house with us without giving ourselves away. The rest we can work around. We've been interacting with humans for decades, and if it's just me and Esme, I don't foresee any problems. Meeting us singularly and for short periods, it's much easier to explain our eccentricities."
Bella wonders if Alice took a breath through any of that, but she's clearly covered all the angles.
"So it'll be safe?"
"It should be," Alice says with a firm nod, "since she'll be here in the middle of the week."
"She's got Sunday services to get back to," Bella explains.
"Of course, but the middle of a week is also easier for us to work around." Alice tips her head and eyes Bella. "You need to keep her away from Lorraine Michaels, though."
"I do?" Bella hadn't especially intended to take Martha to Dawesonville in the first place, much less take her by her advisor's office.
Alice nods. "She'll want to talk to Mark's professor, the one who's preparing those last articles of his for publication -- "
"DeSanti."
"Yes. So you'll be driving over there on Thursday. You need to be sure you arrive after noon so you won't run into Lorraine."
"Why?"
Alice's smile is a little rueful. "You told Lorraine a different story than the one you told your mom and Martha -- remember? Lorraine knows you went to school with Edward, and that Edward knew Mark. If you go too early, you'll run into her, and she'll mention what you said in passing to Martha, thinking nothing of it -- but Martha was told Edward is involved with the shelter because you know his sister."
"Oh." Bella sees the contradiction now, but, "I didn't consider that at the time. I just didn't want her thinking that Edward was, uh, taking Mark's place."
Alice nods. "I know. But we've been at this longer, and consistency is critical. Edward should have known better. I don't believe this will be a problem; Lorraine is the only one you told that to. Just don't mention it to anybody else, especially anybody involved with the shelter. The fact you knew Rose and Esme, and Edward just happened to know Mark as well is a little too much coincidence." Alice is looking at Bella with an odd intensity. "In fact, it might be best if you don't talk about Edward at all."
Bella frowns. "Why?"
"Um, well . . . " She hesitates and it's a funny sight -- Alice hunting for words. "When you talk about him now, you wear your heart on your sleeve."
Bella isn't sure how to respond to that. Turning her head, she stares out the front window, squinting into the afternoon glare. This is the first time anybody in the family has brought up the topic of her changing feelings for Edward, not just his persistent love for her. Bella wonders if Alice didn't angle the conversation in this direction, but won't accuse her of it. She's suddenly aware that Jasper is standing in the rear doorway, having come up from his basement den. She seizes on his appearance for a topic change. "Hi, Jasper. How goes the book?"
"Pretty good," he says, coming into the light. His hands are stuffed in his pockets. "I'm sorry I won't be here to meet Mark's mother. I'd love to get her input on how independent Baptist churches deal with the larger Southern Baptist Convention on the subject of women's ordination. I'm planning a whole chapter on the emergence of women clergy in Southern Protestantism from the African Methodist Episcopals' first appointment in 1948 down to the present."
Bella grins. "Always the academic. But you're not Jasper Whitlock to Martha." In Minnesota, he'd been playing the role of his own grandson, following in the academic footsteps of the famous J. A. Whitlock. The book he's working on is in the guise of Jasper A. Whitlock III, in fact, but here, he has to be Rosalie's reclusive brother.
"I could still be studying religion," he points out.
"But you couldn't interview her for the book."
"I know." He sighs. It sounds long-suffering.
Alice is grinning at him. It's fond. "The poor woman isn't coming to be your interview subject, Jazz."
"I know," he says again, and hoists himself up onto the counter beside her. They don't touch beyond the edge of hands. His right pinky hooks over her left. Bella thinks that small gesture is more intimate than some of the antics Emmett and Rose get up to at the house. He is studying her. "How are you, Bella?" he asks. From Jasper, that's never an idle question.
She looks down at her hands, folded in her lap. "I'm fine," she says, trying to duck the question anyway.
"You're on edge and you're tired," he tells her. It's not accusatory, more a simple statement. "I don't think you've been sleeping well, and I wouldn't call that 'fine.'"
Bella is now fairly certain Alice's earlier observation about her feelings for Edward wasn't accidental. Jasper's appearance upstairs on the heels of it is entirely too convenient. They've ambushed her. She'd like to be angry, but she'd also like to talk to somebody and she won't talk to Rose. Rose is like a bull in a china shop when it comes to feelings, and Emmett isn't much better. If the both of them are a perfect match in their honesty and bluntness, that's not always what Bella needs. Esme is less pushy, but Bella isn't about to talk to her about Edward, nor can she talk to Edward himself. That leaves Alice and Jasper . . . who have conveniently backed her into a corner so she will talk.
"I'm not ready," she says now -- or really, blurts out. "I'm not ready for any of this." Neither Jasper nor Alice speak and after the silence stretches, Bella caves and starts to ramble. "I don't know what's going on with Edward. Something's different but I'm just . . . I'm not ready. It still feels like it's too soon. I know it's been almost a year but it's still too soon -- "
"Grief doesn't have a time-table," Jasper tells her gently. "Most people expect to heal sooner than they actually do. They get impatient with themselves, or with others. Only you know if it's too soon, and if you're feeling pressured by Edward, then -- "
"No, not by Edward," Bella interrupts. "Not really. It's me. I feel these . . . things. But I'm not ready to feel them. And Edward's been so patient . . . " She trails off.
"He can stay patient," Alice says. "Bella, really. He's waited for you all this time. If you need another month or two -- or five -- he'll wait longer. It won't kill him. A man should wait for a woman. Right, Jasper?"
Jasper raises both hands in mock surrender. "Absolutely." He's half-laughing. It makes Bella smile despite herself.
"I'm just not used to feeling this unsettled. I had Mark for so long, I've forgotten how to do . . . this." She makes a vague gesture for a vague designation.
"You never liked feeling out of control or out of the loop," Alice reminds her. "Back in Forks -- I remember. You were very sure of yourself even then. Edward called you stubborn, but I don't think it's just stubbornness."
"Centered," Jasper offers. "You were self-contained in a way most teenagers aren't. It made you feel older to us."
"Maybe," Bella concedes. "I only remember feeling completely discombobulated by Edward, but when you're younger, it's easier to take chances on new relationships. I'm more set in my ways now. Mark and I . . . we grew up together -- and grew into each other. Starting over is hard -- hard to . . . to risk like that."
Alice and Jasper are both nodding. "That's true for vampires, too," Jasper says. "Only magnified. I was a hundred when I found Alice and I'd been on my own for a number of years before. She confused the hell out of me for a long time."
Laughing, Alice elbows him, then adds, "Even with what I knew would be for us, and despite our both wanting it, we had to get used to each other. At least with Edward, you aren't starting from scratch. You know him."
"Quite well, in fact," Jasper adds.
Bella pinches the bridge of her nose -- realizing only after the fact that it's Edward's favorite 'frustrated' gesture. "I'm not the girl he fell in love with back then."
"No, you're the woman he fell in love with fully later," Jasper corrects. "He doesn't want the old Bella back."
"I know," Bella says. And she does know. It's not Edward's feelings that she doubts. It's herself and all the issues that, at seventeen, she'd discounted as worthy of consideration. But she no longer sees life as an open road with no destination and must consider such things as a career, her family, and where she'll be in ten years -- or twenty. Already she must hide Edward from Charlie and Renee because there's no way to explain away the fact he hasn't aged. What sort of life could they have together if she must reinvent him for the public every decade, then hide from those who'd recognize the deception? She could keep Jacob and Irene, but what of the rest? She wants stability, and to have friends who've been friends for years. Life is a web formed of many threads, not just a few. Even if she were to become what Edward is, frozen in time, she understands at last what such a choice would really mean -- all the ramifications. She'd felt the full weight of their tragedy when she was at the Blacks' party. As a teen, she'd felt detached from her parents but that had arisen from the typical adolescent need to establish her independence. To grow up. Now she is grown up and no longer wants to push her parents away. She is their only child. Family is family, and she's unwilling to sacrifice hers in order to gain the Cullens.
While considering this, she's leaned forward in her chair, elbows on the wheels and fingers pressed to her temples. She looks up when she feels Alice's cool hands grip her wrists and pull her own hands down. "There's no reason to hurry into anything," Alice says. Her breath across Bella's face is almost as sweet as Edward's and it reminds her of what Edward had once told her -- vampires are designed to draw in humans, hypnotize and relax them until they don't struggle. "Just let it happen. When it's time, you'll know."
But Bella needs to struggle. Struggle is human. "Is that the sibyl speaking, or just common sense?"
She catches Alice's grin. "Both?"
"So this is going somewhere? Whatever I'm feeling for Edward?"
Alice shakes her head firmly. "You have to choose that. I won't tell you what to do next, Bella. It would be wrong."
"I don't want you to tell me what to do. I just want to know if there's some sort of future for us that's not a tragedy?"
Alice's face is very solemn, her features touched with none of her usual good humor as she kneels still in front of Bella's chair. "I see many possibilities -- and you could be happy in a lot of them, both with or without Edward."
"And Edward?"
"This is about Bella. Let Edward take care of Edward."
Bella shakes her head. "Not that easy, Alice. Part of caring about somebody else means caring for them."
"Of course, but you've spent a lot of your life caring for others and forgetting to care for yourself."
"As a girl, yes. Not so much as an adult. Mark taught me how to give and take. It's unhealthy if you're always the one giving up, but when you care for each other, it works out. You see to their needs and they see to yours."
"And you want to see to Edward's?" Jasper asks softly from where he's still sitting on the counter.
"Well, yes, of course," Bella replies without thinking.
Alice is grinning; so is Jasper. "Then maybe you're more ready than you think you are," Jasper says.
"Just let it happen." Alice repeats her advice. "Stop second-guessing yourself and just let it happen when it's time."
"But it feels like it's too soon."
"As I said before," Jasper tells her, "if it's too soon for you, then there's no reason to rush. But if you're just worried what others will think? You know better than that. You don't need anybody's permission to be happy -- except your own." His smile is gentle. "So be happy."
Notes: Yes, Bella has a case of cold feet, but give her a little latitude.
Also, congratulations to the ever-talented Oxymoronic8 for winning the S. Meyer award for grammar in the Eddies and Bellies. Considering how much I like Innocent, Vigilant and Ordinary (along with a whole lot of other people!), I'm not in the least surprised!
And this story now has over 1000 reveiws! Woot! Thank y'all so much! I still do my best to answer all signed reviews.
Also ... I keep forgetting to say, but this story does have a thread over on the forums at Twilighted-net, under the AU topics of the Fanfic section. So if anybody has questions or wants to discuss it, you're more than welcome there. :-)