Chapter 16 – A New Normal

In a way the funeral marks the end of the first phase, that initial stage of overwhelming horror and staggering disbelief and heartbreaking pain. The following day Alice and Jasper fly back to New York, and then the next Monday the children go back to school and we have to take our first stumbling steps into what our life is going to be like now, without Rosalie.

It's hard. It's messy and ugly and difficult, and I don't think that in my whole life I've ever felt quite so lost.

Esme and Carlisle pretty much move into my house, since my glued-together hand is so bruised and battered I can barely use it. There are six children who need care, three of them in diapers and one of whom is a newborn who eats every four hours around the clock, and I am barely holding it together. There are breakfast and lunch and snacks and dinners to be made every day, bottles to be washed and sterilised and formula to be made up, and never-ending piles of laundry to be dealt with. Despite Rosalie's commitment to the environment I ditch the cloth diapers by the first weekend and have three boxes of Pampers overnighted with Amazon Prime. Someone has to make sure the kids get up and get dressed in the morning, and go to bed at a reasonable hour every night. Someone has to supervise teeth cleaning and bathe babies and push the big kids into the shower. Someone has to ask about homework and listen to reading and drive to gymnastics and play catch in the yard. I can't do it alone. Even when Carlisle and Esme go back to sleeping at their house, Esme still spends every day with us, often from breakfast time until the kids are in bed at night.

I don't go to work. I can't, until my hand heals, but even when the swelling goes down and the glue peels off to reveal fresh, shiny, pink scars cutting across my palm and curving around the base of my thumb I don't call Jonah and set up appointments and go back to the shop. I stay home, drawing tattoos on the kids with markers and designing twisted images of holly and roses, all vicious spikes and thorns and dark blood, that I tear out of the sketch book and toss in the trash so that no one sees them.

I sleep, a lot. It's often broken sleep, with the baby waking regularly through the night, but sleep blots out the misery and I crave it. I go to bed as soon as the kids are all asleep at night, and most afternoons when the big kids are at school and the little twins are napping I sleep too, waking only reluctantly when one of the babies cry. I'm always exhausted. When Esme and Carlisle finally start sleeping back at their house, Esme often takes Holly home with them so I can sleep through the night. Edward and Bella take turns with her too. Everyone wants to help, and giving me the chance to sleep is sometimes the best that they can do.

I'm tormented by dreams of Rosalie. Vivid dreams of sex, of the two of us together, of the way she felt under my hands and in my mouth and wrapped around me. Dreams so intense that it all feels real, feels so damn good, until I look down and see the blood and I'm back fucking a corpse. The horror of it is devastating.

I drink, more than I should. More than I let anyone know. Not when I have Holly, I am aware enough of the dangers there to hold off when I'm solely responsible for my newborn, but when she's with Esme and Carlisle, or Edward and Bella, I drink so that I don't have to feel so much. I drink so that I won't dream.

I cry, often. Alone in my bathroom, the water running so no one hears me, I watch the video of Rosalie's life that played at her funeral and sob. I love you. I want you. I miss you. I still cannot believe she's really gone.

I don't think about the future. I don't make any plans. I can't think beyond the next diaper change, the next bottle. Rosalie's father offers to deal with the legal issues arising from her death, like her life insurance and her estate and all the random death paperwork, and I gladly let him. I sign whatever he puts in front of me without asking questions. I buy groceries with the money Jack puts in my account, and the bills that Rosalie hadn't set to auto pay stack up on top of the refrigerator. I know there will be decisions to be made, a new normal and ordinary to establish, but I can't bring myself to think about any of it.

I miss her. Every single minute of every single day, I miss her.

Mostly though, I try to love my kids and do what I can to help heal their broken, hurting hearts. I hug them when they cry and I let them sleep with me when they have bad dreams and I tell them that's it's okay to laugh and feel good again too, that Mommy wouldn't want them to be sad. I listen to their rage and wipe away their tears and reassure them that I'm here, that I'm always going to be here, that my love is big enough and strong enough to hold them all.

I have to hope that it's true.


"Good morning!"

"Hey." From my position lying on the living room floor, I look up at Esme's arrival. She's got Holly's car seat in one hand and two bags of groceries in the other, and I gently push Bram off my stomach and roll over to rise to my feet. "I'll get that for you."

"Take Holly." Esme thrusts the baby at me and heads towards the kitchen with the groceries.

I unbuckle Holly and lift her out. "Hi baby girl."

Zeke climbs into the car seat, reaching for the brightly coloured octopus hooked onto the handle. This tips the whole thing and he falls, screaming as the hard plastic rim crushes his fingers underneath.

"Oh buddy, you're okay…let Daddy kiss it better." Juggling Holly I take Zeke's red hand and kiss his dimpled little fingers, then make munching noises and mouth at them until he laughs. "There you go."

I put the car seat into the playpen where the boys can't get to it and leave them playing with their toys and carry Holly into the kitchen. Esme is putting the groceries into the fridge, frowning as she looks at the assortment of plates and Tupperware stuffed in there with leftovers on them. "We need to clean this out," she tells me, pulling out a plate with a half eaten burger on it that's growing a small halo of white fuzz. "Who saved this?"

"Mac wanted it for breakfast – I guess he forgot about it," I shrug. "Did you get more formula?"

"Yes, I've put another two cans in the pantry." Esme tosses the burger into the trashcan and adds the plate to the dishwasher. "Holly had her last bottle at eleven last night and slept through until four this morning, which was wonderful. How were things here? Did you sleep? You'll have to have her tonight, Carlisle and I have a hospital benefit dinner to attend."

"That's cool. We'll manage, won't we jellybean?" I smile at Holly, who looks at me thoughtfully. "None of the big kids were up at all last night, so I slept fine."

At least I slept fine after I drank most of a six pack and bawled my eyes out watching videos of Rosalie on my phone.

My eyes skip past Esme to where I left the bottles on the counter, instead of shoving them out of sight in the recycling bin like I normally do. It's not that I think I'm really overdoing it or anything, but I know Esme and Carlisle don't like it. And deep down I know that drinking the way I am when I'm the only adult at home with the kids is fucked up, and something Rosalie would be furious at me for.

Esme sees what I'm looking at and a shadow passes across her face, but she doesn't say anything about it then. Instead she stacks the abandoned cereal bowls from the table into the dishwasher and starts it running, and then takes Holly from my arms. The baby's face lights up in a smile as she looks at her grandmother, and I bite back my own feelings of inadequacy. She doesn't smile at me yet.

"You need to go and have a shower and change your clothes," Esme says bluntly. "And when was the last time you shaved?"

I glance down at my stretched out sweatpants and stained t-shirt, and self-consciously scratch the rather-more-than-stubble that's covering half my face. "Maybe I'm growing a beard?"

"You look like a pirate," Esme says crisply. "Which, if that's what you want…fine. But you can be a clean pirate with a shampooed beard and fresh clothes. I'm not over here every day doing your family's laundry for you to wear the same sweatpants for five days in a row."

"It hasn't been…okay, fine, I'll go and have a shower."

I slink off to the bathroom to shower, and once everything's been soaped and scrubbed I take the time to shave too. I know Esme's not judging harshly, but I'm embarrassed to be caught out with the booze and the grunginess of wearing the same clothes for days on end. Looking at myself once I'm done, I grimace. I'm drinking, sleeping and crying way too much, and not eating enough, and I look like shit. But freshly washed and shaved and wearing clean clothes for the first time in days, I at least look like the kind of shit that's made an effort.

"Much better," Esme says in heartfelt tones when I come back to the living room. "Now I can give you a hug." She squeezes me tightly and kisses my cheek. "I really don't want to give you a hard time, but you have to look after yourself. All those things you make the kids do – shower, clean their teeth, eat proper meals and try and keep a regular sleep routine – you need to make yourself do those things too."

"I know, I know."

I can see the worry in Esme's face, but she smiles at me brightly and hands me a couple of bills. "Now, here's twenty dollars. You're taking Bram and Zeke to the drop-in baby gym class this morning."

"I am?" I say doubtfully.

Esme nods firmly. "You are. This house needs a deep clean and I can't do it with you and three babies getting in the way. The twins will love playing in the gym, and it will be good for you to get out for a while."

"What about Holly?"

"She can go with you. I gave her a bottle right before we came over here so she should be happy enough in the stroller or the car seat at the gym. After the class you can go next door to the café and buy them some lunch, and by the time that's done I should have at least made a good start on what I want to do here." Esme's eyes flick around the messy living room. "Now I've just changed the boys' diapers and packed a bag with spares and a bottle for Holly, so you're all ready to get going."

I don't really want to go to the drop-in baby gym class. The idea of doing something so normal, of being somewhere where people don't know what I'm dealing with, feels beyond intimidating. But I can't say no to Esme, not when she's trying so hard to take care of us, so I put my sneakers on and load all the babies into the car and head out.

Even just getting from the car into the gym is difficult with three babies. I have to strap Bram and Zeke into the double stroller, stuff the massive diaper bag into the basket and then juggle Holly in her bucket car seat as I push it through the parking lot. I wouldn't even be able to get inside if a woman with a toddler skipping beside her didn't hold the door open for us.

I pay the fee and go into the smaller gym where they hold the baby class. I used to come here all the time when Mac and Noah were toddlers, and it's just like I remember. They have a little circuit set up with baby-suitable equipment, mats and foam wedges and balls and beanbags, see-saws and rocking boards and saucers, mini trampolines and a balance beam on the floor, but the kids are babies two years old or less, so they're not exactly good at following directions. There's no real order as the kids all crawl or toddle or run around in all directions, doing whatever takes their fancy.

"Emmett! I heard what happened and I'm so sorry." Jules, the same instructor who used to do this when Mac and Noah were little, comes over to me. She's got that face on, the pitying one with an underlying morbid curiosity about how we're feeling and coping and managing…a look I loathe, but one that is becoming depressingly familiar to me.

"Thanks." I mumble. I set the brakes on the stroller and put Holly's seat on the floor beside it, kneeling down to unbuckle the twins.

Jules takes the hint that it's not a subject I want to talk about and kneels down beside me, smiling engagingly at the twins. "Who have we got here? Wow, I'm not going to be able to tell you two apart, am I?" She looks at me and grins. "Don't they just look like Mac though? How're he and Noah doing?"

"They're good," I say. "Started kindergarten this year. This one's Bram and that one's Zeke. And Holly, but she's just going to watch today."

Jules laughs. "Yeah, it might be a while before she's ready to follow in her big sister's footsteps. I've seen Daisy working out with the junior elites, and she's doing amazing! But you two cuties are going to have a great time today!" She peels off Zeke's socks and tickles his toes. "How old are they?"

"Nearly twelve months. Not quite walking, but really close."

Jules waits until Zeke smiles at her and then reaches for his straps. "How about I get you out so you can go play? You know how it works Emmett. No socks, no pacifiers, no food, keep water bottles over by your stroller or bags. They can play with whatever they want and it's up to you to supervise although of course Amanda and I are here to help – we'll give you an extra hand today because you've got two of them." She puts Zeke on the floor and he immediately crawls off towards the area with the balls.

I slip Bram's socks off and pull him out of the stroller. He's less confident and doesn't want to leave me, so I make sure Holly is comfortable and position her car seat where I can keep an eye on her, and then take him over to his brother.

The little twins have a great time. They play with the balls for a while, throwing them around and drooling on them, and then go crawling around exploring. They spend a long time rolling and sliding down a big triangular foam wedge, cruising along the mats and babbling at themselves and licking their reflections in the mirrors along one wall. This makes me laugh, and I wonder why it is they enjoy mirrors so much when they spend twenty-four hours a day with a living mirror in each other.

I check on Holly periodically, relieved when she sleeps soundly through most of it. Not for the first time I acknowledge how lucky I am that she's such an easy baby. I have no idea how I would be coping if she was a crier like newborn Daisy had been, or if she'd been twins and twice the work, and I know enough to recognise Holly's placid, even-tempered nature is a blessing.

I'm thinking about getting our stuff together and leaving when I hear her wail. I head over to where I left her, finding a toddler girl who looks at me with a guilty expression as she whips a pacifier out of her mouth and starts trying to shove it in Holly's.

"Baby's binky," she tells me. "Not my binky. I not take it."

I laugh gently. "Can I have that?"

"Tess!" A man, I guess her dad, swoops in and yanks it out of her hand. "Kiddo, you can't go round stealing binkies!" He hands it over to me. "Sorry for my klepto daughter. I don't think she has any communicable diseases right now, but that baby looks new…you might not want to risk putting that back in her mouth."

I laugh and toss it in the bottom of the stroller. "No worries. There's probably a spare." I dig in the diaper bag until I find another pacifier, and hold it in Holly's mouth until she stops crying.

"Baby happy now," Tess says to me, reaching in and patting Holly's hair.

"Tess, come on." Her dad pulls her hand away. "Leave the baby."

"It's okay," I say, rocking the car seat a little. "She's the youngest; she's pretty used to being poked and prodded."

The guy grins. "Hey…you're Emmett right? You did my last tattoo." He pushes up his sleeve to show me a koi fish. "I still love it. I'm Paul, this is Tess. Which one is yours?"

"The two over there, playing in the crawl-through cube…in the blue and the green t-shirts." I point out Bram and Zeke.

"Wow, twins and this little baby – you've got your hands full. Bet the missus is happy to have you take them all out for the morning!"

The breezy assumption that there is a 'missus' at home, a mom happy to have a break from her newborn and bigger twins while I just take them out for baby gym…oh damn, I wish that was true!

I don't know what to say. He's just some dude trying to make casual conversation, he doesn't want my miserable life story. "Yeah," I say at last. "It's busy."

"You wouldn't have it any other way though, would you?" Paul says lightly, picking Tess up and hanging her upside down to make her laugh.

Before I have to come up with anything else though, Bram and Zeke both try and crawl through the same hole and bang their heads together and I make my escape. I hug and soothe, and then put socks back on and strap the babies back into the stroller. We'll go and buy some lunch, and then go home…to a house where there isn't going to be a wife relaxed after a morning break from her babies.

You wouldn't have it any other way though, would you?