I hope, if you're celebrating, that your Thanksgiving is lovely, safe, and happy. I wish you all health and happiness this season.
To Chicsarah, I am always thankful for you. Your editing, your ideas, your thoughts, your creativity—you make this story better. You tell me what works and doesn't work, you encourage me, and you are the most fun to work with. I love you, my sweet friend.
Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable characters herein. No copyright infringement is intended.
"Esme, you outdid yourself. Everything was amazing," Rosalie said as she sat back in her chair, cradling a sleeping Olivia.
"Really, mom. It was so good," I told her, rubbing my aching stomach.
"A magnificent feast, as usual, my love," dad said, leaning over to kiss mom on the cheek.
"I want more pie," Emmett said, reaching for the pumpkin praline pie on the table as we all laughed.
"You are a damn bottomless pit, kid," Grandma Cullen laughed.
Bagel walked up then, nudging my leg. I'd been sneaking him turkey throughout the meal.
The six of us were sitting around the table on my parents' porch, enjoying our annual Thanksgiving dinner.
Last year had been a much more somber affair, as it was just a few weeks after Grandpa Cullen had passed. This year, though, had seen our family grow, and we had been all smiles as we feasted on the spread mom prepared, took turns passing Olivia around, and laughing with each other.
I missed Bella, but her job wasn't always one that allowed for holidays off. She was working today, and tomorrow we would join her family for their Thanksgiving dinner.
Rosalie and Emmett were leaving from here to drive to Charlotte for a few days to spend the weekend with her family, and Grandma Cullen was staying with my parents so she and my mom could hit the stores early for Black Friday sales tomorrow.
We always had a small Thanksgiving, since most of our family lived farther away. We made up for it at Christmas, but this holiday was more about us.
"I'm glad you all enjoyed—are still enjoying—the meal," mom smiled, looking at Emmett as he inhaled a second piece of dessert. "There is a mountain of leftovers in the kitchen, so I expect you all to take to-go plates. Edward, please take food for you and Bella to have later," mom directed.
"I will," I confirmed, knowing I wouldn't want to eat again anytime soon but that Bella might enjoy a plate after work tonight.
The last several weeks had been a blur of work, preparation for the holidays, and Bella getting to know her cousin, Rachel. The two of them spoke often, either by phone or text, and I knew Bella was delighting in learning more about this young woman who was not only a connection to her aunt, but fast becoming her friend.
Bella, a bit to my concern, still hadn't told her mom about Rachel, though. She was terrified of her mom's reaction, of what it may do to her, especially now when the holidays and Christmas were already so incredibly difficult.
Every time I asked her when she might be ready to tell her mom and uncle about their niece, she just said "soon" and changed the subject.
I understood her fear, though. This was so new, so seemingly unbelievable; I think Bella was scared that it would go away. That for whatever reason, Rachel would decide not to be a part of the family, that she was happier with her adoptive family and not ready to step into Bella's.
I didn't get that read on Rachel, but I also hardly knew the girl, and humans were nothing if not fickle.
I spent the rest of the afternoon with my family. Football was on the TV, Olivia was asleep in my arms, and the family was quietly talking and sipping coffee.
After a busy year with a lot of ups and downs, it felt nice to spend these peaceful moments with the people who meant the most to me. I was just missing my girl, but she'd be in my arms in a few hours, and I couldn't wait.
Since Grandma Cullen was staying with my parents tonight and didn't need a ride back to her apartment, I decided to take a different route home and drove down Market Street. It wouldn't be too busy, since most everything was closed, but there would be wreaths and Christmas lights strung up on the light poles, and it always looked nice in the evenings.
It wasn't too cold out tonight, so with my windows down and soft Christmas music playing in my car, I drove slowly down the street, enjoying the evening air.
I passed the Market entrance and drove a few blocks, the coffee shop where Bella and I first had dinner to my right. I noticed, though, that the bench beside it had the same inhabitant who'd been there a few times that I'd seen now.
Bella's friend, Mr. Jake, sat on the bench alone, looking around at everything and nothing in the quiet evening.
I looked down to my right at the piles of containers mom sent with me—enough food for several days of leftovers, even though I insisted we would be having more food tomorrow with Bella's family.
I decided to do what I knew Bella would do in that moment and pulled my car over to park a few spaces away from Mr. Jake. I gathered up a few containers and stepped out of my car, approaching him slowly.
"Mr. Jake?" I asked, and he looked up at me, confused.
"Hi, I'm Edward. I'm a good friend of Bella's. Her boyfriend, actually," I explained as I walked slowly toward him.
He just nodded, but didn't say anything or reach his hand out to shake my outstretched one.
"May I sit?" I asked, nodding to the empty space beside him. He nodded again, but said nothing.
"I'm sorry I don't have Bella with me today. She's working right now. You know, nursing never stops, even for the holidays," I smiled, feeling pride in the work she did.
"Anyway, I just came from Thanksgiving with my parents and I saw you out here. I know Bella usually brings you food, and I thought maybe…well, you see I have so many containers of leftovers. Would you…like something to eat?" I asked hesitantly, afraid to sound presumptuous or treat him like a charity case.
Bella had already explained that he had a home and food, but he just wasn't very good at caring for himself after he lost his wife last year. Bella hadn't said how she died, only that she had and he hadn't been the same. He seemed younger than my grandmother, maybe closer to my parents' ages, so her death was likely untimely and hard on him. Grandpa Cullen was much older, and while his death was still a surprise, it was easier to reconcile losing someone who had led such a long, full life already.
Still, I wondered if there was more behind his wife's death that was causing Mr. Jake to be so quiet, nearly catatonic it seemed.
"I'm not sure what you like, but there is some turkey and ham in here," I said, holding up a Tupperware in my left hand. "And there are several sides in here; sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, dressing and gravy. Some green bean and squash casserole, too," I said, holding up a foil wrapped plate in my other hand. It was the plate of sides I'd fixed for Bella's dinner tonight, but I had another plate mom had made for me in the car, so I would just give her those leftovers.
Mr. Jake reached for them both and set them in his lap.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
"Can I offer you a ride somewhere? It's getting late," I said, noting that the air was getting cooler as the night got darker.
"I'm not ready," he said simply.
"That's fine, we can stay here," I confirmed. I felt bad because I had no utensils to give him to eat with, but he didn't seem all that interested in eating his food right now anyway.
"So, Bella said she's known you for a long time," I started, trying to prompt any kind of conversation out of him. "She said you were like a grandfather to her," I said, remembering what she'd told me the day we dropped off food on our way to the beach.
I knew Bella still came down here most Fridays on her days off to bring him food or just visit with him. She told me most of the time when she did, but she never offered up much else about her time spent with her friend. I didn't ask, because she never seemed to talk all that much about it other than mentioning that she visited before or after she left her mom and dad's. I wasn't sure if they had any connection to him or if it was just Bella.
"She said that?" He asked quietly, looking down at his lap as he did.
"She did," I confirmed. "She told me she's known you for many years and cared for you very much," I told him honestly.
"She's a good soul. Too good. I don't deserve it," he said quietly, the most he'd said since I'd been here.
"I'm not sure what makes you say that, but if there is one thing I know about Bella, it's that she doesn't give her love to those who don't deserve it," I told him.
"After everything that—after what her family has been through, I just don't understand," he said.
"Well, I think if anything, what she's been through has made her care that much more deeply about people in her life. She's endured so much loss, and she's determined to make all of her relationships matter now," I said. I understood Bella's need to make sure the people in her life knew their significance to her. She wasn't of the nature to take anyone for granted, especially now.
"But why me? She shouldn't care about me. If anything, she should hate me," he said, the last part so quiet I almost didn't make out the words.
"I'm sorry, I don't follow," I told him. Why on earth should she hate him?
"I'm the reason they—I'm the one who—it's all my fault," he said, his shoulders now shaking with quiet sobs. I genuinely didn't understand what he was talking about, nor had I any idea how to comfort this man who was so deep in his own despair.
"Mr. Jake, sir…I am certain that Bella has her reasons for caring about you. Even if you don't think you deserve her affection, she gives it because that's who she is—she loves deeply, and you've impacted her life profoundly," I told him.
"She's the only one, you know?" He said, looking up with glassy eyes, red and filled with unshed tears. "The only one who still—who will even talk to me," he told me.
"The only one of…who?" I asked.
"Of her family. She's the only one," he said.
I was still completely lost by his words, but I decided it wasn't my place to keep asking questions only to get answers I didn't understand.
"I'm sorry…I don't know what else to say, just that I am sorry," I told him. I may not know what he meant or what he was talking about, but he was obviously hurting very badly.
"I lost them both. My wife and my—I lost both of them," he mumbled.
I reached to gently pat his shoulder, and it felt like so small and brittle under his baggy flannel shirt.
We sat quietly for several minutes before he looked up at me.
"Can I get that ride home now?" He asked.
I nodded and led him to my car, then followed his quiet directions a few blocks over, to a house much larger than I expected, tucked away within the streets of Charleston.
"Thank you for the food," he said sincerely before stepping out of the car and shutting the door, barely giving me time to reply.
I drove home, confused and sad for this man I barely knew—and also with several questions that I hoped Bella may be willing to answer.
Around eight that evening, I was on the couch watching a football game I didn't really care much about when I saw headlights through the window. I smiled, knowing it was Bella arriving for the weekend.
I knew she was tired, but she'd still sent me a text after she left work to let me know she was stopping for a few more ingredients at the only open grocery store before coming to the house. She was making a pie for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner with her family.
Her mom was doing most of the cooking—something she said she was ready to do again this year after they opted for takeout last year.
It was just going to be her parents and the two of us. Her uncle and his family were with their grown kids up in Maryland for the weekend, and there weren't any other relatives with whom to celebrate.
Bella walked in, still in her scrubs, with an overnight bag in one hand and a few grocery bags in the other.
"Hi beautiful," I told her, leaning in to kiss her and take the bags from her as she stepped through the front door.
She kicked her tennis shoes off where I'd taken my own off, sighing with what I was sure was exhaustion.
"Hi yourself," she smiled.
"Good day at work?" I asked.
"Surprisingly quiet, actually. We did have a few fried turkey incidents, but those were sent to the burn units and will thankfully make full recoveries," she said.
I set her bags on the counter in the kitchen and she immediately began unpacking them.
She pulled out a pie crust, whipping cream, a few small jars of spices, and canned pumpkin.
"Pumpkin?" I asked.
"Just in case," she shrugged, looking at the two small, misshapen pumpkins that had been the last of what grew in her garden. She'd only gotten a handful of them this year, and most were too small to do much with. She'd decided she would try to use them for her pumpkin pie.
"Ah," I grinned, helping her put some of the items in the refrigerator.
"I'm going to get them in the oven to roast while I go take a shower," she said, grabbing the small pumpkins, then reaching for a large knife and a cookie sheet.
"What should I set the oven on?" I asked.
"350, please," she said, cutting into the fruit and working on scooping out the seeds.
Once the pumpkins were in the oven, Bella went upstairs to shower off her work day while I made her a plate of leftovers and warmed it.
"That smells good," she said, walking back into the kitchen several minutes later as I was removing her plate from the microwave.
The pumpkins still had at least a half hour of roasting to do, so we sat at the table for her to eat. I was still pretty stuffed from lunch earlier, so I opted only to have the pie I hadn't eaten at mom and dad's.
"So, how was Thanksgiving with the family? Oh my gah, this is good," she moaned around a bite of sweet potato souffle.
I laughed before telling her about our modest Thanksgiving, about how big Olivia is getting and about how much turkey I gave to Bagel under the table. I'd already received a text from Emmett with a sarcastic thanks, as it seemed Bagel was stinking up the car on their drive to Charlotte.
Bella giggled, her face lighting up with stories of baby snuggles and mischievous dogs.
We'd sat there so long talking that we were both surprised when the oven timer beeped. I offered to get the pumpkins for her, but she said she needed to check that they were ready. I got up instead to make her a cup of coffee to have with dessert.
Once she deemed them satisfactory, she came back to the table to finish her pecan pie. The pumpkins needed to cool a bit before she could prepare the pie filling.
"So, I drove down Market Street on my way home today," I told her.
"Yeah? It's always so pretty when it's decorated for Christmas," she smiled, sipping at the steaming cup of coffee.
"It is. I rode by the café, where we ate that first night. Mr. Jake was sitting on one of the benches out there," I said carefully. After his cryptic words earlier, I was almost hesitant to bring up his name.
"Oh, really? I figured he'd spend the day alone. I wasn't sure if he'd come to his usual bench or not, though," Bella said sadly.
"I stopped. I had so much food in the car, so I offered him some leftovers. I hope that's okay," I said.
"Of course, Edward. That was really nice of you. As I said before, it's not that he doesn't have food or even money to live on; he's just not so great at caring for himself now," she said quietly.
"Because he lost his wife," I said, and she nodded.
"Do you know how she died?" I asked.
"A heart attack," Bella said. "Which was extra sad because it was so sudden. She was a tiny woman who didn't smoke, didn't eat poorly that we knew of, and didn't have the underlying conditions that often lead to a sudden heart attack. I almost think—" she started, but then looked up and stopped, startled a bit.
"Almost think what?" I asked, confused at her sudden alarm.
"I almost think—that she died of a broken heart," Bella said quietly.
"I'm not sure I follow. Did something happen to them? Did they lose someone close?" I asked. I'd heard of people dying of broken hearts—not literally, but figuratively, sometimes the sadness was so much that their bodies failed them. It was often the case when people lost spouses or children.
"There's something I've never told you about Mr. Jake. About who he is. About who Leah was," Bella said softly.
"You said you'd known him most of your life. That he was like a grandfather to you," I said.
"And that's true, I have. He is. I grew up with him and Leah both, as she spent all week at the Market selling and he came on the weekends to help. He worked, had a decent job as a mechanic. He even owned his own shop for a long time before selling it. He'd retired just a few years before Leah passed away," Bella explained.
"So is there more? More to your connection to them? He said some things I don't quite understand," I said, still unsure where this was going. His words from earlier rang in my head.
"What did he say exactly?" Bella asked.
"He got pretty upset. He said that it was his fault, but he didn't say what. He said you were the only one from your family who still speaks to him. But he didn't tell me much else, and I didn't want to pry. So eventually I drove him home and that was that," I shrugged.
Bella sighed deeply before looking down at her hands resting in her lap.
Finally, she looked up at me with the same red, glassy eyes Mr. Jake had earlier.
"I grew up with them because of the Market, that's true. I saw them almost every weekend when I came to help mom. Aunt Tori knew them well, too. She came to the Market a lot with mom, especially after Laurent left. I think it helped ease her loneliness, and she was so good with customers. She loved selling, loved talking to people. She especially loved bragging on the artist of all the pieces she was selling, her amazing sister. She bragged on mom all the time," Bella smiled.
"Anyway, one Saturday, when I was around 15 I guess, I was helping mom and Aunt Tori at the booth. Leah and Jake were there, too, and it was a particularly busy summer day. Eventually, I noticed a tall, good looking blonde man walk up to their booth. They were all very familiar with each other, and it wasn't long before they walked over and introduced us to him as their son. James." Bella said.
Everything started to click into place then.
"Ah," I nodded. "I though Jake's last name was Black, though. James' was Witherdale, right?" I asked.
"Biologically, he was only Leah's son. She was a single mom, and met Jake when James was a toddler. He pretty much raised him," she explained.
"So the Market is where Aunt Tori initially met him. They didn't immediately start dating or anything, but he started coming by much more frequently. Every time he was there, he was charming. It was several months later before they started a relationship, and well, you know the rest," Bella said.
"Leah and Jake stopped coming to the Market after it happened. We only saw them once, at the funeral for Aunt Tori and Grandma and Grandpa. They stayed in the back, and I'm not sure my parents saw them. I did, though. And I knew that our family wasn't the only one that was broken that day.
Leah died less than a year later. I had neglected to check in on them, pretty much lost all contact with them. I don't think it was malice that kept my mom away; she simply never left her house after it happened. But I don't think she harbors any resentment to Mr. Jake. I can't believe he blames himself for any of it," Bella said, silent tears streaking down her face.
I reached for her, pulling her into my lap and holding her against me as she cried quietly.
"Anyway, when I started going to the Market to take over the booth, I noticed Mr. Jake sitting on the bench nearby. He never came in, never came near Leah's old booth, which had already been given to another vendor. But he sat close and always looked so lonely. One day I went over to talk to him, and he was so surprised to see me. We ended up talking for hours. After that, I just started going to see him regularly to check on him and make sure he was eating," Bella said.
"You really are an angel," I told her, kissing her forehead gently.
"He lost so much that day, too. He's lost a lot since then. And none of it was his fault—for all intents and purposes, he raised a good son. James loved Aunt Tori for a long time, but behind closed doors, he was someone else. Someone no one knew, not even his parents. They couldn't have changed the outcome; some people are just wired differently," Bella said.
"I agree. Do you think your mom would ever be willing to talk to him? Maybe she could assuage him of some of this guilt," I suggested.
"It's an idea. I will talk to her about it soon," Bella said. She wiped at her eyes and stood up to take her empty plate and silverware to the sink.
"Okay, I need to get this pie made. So either help or get out of my kitchen," she winked, laughing with a smile that didn't quite reach her still tear filled eyes.
"Your kitchen, huh?" I asked, thinking of just how much I wanted it to be hers. I was entirely ready to share this home with her.
"Yep, my kitchen," she grinned. "Fine, your kitchen. Your whole house if you want it," I told her, not even thinking, the words tumbling out before I had a chance to stop them.
"My whole house? Well that's generous. I may have to rethink your Christmas gift ideas," she chuckled.
I walked up behind her, put my arms around her, and decided it was now or never.
"I'm serious," I whispered. "Move in with me."
She stopped moving, her hands stilled, even her breathing seemed to halt.
She turned in my arms then, but I didn't move, keeping her trapped against the counter. My heart was beating fast, and I wasn't sure what my nervous smile must look like to her.
"What?" She asked.
"Move in with me," I said again, my eyes staring into her wide, beautiful brown ones.
"I...yes," she breathed, the smile on her face wide and genuine now.
"Yeah?" I asked, just to be sure.
"Yes!" She said excitedly, and I didn't care that she had pumpkin all over her hands, I scooped her up, feeling her wrap her legs around me.
I leaned in to catch her lips with my own, both of us moaning when the kiss turned deep.
"I love you so much," I said finally, my forehead against hers.
"I love you. Roomie," she winked, and I spun her around the kitchen, delighting in the way she squealed and laughed, still clinging to me tightly.
Bella and I worked on her pie and got it finished around midnight, both exhausted and ready for bed.
We still made love, though. That night it was very slow, very gentle, both of us moving lazily together until we were breathing heavy in each other's arms and whispering words of affection. It was celebratory, affirming, a declaration of the life we were starting together.
This day and every day, I was thankful for her, for her love, for her companionship, and for the incredible workings of our relatives who were scheming together to write our love story; I felt more and more certain with each passing day that they had a hand in the fate and all of the connecting pieces that had brought us together. I wasn't sure if I believed in soul mates, but if they are real, then I had no doubts that she was mine; she was my entire life now, and there would never be a day to come that I didn't feel a desperate, all-consuming love for this girl in my arms.
Thoughts?