So, here we go!
Chapter 6
EPOV
It's been three months since the weekend of my 'wakeup call', and I've gotta say, things have certainly turned around.
I did pull back from actual construction work at the company. Which some of the people on my crew weren't happy about because we had a good groove between all of us; we worked well as a unit. But it had to be done, and they understood. I did hire a couple more experienced guys to join our crew and they seemed to be a good fit.
Bella started working as the office manager and, I've gotta say, it's been the best decision ever. She's run an office before, at her previous job, and she knows enough about Cullen Construction to just jump straight in. We've been working very well together, and being very professional, like Bella said. She hired someone to do the running around, errand runs, and gopher work. Which helped tremendously. She was able to be in the office and run things there, I was able to run the company, and the construction crews were able to do their work and I didn't have to worry about being short staffed and running to job sites. We were able to get actual work done and stay on top of things, without stressing so much.
Bella and I were able to get home and take care of thing there, together. I didn't stay late hours at the office trying to catch up on things. I was able to spend more time with my kids and my wife.
Things were still busy, but we were managing things much better now. It was totally worth the anxiety attack I had when I came home to an empty, messy house with a wedding ring sitting on the pillow and a note on the counter. Albeit it scared the shit out of me at first, it was what we needed.
The kids also seem to be a little happier that I'm around more. Jake even mentioned it one day, and that brought me up short. I wasn't sure if they had been impacted as much by my absence, but Jake clearly had.
It had been one night, about a month ago, and I was helping get the kids bathed and ready for bed, when Jake mentioned it.
I was running his bath water so he could have a 'swim', as he liked to call it. He loved having an extra-large bathtub where he could literally almost swim around in it. Well, before he got older.
"Dad, I'm glad you're around more. I was missing you." Jake said as he ran into the bathroom.
I stopped with my hand under the water faucet and looked over at him in shock. I really didn't think he'd noticed, but apparently I was wrong.
"What do you mean, buddy?" I asked as I turned around and let the water fill the tub.
"Well, we haven't seen you much since papa got sick. Mama said you were always busy at work, doing papa's job. We just didn't get to see you as much then. You missed things at school and some of my games, and Kate's recital last year. I'm just glad you're here."
I pulled him into a crushing hug and told him, "I'm sorry I wasn't here, bud. Your mama was right, I was taking over papa's job for him, and things just got a little hectic. But, we're getting things settled down where I'm able to be around more. I promise, I'm gonna do better to be there for you guys more."
"You already are, dad." He said, and then attempted to take a swan dive into the tub, before I caught him around the waist.
"Not so fast! I don't want you cracking your skull open. Take it easy."
That night, I told Bella about my conversation with Jake and she didn't seem as surprised as I was.
"Edward, kids are incredibly perceptive. They can sense things are wrong around them, even if they don't know exactly what's going on. But Jake does seem to have noticed it more than Kate has. But we're on a path to normalcy." Bella said, wrapping her arms around me and hugging me tightly.
Now though, I'm glad Jake had told me how he felt. That gave me the extra kick in the butt, added to what Bella had done, to make sure I'm mentally and physically there with her and the kids.
Which is why we're all taking a four day weekend trip to the mountains, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, to have some family time. The kids have a long weekend off from school, so we're gonna head to Biltmore, take a hike through Pisgah National Forrest, and do some shopping.
Bella LOVES going to Biltmore. She loves the history and opulence of the estate, along with the gardens. With us living in Charleston, Bella loves the history there, too. But we can make the trip to the beach or downtown Charleston anytime we want. So we decided to make the trip up I-26 for some bonding time.
We had an amazing trip. Taking the BRP, we took in all the scenic beauty of late spring in western North Carolina. Flowers were blooming everywhere, trees were back to their beautiful green color, and the gorgeous slope of each mountain in the distance was just incredible. Seeing God's handy work at play like this is nothing short of amazing.
Taking the exit to Biltmore, we made a quick stop at Well-Bred bakery and we got a couple little treats. Bella got the éclair, and I got an espresso roulade, while the kids stuck to cookies. I'll say this though; they make a killer espresso roulade. It's one of those treats that makes your eyes roll back in your head. Delicious.
We also stopped and walked around All Souls Church. It's an unbelievably beautiful church. Built at the end of the 19th century, it's got some amazing stained glass windows, and arches that are quite expansive. It's a quaint church, but still considered a cathedral. Being in construction, I can truly appreciate the craftsmanship.
As we get back in the car and jump across the road to the entrance of Biltmore, Bella can't seem to sit still in her seat. She's bouncing around like one of the kids and clapping her hands.
She absolutely loves this place.
Driving through the gate, and making our way to the hotel on the estate, it's just astounding seeing the layout of the estate and how it was well thought out.
"Mom, look! Deer!" Jake yells from the back seat, leaning over his sister to get a better look.
I glance over from the driver seat and see a family of five deer on the side of a hill as we're driving by. I slow to a stop, as to not completely startle the deer, and let the kids look at the beautiful creatures grazing.
Getting back on the road to the hotel, they lean to the other side of the car to watch the gorgeous river that flows through the estate.
Getting checked in at the hotel and settled takes a little while, and the kids are ready to go exploring. They saw the damn farm animals when we pulled up to the hotel, so that's all they've been asking to do for the last hour.
I do love staying here like this. Staying in a hotel on the grounds feels safer to me, having two little ones. And a whole lot easier to have a 'home base', as we like to refer to it. Which means, we can setup 'camp' here, do all the things around the estate we wanna do, which is a good bit of stuff, actually. And we can go off the estate to go across to Pisgah National Forrest, and then just up the interstate a couple of exits to the outlet mall. Even making our way around to see some of the sights.
Win-win all around.
The hotel we're staying at has a small little village, as it's called, and it has some really cute shops and a few restaurants, a winery, a place where a blacksmith does some work, and a little barnyard with animals.
And it's the time of year where all the baby lambs and goats have just been born and Bella and the kids are losing their shit over how fucking cute they are.
"Eeeeeeeeee! Edward, look at them! Are they not the cutest thing ever? Can we get some for our own little farm? We have plenty of room…" Yep, that was my wife trying to talk me into buying farm animals that we don't need.
I just give her a look and tell her, "Bells, not something we need right now. Maybe down the road. But right now?" I shake my head 'no'.
She just pouts at me and turns back to play with the kids… and I don't mean our biological children.
Our kids are having a field day with these animals, too. And it's even harder telling them 'no' than it is for me to tell Bella.
We spend a couple hours there, and then watching the blacksmith do his work. They also have something going on right now called 'stickwork', which is like making cave/tunnel/walk-throughs out of sticks. And for a construction guy, it's pretty fucking cool. I've never seen anything like it before. It's kinda like seeing how our ancestors may have made their shelter hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
We then took a walk down to the river where the kids played around in it for a little while.
We'd made reservations at Cedric's for dinner, so we went back to our room to freshen up and make our way to the restaurant located in the little village just outside the hotel doors.
I'll say this, that place has some pretty awesome food that's very memorable. I got the side-eye through the whole meal from the kids because I got the seared lamb chops….
So sue me. It was delicious.
Bella and I had come up here a couple years ago and they had the most amazing meatball and Sunday gravy, (that's just what it's called, but it was a huge meatball with homemade marinara). That's one of those things that I'll always remember eating here because it was that good.
The kids keep looking around the restaurant at the pictures on the walls and notice a theme of the large Saint Bernard the Vanderbilt's had over a hundred years ago. I already see where they're heads are going.
"No, we're not getting a dog, either. Especially not a big Saint Bernard like that. We can't make that kind of extra commitment right now. Ask me in a few months when we may be able to consider it, ok?" I tell them, knowing at some point, it's gonna be very likely that we're gonna get some sort of pet. I just need to talk it over with Bella and see what she thinks. I don't wanna add more stress to her after we've come so far.
The kids nod and dig into their food.
Finishing up with dinner, we make our way out into the village and decide to grab some ice cream from the Creamery and eat outside and enjoy the lights that are strung around the buildings and listening to the live band playing in the Pavilion.
This is such a relaxing time. Me, Bella, the kids and an extremely soothing backdrop. It's amazing. This was a really good idea to come here.
Turning in for the night in the hotel, Kate sprawled out on one of the beds and Jake decided he was gonna sleep on the little cushioned bench area under the window. We tried to talk him out of it, but he thought it was really cool, so we let him have his fun. But we told him we didn't wanna hear it in the morning if his back was hurting from sleeping on it.
The next morning, getting everyone dressed and ready was an interesting venture. But we made it work. One good thing about these hotel rooms; the shower and toilet were in an actual room, and the sink/dressing area was just outside of the bathroom. It helps a lot.
The restaurant in the hotel is killer. Such good breakfast food. I could've sat there all day eating the roasted potatoes they had….
….
….
….
….
Sorry, I'm back. I was having dreams about the potatoes.
We jumped on the shuttle and made our way to the actual house to tour it and the gardens.
Again, being a construction guy, I greatly appreciate the craftsmanship of this historic home. It's everywhere you look. Everywhere! From the ceilings to the walls, the floors to the doors, the tapestry's on the walls to the lights, the marble on the walls to the fireplaces, the carvings in every single corner to the winding staircase… It's just everything about this house.
The kids love it too. Their eyes were just taking everything in with wonderment.
"Daddy, can we move to this house?" Kate asked in a whisper because she was scared to be too loud.
I just laughed at her and shook my head. "Baby girl, there's no way we could afford this house. Even though I'd love to live here myself, too. There's way too much upkeep for this place, and you know you'd miss the beach too much to move here."
She pouted but nodded.
I may have pouted a little too. I mean, who doesn't wanna live in this house?
We made our way down to the gardens and to the trails all around to see the gorgeous flowers that were in bloom. It looked like a painter's artwork with all the colors.
The kids wanted to hit the gift shops before we went back to the hotel, so we went, to what use to be the old stables, and walked through each gift shop. The kids couldn't make up their minds in the confectionary shop. There was chocolate, and chocolate, and more chocolate. Someone had told us to try French Broad Chocolates downtown, but I don't think we're gonna need to now. Jake and Kate loaded up with sweets for the rest of the trip.
Bella grabbed a few books next door, and we went through the Christmas shop and got some new ornaments to add to our Christmas tree. The kids all got t-shirts with the Biltmore silhouette on it.
We dropped off our haul of goodies and took the kids back down to the farmyard to see the animals for a while before dinner.
After that, we went back and freshened up and changed for dinner. We had reservations at The Bistro right outside the hotel, and it was a little bit nicer than your regular restaurants.
The food at the Bistro…. Just heavenly. I had the steak frites, and oh man, absolutely scrumptious. The steak was cooked perfectly and the parmesan fries were delightful.
After all the walking and excitement today, the kids were bushed, so we turned in for the night.
The next morning, we repeated our morning routine, and took the kids over to Mt. Pisgah, because Bella wanted to see if we could find the place where the Vanderbilt's old hunting cabin stood. It was called Buck Spring Lodge. It's apparently gone now, but there's supposed to be some trails and a landmark where it was.
Finding the spot wasn't too difficult. The foundation seemed to be the only thing left of the cabin. And there was an information area that had pictures of what the place used to look like and it looked pretty amazing.
We walked some of the trails around there and then made our way to the outlet mall to do a little shopping.
Once we were back on the estate, the kids wanted to hit the pool, so we changed and made our way downstairs and we all played in the pool for a couple hours before it was time for us to get ready for dinner.
We went to the Village Social that's in the hotel for dinner. The shrimp and grits were fantastic. A little different than your traditional Charleston shrimp and grits, but it was still incredible.
Once we were done with dinner, we went for some ice cream again before we went back to our room and started our packing so that we didn't have so much to do in the morning before we had to leave to head home to Charleston.
The next morning, we headed for breakfast at the Village Social for the last time, and I could tell the kids were sad to be leaving.
"You guys, we'll come back again. We can start making this an annual trip, if y'all want to. Did you two have a good time?" I asked them, before shoving some potatoes in my mouth.
They're good as hell. Don't judge.
"Yes sir, we did. It's just hard to leave. There's so much fun stuff to do around here. And I love the house we got to walk through. Can we do a bigger garden at home? I want lots of flowers around the yard." Kate asked, and I could see her starting to get ideas in her head of where she wanted things. She may be eight, but she's got plans for things you'd never think of sometimes.
"We'll see when we get home. We've got lots of room to make one, so we'll get an idea of what we wanna do. It may be too late in the season for much of anything to bloom this year, but we can get started on flowers for next year. Even some for the fall." Bella told her as she cut up Kate's pancakes.
Kate nodded and dug into her plate.
I can't say that I blame her. It is definitely hard to leave this place after having such a good time as a family. But, this was definitely something we needed. We needed to reconnect as a family and have some time away from our everyday lives to just be us. It's also not a bad thing to let our kids have a little cultural and historical enrichment in their lives. To see how people lived in another time.
I'd like to take them to other historical places in the future to let them learn more about this country's history. You can learn all you want from books in school, but going to places and seeing the actual places that hold our country's rich history, is a whole other thing entirely. We've taken them around the battle sites and forts around Charleston and let them learn more about the wars that were fought there. Charleston is a hugely historical place, where you can literally feel the history everywhere you go. Since the kids are both at a good age to be able to learn this kind of stuff, I think that we'll have a lot more trips in our future. Which, I don't mind taking in the least.
Making our way back home, we start the process of getting unpacked, doing laundry, and getting back to our normal routine.
Bella and I divide and conquer. She unpacks the kids and our suitcases, I start the loads of laundry. I check to see what needs to be picked up at the store for the next week, and start a list and check with Bella on what she needs. I told her I'd make the grocery run and we'd finish everything else when I got back.
This is what we should've always been doing; working as a team. I know I got off track with my family, but as long as you make the effort and try to get back to a level playing field, you've got a fighting chance to fix things and keep your family intact. You've gotta be able to recognize where you've gotten off track, and work at being a better person for your spouse and kids. Bella was right; marriage is work. You can't just get married and think that's all you've gotta do. You've gotta make sure that you're doing your part and not making it into a one sided relationship. Because if you do, you'll look at yourself one day and wonder what went wrong.
You won't even know who you are anymore.
The End
Soooooo, there's the end of it. Their experience on their trip is some of my own when I've gone to Biltmore. I LOVE Biltmore. Absolutely one of my favorite places to go, besides Charleston. They both just so happen to be about 2-3 hours away from where I live. So I like to make those trips whenever I can. If y'all haven't been to either Biltmore or Charleston, I highly recommend making the trip for a little vacation to either one. I love a place that has a rich history to it and I love the craftsmanship of buildings around the area. I want to go up to the Breakers at some point in my life too, but that might end up being a stretch.
I hope you guys enjoyed this little story. Like I said before, it wasn't meant to be deep, dark or anything like that. Just a journey for a couple that kind of lost their way.