Chapter 83 Chapter Notes
Bella thought Maya had told Charlie the particulars of how the change occurs; Maya assumed Bella had enlightened Charlie. Tonight, he's going to get an education on how a person discards her humanity, and witness the full effects of the change.
The chapter title belongs to The Soggy Bottom Boys
Chapter 83 I am a Man of Constant Sorrow Tuesday, December 26th 6:00 pm
Carlisle arrives home right before Esme, just as the sun is setting. She rushes to kneel at Bella's side. "Oh, Edward, I'm so sorry no one was here to help you. Carlisle called, but what happened exactly?"
I tell her and Carlisle about Charlie's prophetic dreams, about the last one where he saw Bella lying in a pool of blood, wearing a long shirt he'd never seen.
"Have you spoken to Charlie?"
"I couldn't call him when I was here by myself," I say.
"Why don't you try him now," Carlisle suggests.
I nod and kiss Bella's damp forehead, then pass her body gently to Esme, who had joined me on the floor. I walk into the kitchen and reluctantly dial Charlie's number. He answers right before it goes to voicemail.
"Hey there, Edward. How's it going?"
"I've got news, Charlie." I pause, thinking of how my presence has disrupted his entire life. Thinking that telling him about what's happened here today is about the last thing that I want to do.
"What's up? Is Bella okay?"
I take a breath that won't help me. "We're here at the family's house. Earlier today, she fell off the porch and hit her head on a paving brick." And I can't say it. I can't say it.
"Is she all right? In the emergency room? Or…" He takes a big, gasping breath. He can't say it, either.
"She was gushing blood and her heartbeat was stuttering, so I…" And I still can't say it! I can't tell the girl's father that I bit her on the neck, lost myself in a feeding frenzy and nearly killed her, and was only saved by my sister, who had just woken up out of a six-week trance.
"You what? What did you do to Bella?"
"I injected her with venom, Charlie. To save her life. She hit really hard."
"Venom? What kind of venom?" I look around, not sure what to say. I thought he knew this.
"So, is she all right?"
I pause for a moment. She is certainly not all right. "I—didn't Maya and Bella tell you about the process?"
"What process?"
Oh, my good god. He doesn't know. Carlisle and Esme fidget behind me as Bella squirms in Esme's lap, undergoing an intensely painful bit of transformation, I assume.
"Charlie, I thought Maya and Bella told you about how this would work. I injected Bella as I thought she was dying!"
"Injected her? With a syringe?"
"N-no. I…"
"Oh, my god," he says slowly, as if he can't believe this is happening. "You, you bit her. Didn't you? You bit my daughter! That's how it works, right? Just like in the movies?" He sounds mad, like this is just the last straw.
I'm distracted by Bella's screeching, and Charlie yells, "What are you doing to her? What's wrong with her? Is she crying?" His voice is frantic. I'm not sure that this is a conversation we should be having on the telephone.
I can hear Maya trying to calm him. He ignores her.
"I spent my entire adult life without my daughter," Charlie chokes out. "Before I can even get to know her, you show up and right away, things go south. The doctor who took care of her in Phoenix told me her injuries weren't consistent with a fall down stairs. He thought she was the victim of domestic abuse. It took me a minute to get that he was suggesting that I had been beating my own daughter."
Charlie is gasping, his breath hitching. I have no idea what to say to him. And it's all true. Bella's life took a turn toward the macabre when she drew the short straw and was assigned a seat at my Biology table.
"Why Bella? You're a good-looking boy. You could have any girl! Why Bella?" I can hardly understand him, as he's trying hard not to cry, but I'm puzzled. A good-looking boy? What, exactly, did Maya and Bella tell him?
More importantly, what did he hear?
Maya mutters platitudes to him and his breathing evens. "Charlie, Bella promised that we'd keep you informed, and that's what I've done."
"You planned this!" He sounds as if he's had an epiphany. "The both of you! You and Bella have been lying to me for months!" Charlie sounds unhinged. I've never heard even a trace of this in his thoughts before, but the mental instability is the same, if not worse, than it was when he visited and bared his soul to Alice, and indirectly, to me.
I wonder if he's still taking pain meds for his shoulder injury, if they're affecting his mood, or it's simply that he's been dealt a hand that he just can't bring himself to play. "This isn't what we'd planned, Charlie. You saw what the separation did to Bella. I didn't fare any better. When I returned, I finally agreed to change her, but I insisted that she finish high school. That was the plan. For us to graduate and then—" I'm struck dumb as I remember his dream. He and Maya at graduation, but Bella and I aren't there.
Charlie acts as if he didn't hear anything I just said. "And while we're all being so honest all of a sudden, I want you to know exactly why I moved out. I gave permission for you to stay with Bella because I'm sick and tired of pretending. I know you two have been sleeping together, and she just turned eighteen so you were actually bedding my daughter when she was still a minor."
This is all too much. It takes all my willpower not to scream at him that in that case, in his eyes, I would have been a minor as well. "We talked about this at the house, Charlie. You are wrong. I never touched Bella before we were married, although I am very happy that we are husband and wife. And I'm sorry that you have such a low opinion of me. I can't imagine what I might have done to deserve it."
"You were in her bedroom! I know you were." He sounds like he's speaking through gritted teeth. "When she fell apart, I ran into her room after she had one of those screaming nightmares. She didn't know I was there, and she crawled all over that room, looking and calling for you. You'd been there! In my seventeen-year-old- daughter's BEDROOM. How did you get in?"
Bella is in the midst of phasing into a creature that isn't even human and this is what he's worried about?
"Your daughter is in the throes of a brutal transformation! Don't you want to know how she's doing? I didn't ever want her to join my family, Charlie." My voice seethes in anger. "I tried leaving her and it nearly destroyed both of us. To save her life, I did what we'd planned on doing in June. When she wakes up in three days, I'll let her know how concerned you were, shall I? Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to attend to my wife."
I snap my phone shut and lean over the kitchen counter for a moment. When I return to the living room, Carlisle says, "Well, you did your best, son. We all know how level-headed Charlie is, but it sounds to me as if he's taking an adverse reaction to his opiate pain medication, in addition to suffering from the pain and uncertainty of his situation. I'll speak to Maya about it. But this is his daughter we're talking about, and he feels helpless."
"Yeah, we all feel helpless," I say, as Bella grabs a handful of hair and shrieks as if she's been doused with gasoline and a set alight.
I'd already told Carlisle what I heard Maya thinking at our wedding and the whole conversation Charlie had with himself in Alice's room, just ten days ago. "He always seems so down to earth," I say. "Do you think he needs counseling? Different drugs? Something to help him cope?"
"I spoke to Dr. Lund a few days ago," Carlisle says. "He'd spoken to Charlie's physical therapist, who was concerned about Charlie's lack of improvement and poor attitude toward the exercises. Dr. Lund said that the entire shoulder required reconstruction.
"Recuperating from this type of injury is a long process. It's painful and stressful. Combine that with finding out that his girlfriend is a shapeshifter, his daughter's revelation that she's going to join the family, the loss of his livelihood—I think anyone would be on edge."
I think he's losing his mind, but I keep that to myself.
Esme passes Bella to me and runs to the bathroom, coming back with a hairbrush and some elastics. She runs the brush over Bella's scalp and down to the ends of her hair, over and over. Bella moans and begins to writhe again. Quickly, Esme gathers up the hair and braids it.
We sit in silence for a few minutes as I imagine the devastation going on inside Bella's body, as her healthy, living flesh is supplanted by cold, dead stone. My siblings make a great deal of noise as they approach, and in seconds, Jasper is flinging the door wide, smiling from ear to ear. Alice still looks like she's about to cry. Rosalie and Emmett bring up the rear.
Jasper leads Alice to the couch and she slumps down. Before anyone can ask, she holds up a hand and says, "I woke up and didn't know where I was at first. When I realized I was in our bed here in Forks, I got a vision of Edward's insanity as he dropped Bella's lifeless body. I jumped up and ran outside, and was nearly too late to save her. He was completely lost in the frenzy. I was pulling on him and yelling for over ten seconds." She says this as if she's exhaustedly repeating it for the hundredth time.
Carlisle looks thoughtful. "When you left, where did you go?"
"I ran. Hunted. Sat and thought. It's weird, but since I've been in the sleep, it feels like time hasn't passed. It still feels like Bree died yesterday." Her lip wobbles and Jasper pulls her close. She looks down at Bella. "So, she'll be okay?"
Carlisle nods. The focus of our attention turns to a lone automobile, traversing its way down the single-lane road to our house. I look up and say out loud what we all know. "It's Maya's car. And she has Charlie with her."
We look down at our patient, her face drawn in agony, her limbs twitching, and I hear the same thought in every head: it's going to be a long night.