Assumption Chapter 30

Life Rolls On

EPOV:

"A watched pot never boils," Bella laughed as she walked through the living room, picking up the toys and clothes that the kids always seemed to leave behind. It was always things like socks, shoes, even the occasion pair of the children's underwear would end up in random places in the house.

I sighed and turned back to the window as Bella made her way into the kitchen. I was eager for the girls to come home. Way more than eager. I needed to see for myself that they were safe and sound. Random text messages telling us that they were fine just weren't enough. Bella had to talk me out of going to check on them several times.

"But it looks like it's going to rain! They didn't take umbrellas. The creek could flood and they could drown! What the hell were we thinking, letting three teenage girls go off into the woods alone!"

"Edward! For God's sake! There is not one damn cloud in the sky. It's not going to rain. Plus they did take umbrellas and you, Emmett, Mike; you bought them a tent that I am sure they could use on an expedition to the South Pole. They. Are. Fine. And you are staying home."

I'm sure that Rose and Angela were having the same argument with Emmett and Mike at their homes. I couldn't believe that I got talked into letting them go out into the woods camping on their own for spring break, but I did. Bree, as the oldest, and the only legal adult at eighteen, was in charge. It's not that I didn't trust the girls or thought they'd be out getting into trouble because they really were good girls. I just didn't trust the world with the girls. They were just at the meadow so I knew where to find them if there was trouble. Plus, they had been camping so many times in their lives that they were experts at it now. And Emmett and I could get to them within a half hour if need be. Fifteen minutes if I talked him into making it an official call and we used the sirens and lights on his squad car.

Bella and I had started taking Abby to the meadow with us almost as soon as we brought her home. We went at least once a week during nice weather. We camped there often in the summer as well. We all went camping as a big family trip a couple times a year. We enjoyed it more than any other trip because it forced the kids to leave their electronics behind for a few days and actually take part in family activities. However, Bree and Jessica had never been to the meadow before. My Abby was now fifteen and had just started to really notice boys. That did not make me happy. I wanted to rip her phone out of her hand every time she got a text from a boy.

"Is it too late to send her to school at a convent? Or at least an all-girl Catholic school?"

"We aren't Catholic, Edward."

"I don't think they care if you pay the tuition. Maybe we can make a big donation. Your last book did well. We could offer to remodel a library."

"Stop being ridiculous."

"I'm not being ridiculous. I'm totally serious about this."

"We are not sending her away to a Catholic school and I doubt they'd want a donation of money made from my books. They go against everything they believe in."

I snorted at that. They would consider Bella's book evil and sinful. I wasn't ready to give up my fight. There had to be a way to keep my baby girl away from those oversexed teenage boys.

Jessica was fourteen and a year behind Abby in school but those three girls were so close that they could have been sisters. Abby had always wanted a sister and that was the one thing that Bella and I had yet to be able to give her. The girls wanted to spend time together before Bree left for college in the fall. I wanted them to wait until summer, but they were afraid that the summer was going to be busy and they would miss their chance. So away they went. Bella and I followed them up to the meadow to make sure that they arrived safe and were set up before we left them alone.

Bella and I were finally married when Abby was five. I would have married her a lot sooner than that but she wanted to wait until Abby was old enough to actually be a part of wedding. Abby legally became Bella's daughter around that time as well. Tanya voluntarily signed away her rights to Abby and never looked back. I never did understand why or how she could walk away. Abby didn't need Tanya and didn't remember her at all. Abby's first word was mama and she said it to Bella. Bella always told me that she didn't need a piece of paper to tell her that Abby was her little girl. It always gave me such great happiness that Bella and Abby shared such a special bond with each other.

Bella got pregnant with our first son almost immediately after the wedding. We decided to name him Charlie after her father. And he was his grandfather reborn. His middle name, Fisher, started off as a joke but then it just stuck, but damn it if it wasn't totally him. If the child didn't have a fishing pole in his hand it was a baseball bat. He had played on a little league since he was old enough for T-ball. They had won the championship in their division for the last two years. He was outside right now practicing his swings. I can't tell you how many windows we've had to replace over the years, both in the house and the cars.

Bella was so busy trying to write her books while taking care of two children that we decided to wait two years before we started trying again. That time it took us a year of trying before we found out that we were expecting again. Gabriel Matthew and Liam Oliver were now six and completely amazing in so many ways. It was hard to believe that they could be so different yet so similar at the same time. Liam was one big ball of energy that bounced around the house leaving chaos in his wake. Gabriel wasn't, he was quiet and locked in his head most of the time. He talked, but mostly about whatever book he had just read. He was my buddy who followed me to work a lot. All he wanted to do was sit in a corner and read all day and my bookstore gave him plenty of books to keep him happy.

Gabe was a normal, healthy baby until he was eighteen months old. The change in him came so suddenly that it was a bit unreal. He stopped using the few words that he did know and stopped acknowledging when someone was trying to play with him, and he stopped walking. Bella and I started to panic because we didn't understand what was going on with him or how to help him. He mostly just wanted to sit on his blanket and play with his stuffed cat. Bella couldn't even take that thing away to wash it without him screaming and throwing a fit; that really kind of scared us. We took him to the pediatrician and Gabe went through a series of behavioral tests and observation sessions before we had an answer. Our son was autistic. We were both stunned when were told, but Bella held it all together better than I did. She had tears in her eyes as she nodded at the doctor and asked what she needed to know and what she needed to do to take care of him. Neither of us had the first clue what it meant to have an autistic child, for us or for him. It was definitely a learning experience for us. We both tried to find answers and solutions in books only to find out that there isn't a textbook answer to dealing with autism.

Now he is what his doctor called "high functioning" on the autism spectrum.. He lives with us and he gets to go to the same school as his brothers, which was important to us. The biggest thing that I learned about autism is mostly that the children aren't different or really handicapped, even if they are classified that way. They learn differently, yes, but they are quite intelligent. The biggest issue, at least with Gabe, is the frustration he feels being locked in his own head and his inability to communicate that frustration well.

I stood up and followed Bella into the kitchen. She loved being in her kitchen. She designed the entire area herself so she had her dream kitchen. After we found out that she was pregnant that first time we started considering the limited space that we had in the house. We only had two bedrooms, and even if the baby had been a girl we didn't want Abby to have to share her room. We didn't want the baby to keep her up at night or anything. Bella and I were both completely against selling the house and moving. She wanted to stay here, where her father had lived. After meeting with an architect and Mom we soon discovered that our idea to merely add onto the house wasn't a feasible option. So we packed up the house, put most of our things in storage, and moved in with my parents while our house was torn down and rebuilt. Bella had some guilt over our decision but there wasn't another option at that point. That was not the easiest six months of our marriage. The house seemed so crowded with four adults and Abby living there. It might have been easier if we were there in the spring and summer where we could escape outside once in a while, but we moved in in October and had the rainiest, coldest, snowiest fall and winter that Washington had seen in over two decades. We were trapped in the house. A lot. I know that my parents loved having us there but I also knew that they were glad to see us leave at the end.

I found Bella coming out of the pantry with the jar of Nutella and a bag of pretzels. It was her favorite snack lately. She then went to the fridge and started pulling out vegetables to start chopping for dinner.

"Are we still going to tell the kids tonight?" I asked as I sat down on one of the stools at the breakfast bar where Bella was working. We thought that we were done having kids but apparently we were wrong. Bella went in for a yearly exam two months ago and discovered that she was pregnant. We were shocked but happy. I would never say this to Bella because I don't want her to get upset if it happens to be a boy, but I am really hoping for a girl this time. Not that I'd love another son any less.

"I think we have to. I'm almost four months. I'm going to start showing soon. If we don't at least tell Abby soon she's going to figure it out. That is, if she hasn't already. I was throwing up the day before she left and she's too smart not to figure it out." That was an understatement. Abby was at the top of her class. At the rate that she's going she will be able to write her own ticket to any college that she wanted. A part of me hoped that it would be a college close to home.

I grabbed a can of soda and the gallon of milk out of the fridge. I poured Bella a glass of milk before returning to the living room with my soda to resume my post watching for the girls. I looked across the street and saw my brother sitting on his porch, obviously waiting for the girls too. "I'm heading across the street," I yelled to Bella as I took off out of the house. I actually loved the fact that I lived so close to my brother. It was nice having them near when we needed them, and us being there for Emmett and Rose as well.

As soon as I hit the porch the front door flew open, "Uncle Edward!" A little six-year-old girl came flying out of the door and rammed right into my legs. Nearly seven years ago Rose had been in Port Angeles visiting a friend who was a nurse at the women's clinic. She and her friend had just returned from their lunch date when she found a teenage girl sitting on the ground against the building in tears. The girl, Kasey, was only fifteen and had just found out that she was pregnant. She was in the foster system and the father was a boy that had been living in the same foster home until recently. He had run away earlier in the month and no one had heard from him since. Kasey was scared and was afraid that her foster parents were going to force her to have an abortion. She didn't know what she wanted to do but she knew that she didn't want to go that route. Rose stayed by the girl's side that night until the social worker assured her that she would make sure that Kasey would be safe going back home. Rose did give the girl her address and phone number and told her to call her if she ever needed anything. It was two months later that Kasey showed up in Forks, having run away from her foster home after her foster father had hit her.

Rose and Emmett had been known to get into some good fights over the years but the one they got into over Kasey was by far the biggest. Emmett had to call social services and report that Kasey had shown up at his home. Emmett didn't really have a choice but to make that call. If he hadn't he could have lost his job, and deep down Rose knew that. She was more angry with the situation and the system but took it out on Emmett, who spent two weeks sleeping on our sofa before she allowed him to come home. In the end, the social worker found a home for Kasey in Forks. Rose stayed close to Kasey, always visiting her, buying her maternity clothes, and buying the baby things. I know that Rose would have adopted the baby if Kasey decided to give her up.

Kasey eventually decided that she wanted to keep the baby and raise her on her own. When she turned sixteen my part-time employee quit to go off to college, leaving me needing to hire someone. When Kasey first approached me about the job I have to admit that I was leery at first, but I gave her a chance and never regretted it. Kasey and Angel, her daughter, lived with her foster parents until she graduated high school. As a graduation present we all got together and remodeled my old apartment above the bookstore for her. It had been unlived in since Abby and I moved in with Bella and needed some work and a lot of cleaning. It had become a storage dump over the years and it was about time that I went through the garbage up there and threw things out.

Kasey still works for me part-time, living in the apartment with her daughter while taking classes at the community college in Port Angeles. Rose was always more than willing to babysit, as were Mom and Bella. To be honest, Emmett, Dad, and I regularly volunteered to babysit as well. Kasey was an amazing mother to that little girl and Angel was so sweet and kind. She was good with Gabe, and for a child so young I was amazed and grateful that she was his friend. I told her that one day and Kasey just laughed at me, "Well, I got to see in person examples of how to be a crappy parent and how to be a great parent. I never want her to know the pain that I went through."

I took a seat in the chair next to Emmett, "You hear from them yet?"

"Not from them. But one of my deputies radioed that they saw the truck on the highway headed for Michael and Angela's house to drop Jessica off. They should be home soon."

I sighed in relief. My brother and I sat talking for awhile while we watched Angel play with her doll on the porch until Rose came out and told me that Bella called. She no longer felt like cooking so I was going to cook. I laughed as I stood up and walked back to my house. I figured there had to be something in the house that I could throw on the grill. That is what I was best at.

As I walked through the house I found my wife lying on the couch with a wash cloth over her forehead and looking pale. I stood there watching her and remembered the night that we'd met. I had made so many assumptions about her based on limited information and my own skewed interpretations of the facts. And so had she. I was never so thrilled to be wrong about someone in my life and that I was able to have the opportunity to know and love Bella. I will never understand completely why Charlie pushed her away like he did, and for her sake I wish there was a way to find out because I know it still bothers her.

I smiled as my sons came into to the house and started raiding the kitchen. I went in there and shooed them out while I got some chicken out of the fridge that Bella was going to make into a stir-fry. I decided that I could just grill it with some BBQ sauce, leaving hers and Gabe's plain, of course. I listened as Liam and Charlie turned on the TV in the living room while Gabe took a seat at the table with his book. I was just about to go out the back door to set up the grill when the front door opened, "I'm home!" And at that moment, with my entire family together again, my life was complete.

A/N: I am the mother of a bratty teenage boy, not an autistic child. My mother works with an amazing lady that has four children. Three boys and one girl. The girl, who is now 19, is a diagnosed manic-depressive with suicidal tendencies. All three of her sons are diagnosed with autism. The two oldest boys live in a residential home. They always have and always will. The oldest is 20 and has a job at the home delivering mail to the other residents. Occasionally, Kathy is allowed to bring them home for holidays. Her youngest is labeled as high functioning on the spectrum. He lives at home and goes to school in a regular classroom, not special ed. Life is not easy for them but she and her husband are just amazing. Gabe is modeled after their youngest and a boy that I recently saw on a documentary on autism. I think there are a lot of misconceptions about autism and the people diagnosed. But I am by no means an expert on the subject. I just know what I've seen from this one family.

I am also not advocating teen having babies. I don't think that many teens are emotionally or mentally ready for the undertaking of raising children. Most adults aren't either. But, there are some teen parents that do grow up and do right by themselves and their children. Not all teen Mom's are like those girls on that Mtv show. Some can make it.

I want to thank Sweetpea123 for being an amazing friend and beta. She is always so sweet about fixing all my grammar crimes. I also want to thank everyone that read and reviewed this story. It went a lot longer than it was originally supposed to. Especially since the original version of this was supposed to be a one-shot for a charity compilation.

Speaking of fundraisers. I wrote a new fluffy one-shot for the Oklahoma one. Bella, a recent college grad who is still unemployed takes the first, and only job offered to her, working for her cousin Alice in her flower shop. There she meets Edward, a friend of Alice's and a regular customer. Love will be in bloom for these two. Anyone who reviews this epi will get a teaser. I will post it on ffn in September. That is when we are allowed to.

Thank you again for following me on this journey and I hope that you will stay with me for the next story which will feature Reverend Edward. I've started writing it but will not post it until On Our Own is marked complete. I just can't handle two stories at one time anymore.