Whispering Window
Not long ago, the sun shone brightly in Forks, Washington.
It had fallen on that particular section of the world in genuine contentment, painting the town in a sepia hue cast straight from a movie with pristine lawns lined with white picket fences. Laughter once fell from everyone's lips in slow motion, unique and light, as if trying to pair each joyful memory with a specific, personal sound of bliss.
It had always been this way in Forks, and no one ever found fault with its carefree, happy nature. Residents were tickled to call this place their home, which was evident in every square mile the town had to offer.
All was perfect — until, one day, it wasn't.
Today, a solitary figure walks the once meticulously lined sidewalks with a numbness that threatens to drag him down into the pits of hell. His hands, stuffed in the pockets of his unzipped coat, clench the corners of folded papers with white knuckles. He walks on; the bristling autumn leaves against the sidewalk are the only sound accompanying him on his morning walk. It has been months since he has been joined on his daily trek, and he can't say he blames anyone for giving up.
He, however, never can.
Give up.
He doesn't expect the rest of the town to carry on like he does, but what is worse than the way they had all walked away in defeat, are the looks on their faces, day in and day out, as they watch him tread through the town with his signs and his flyers.
He can feel it. Their pity. Their helplessness. Their push to move on.
Almost just as much as they can feel his desperation. His relentless quest to leave no stone unturned.
How is he expected to carry all of their emotions on top of his own turmoil — and gain a favorable outcome?
Sighing out loud to no one but himself as he continues toward home, his breath wafts in front of his face in a gray haze. It's not far from where he is now, a mere handful of houses away from the corner of the street. In just a few minutes, the school bus will pass him, and he'll close his eyes and shudder at the sound, praying not to empty his stomach onto Mrs. Cope's front lawn like he did last week.
As if on cue, he hears the familiar creek of an old, weathered rocking chair against even older floorboards, and he looks up at the sound to see his elderly neighbor, Mrs. Cope, on her front porch. Like most days, she stares out into the now permanent gray fog of Forks and rocks herself to a place inside her mind where she feels more comfortable.
Perhaps it's better this way.
Much like the heaviness in his heart, the fog is just as consuming this morning as he continues down the sidewalk. If he hadn't memorized his walk, he would easily have stumbled along the uneven pavement; he would have had to stop walking until his eyes adjusted to the dismal moisture in the air.
But he knows his way around in the dark. After all, he has lived in the darkness for the last twelve months.
"A little early for you, Edward." A voice, a little too chipper for this early in the morning, calls to him from the porch and startles him out of his worsening thoughts. His shoulders, tight in response to being caught off guard, visibly relax at the sight of Mrs. Cope's daughter. She stands behind her aging mother and waves gently to him on the sidewalk below the porch.
"Morning, Jane." He tries to sound polite but can't find the energy today. He shrugs, the remaining staples from the flyers in his hand pinching his skin. "Couldn't sleep."
She nods, arms crossing over her chest as she tilts her head in pity. Edward recognizes the infamous head tilt he always receives moments before someone slaps him in the face, reminding him of everything he lost. "It's a difficult time of year for you both."
He simply nods sadly, not entirely trusting himself with his response. At his silence, Jane continues. "How is Bella?"
"Coping," Edward replies, thinking of his wife back home. Clearing his throat, he motions towards his house down the street. "I should probably get back to her."
Jane nods hurriedly, most likely grateful Edward has given her a reason to end their awkward encounter. "Of course, of course." She taps her mother gently on the shoulders as she stands behind her, pointing to Edward before he leaves. "Say goodbye to Edward, Momma."
The elderly Mrs. Cope doesn't look at him; in fact, she never takes her eyes off the gray, cloudy sky, but repeats her daughter's words, "Goodbye to Edward, Momma."
Edward somehow manages a gentle smile, briefly remembering the summer they moved into town when Shelly Cope had been in better spirits, mentally and physically. He nods in departure. "Have a great day, Mrs. Cope."
She doesn't respond, but then again, Edward doesn't stick around to listen. Instead, he stuffs his hands back into his pockets and continues the final path to his house, stopping along the way to staple the rest of the flyers into the wooden utility poles along his street. With one left, he angrily slaps the final four staples into the corners of the paper, stopping to stare at the two smiling faces staring back at him.
It was like the sun was stolen right along with them.
Spitting on the ground in disgust, he feels the rage burning inside of him once again, and it still manages to catch him off guard. Somehow he makes it into his garage.
The waves of grief are just that: waves. Unpredictable. Shallow. Angry. Misunderstood. Underestimated.
A few minutes ago, the waves were heavy but manageable. He was able to tread through them all, sluggish, but he carried on.
But now, the wave Edward rides on is turbulent and toxic, and he hears the staple gun he had in his hand shatter against the wall before he realizes he has thrown it. Much like his life, it is unsalvageable. Unrecognizable.
Worthless.
He makes it to the garbage can in the corner of the garage and vomits into it, grateful he didn't ruin Mrs. Cope's lawn this time. Most days, the reality of his situation makes him physically ill. Truthfully, he isn't sure just how much more of this he can take.
Just when he is ready to give up, Edward pauses, his face dripping with sweat from his stomach's upheaval.
They need you, he hears somewhere in his mind, and it isn't the first time he has heard it since his children vanished nearly a year ago from the very town everyone knows and loves.
They're waiting for you.
He knows they are. He can feel them – no one may know where they are, but he knows not to listen to the statistics about missing children. He knows his children are alive.
They know he will find them.
Slowly rolling his head along his shoulders, he sighs to himself, vowing to clean up the mess he made later as he walks inside the house through the garage door into the kitchen. As usual, the house is ghostly quiet, everything eerily in place as if frozen in time. Crayons are scattered on the small dinette table in the kitchen. Colored drawings are hanging proudly on the refrigerator. A soccer uniform is folded and placed on the top of the dryer in the laundry room.
It's their own personal time capsule. Some days it wraps them in comfort, reminding them of days when the sun shone brightly into their house and onto their perfect family, and other days, Edward thinks it is their own personal hell on earth.
At this moment, he hears soft sobbing coming from upstairs, and he knows today Bella is stuck in this hell they have called their life for the past year.
He finds her in the shower, her arms wrapped around her knees as she sits in a ball against the tile wall. The water splashes against her skin, pasting her dark hair across her forehead and down her back haphazardly, but he knows she doesn't feel any of the sopping tangles.
She is just as numb as he is.
Instead of forcing his wife to step out of the shower, Edward slides open the glass door quietly and joins her without a word, not caring that his clothes are now soaking wet and heavier than his own burdens. She moves slightly, resting her head against his shoulder beneath the water once he sits next to her.
"It's been a year, Edward." She says, the tiredness pouring from her mouth like the water from the showerhead above them. "A whole year since they've been home."
Edward swallows the guilt in his throat. "I know."
"A year changes things."
"No," he whispers in the water. "No, it doesn't, Bella. Don't you listen to them. Don't believe them."
"I don't want to, Edward. God, I don't want to. But Detective Newton said –"
"I don't give a fuck what Detective Newton said," Edward interrupts. He moves so she opens her eyes, and he tilts her chin towards his face, so she is forced to look at him. Her eyes flutter open weakly as if she no longer has the will to view a world without them any longer. "These are our children, Bella. Riley and Bree. They are ours. They will be coming home to us."
"Yes, and you just have to find them first; yes, I know this. I know all of it, Edward!" Bella says her face crumpling for the millionth time this year. Her tears mix with the water from the shower.
"I promise I will. We can't give up," Edward pleads with her. He brings her hands up to his lips and kisses them, praying it fills her with the hope they need to get through this nightmare together. "They need us."
She leans her head against the shower wall again, her eyes vacant as she stares at the water disappearing down the drain. "I woke up this morning and saw the date," she croaks, her voice weak from pure exhaustion and heartache. "They were taken from our front yard exactly one year ago today. And we are no closer to finding them or finding out who did this than we were a year ago."
They let the silence simmer between them, the truth of the situation settling in. Sighing, Edward pushes his now wet hair away from his eyes as he becomes saturated from the water. "I hung flyers this morning."
"On top of the ones from last week?"
He ignores the sarcastic jab from his wife. "We can't let anyone forget them."
"I know," Bella says a moment later, reaching for his hand. He squeezes it within his grasp. "I just want my babies back."
"I know Riley is watching out for Bree. He's always been the best big brother."
"And she's always been the annoying little sister." Bella laughs before her eyes fill with tears again. "They won't be the same if we get them back."
"When," Edward corrects her. "When."
A few minutes later, Bella stands up from her place on the shower floor and reaches a hand out for Edward to follow her. "Do you want to help me with the pumpkins?"
He nods, taking her hand and standing up next to her. He reaches over and places a kiss on the top of her head. "Sure. I'll meet you outside once I finish up in here."
Soon enough, Edward and Bella find themselves on their back deck facing the woods, several pumpkins of all sizes laid out in front of them on the table. Carving knives are on hand, a bowl to put the seeds in, and a separate bowl to put the rest of the guts, as Riley and Bree had humorously called them. Fall was their favorite time of year, and they loved saving all the parts of a pumpkin for later use. The seeds were delicious to eat when roasted, and the guts could be used with pecans to make a delicious pumpkin bread. It would mix in nicely with the concoction Bella, and Bree made every year to make hand-rolled candles to celebrate Halloween. The guts were pliable and fun to play with as they rolled the candles together in glee. The rest of the pumpkin Bella would puree so fine it would become a delicious juice they all would enjoy for the rest of the holiday season.
Edward and Riley would enjoy taking part in the demolition process of the pumpkin, each year making more of a mess than necessary, but the laughter and memories rolled into their carving traditions would override Bella's worries about the disaster left behind on their deck. It was Bella and Bree who would delicately roll the candles, decorating each window of their house with new, freshly made ones each year. While it was a cold time of year outside, it was always warm inside the Cullen house during their favorite season.
But not this year.
Their world has been dark and cold since they were taken from them.
Bella and Edward weren't even sure they had the energy to carry on these traditions without the kids this year. They would have carved the pumpkins and made the candles early in October, not this late in the season. Today is Halloween, one year to the day from their abduction, and Bella had woken up in the morning and felt a need to keep their traditions going.
Now, she and Edward carve their pumpkins in silence, everything around her bittersweet; it takes her breath away. With each cut and each seed thrown into the bowl, her heart breaks into a thousand pieces, yet also weeps with joy that she has these memories to hold on to. She would lose them all over again if it meant she could hold on to the eight years she had experienced motherhood.
When the pumpkins are carved and sitting on their front porch, and the seeds are roasting, Bella heads to the basement to bring up a box of decorations. They didn't find it in them this year to string up the Halloween lights outside or to place anything festive inside the house, but she can't ignore the candles she and Bree made each year out of the pumpkin guts. As Bella lugs the box upstairs, she pictures the inside contents easily in her mind, her meticulously rolled candles and Bree's less-than-perfect-toddler-made candles. She misses her four-year-old daughter this time of year with an intensity that punches a hole through her chest, and she hopes seeing their candles will provide her some solace on this haunting anniversary.
Fresh tears follow her around the house as she places their candles in each window, lighting each one as a beacon to bring them home—for them to find their way back to them. Riley, her precious boy, has his dad's instinct for survival, and she knows Edward is right – Riley will find a way to return to them.
"Where's the tall one that goes here?" Edward asks from his spot on the couch as he watches Bella place the candles in their windows.
"Hmm?"
He points towards the large center window overlooking their front yard. "The tall one Bree made. The one that looks like it's lopsided and leaning towards a collapse."
"Oh, you're right. Hmm." Bella wonders, looking into the box to see if she has accidentally forgotten it. "That's funny. It should be here."
Edward chuckles quietly, thinking fondly of his daughter. "She loved that thing. Knowing her, she probably took it down to play with it somewhere and forgot about it."
"I would have noticed," Bella disagrees at first but then remembers the chaos that was her life a year ago. She barely remembered to take care of herself in the beginning days of the abduction, let alone notice a missing candle. "Then again, maybe not."
She feels her husband's arms wrap around her waist from behind, always the reassurance she needs when her mind takes her to dark places. "We'll keep looking."
"I know."
She lets him take her to their bed, and for a little while, they manage to forget about all they've lost and remind themselves to remember what they still have.
They don't let their night of bliss take them out of their reality. They fall right back into their daily routine, their relentless searching and calling to their police department for any updates on their missing children. Even after all this time, it still shatters them to hear Detective Newton tell them the same thing each week.
"It's Forks. No one thought this would happen – no one has a Ring camera or anything like that for us to look at any type of surveillance. It was Halloween; the street was full of people dressed in costumes, therefore making it easy for anyone to blend into the crowd with your children."
"But no one reported anything out of the ordinary that night on our street," Bella reminds him.
"Which makes us believe they were taken by someone they know," Edward reiterates for what has to be the thousandth time in twelve months. "They would never have gone with a stranger, and if a stranger had taken them, everyone would have heard them yelling for help."
"I wish it were that easy," Detective Newton sighs in disappointment, filling them in on the statistics of abductions and how it can happen right under everyone's nose.
They leave the station feeling helpless yet again, anger simmering below the surface at the lack of anything new found in the case.
The following day, Edward wakes up before dawn and heads outside on the front porch. Like every morning, the fog greets him before he even tastes the first sip of his coffee, and he uses his anger from meeting with Detective Newton yesterday to his advantage. With a fire under his feet, he grabs his stack of signs and flyers with his children smiling back at him and tucks it under his arm as he begins his morning walk. He plasters each flyer around the town using a new staple gun since he mangled his other one, with adrenaline flowing through his veins, his determination for answers fueling him.
He doesn't stop.
He keeps going, even when he has nothing left to hang and no one else to talk to on the streets passing him by. He doesn't stop until he reaches his own street, and a weak voice from the corner porch speaks to him.
"We must find the children."
He looks up at the sound, his eyes landing on her through the thick fog. Edward sighs, his head falling to his chest in defeat. "I'm trying, Mrs. Cope."
She shakes her head firmly again, not looking away from the horizon of the tall, now bare trees she stares at every day. She repeats, "We must find the children."
He nods, stuffing his hands into his pockets. His eyes look down at the sidewalk. "That's the reason I walk the town instead of driving through it. Fresh air helps to clear my mind, I guess. Helps me focus."
Mrs. Cope continues on like he hasn't said anything, and it makes Edward wonder if being lost in his own mind would, in some ways, be better than the disaster of his own life. "We must find the children."
"I don't know how," Edward admits with a sigh, hating himself a little more with each word he says. "Every day, I walk and look and inspect, just hoping to stumble on anything new. But every day…." he trails off, swallowing hard. "Nothing."
Without warning, Mrs. Cope moves her hands jerkily to bang against the front railing on the porch, her voice louder than he has ever heard. "WE MUST FIND THE CHILDREN! WE MUST FIND THE CHILDREN!"
His eyes widen at the outburst just as he hears her daughter Jane's voice from inside the house.
"Momma?" She asks, poking a head out as she steps through the screened door of the house. She looks at her mother and then sees Edward on the sidewalk. "Everything all right?"
Mrs. Cope doesn't give Edward a chance to respond before she shouts again, "WE MUST FIND THE CHILDREN!"
Jane moves swiftly to her mother, gently bringing her hands back down to her lap. She guides her mother out of the rocking chair and back towards the house. "I'm so sorry, Edward. I have to bring her inside now. She's too upset for her own good."
"Can I help?" Edward asks when he sees Mrs. Cope begin to resist.
"No, no," Jane insists, maneuvering her mother with ease, still gentle every step of the way. "That's okay. You keep searching."
"Edward," Mrs. Cope pleads one last time before disappearing into the house. "We must find the children."
The lock of the door behind them ends the strange encounter, and Edward walks away with a puzzled look on his face and Mrs. Cope's words echoing in his ears. We must find the children. We must find the children. We must find the children.
"She was pretty upset," Edward says around a mouthful of dinner later that night. "It was the most emotion I've seen from her in God, I don't know, years maybe."
"Maybe the date got to her," Bella answers dismissively, wrapping her oversized sweater tightly around her body.
"I doubt she remembers what day it is today, let alone a year ago."
"Check on her tomorrow, then. See if she's okay."
The next morning, he does exactly that. Edward knocks on the door, taking Bella's advice to make sure Mrs. Cope has settled peacefully after the eventful morning yesterday. It takes three knocks, but eventually, Jane answers, opening the door just enough for her to come through but not enough for Edward to see inside.
"Oh, she's fine," Jane laughs, eventually opening the door and inviting Edward in. "Just a new thing in her progression, it seems."
He briefly remembers his grandfather's battle with dementia and nods in understanding. She points to the living room, where her mother sits in front of the television. "Momma, Edward came by to visit. Say hello," Jane goads.
Nothing.
Edward is met with silence, but he walks to her and bends down in front of her, searching her vacant eyes for any sign of the vibrance he saw yesterday. "Hi, Mrs. Cope. How are you feeling?"
She doesn't respond, and Jane sighs sadly. "Would you like some coffee, Edward? I just made myself a pot."
"Thank you," Edward agrees, taking a seat in the chair across from Mrs. Cope. As soon as Jane leaves the room, Mrs. Cope's eyes dart to Edward, and he immediately knows there is more she wants to say. Maybe it's a father's instinct, perhaps it is what has brought him inside the house in the first place, but he knows her reaction yesterday was not by chance.
It was for a purpose Edward is suddenly desperate to uncover.
"Should I have a cup of coffee, Mrs. Cope?"
Though it is somewhat hard to decipher, he makes out a small shift in her head. A small back and forth telling him no.
Do not drink the coffee.
"Tell me," he begs in a whisper, kneeling in front of her. The desperation in his voice is raw, and it may fall short of any sort of reasoning but fuck him if he doesn't try. "What do you know?"
"The farm," Mrs. Cope struggles with each word, and Edward keeps one eye on the kitchen as Jane prepares his coffee. Her lips tremble as she speaks in hushed words. "Whispering Window."
He repeats it over and over in his mind, and in a matter of seconds, he is on his feet and in the kitchen. "I'm so sorry, Jane. Bella just called, and I have to get back to her." He swallows, his breathing heavy out of fear, anticipation, and fucking hope. He points to the coffee she has placed on the counter. "Maybe later? I can try to convince Bella to join us."
"We would love that," Jane smiles and helps Edward to the door. "Just come on by."
"Will do," he calls over his shoulder before he runs down the street toward his home.
He fumbles up the front steps in a hurry to grab his keys, calling out to Bella the minute he is in the door.
"Get in the car," he says as he grabs his keys off the kitchen counter. "I might have found something."
Bella comes down the stairs quickly, her brows furrowed in confusion. "What? When?" She asks, grabbing her jacket in haste as she follows him outside and into the car. "Edward, what's happening?"
He throws the car in reverse, peeling out of the driveway with a quick glance behind him. He takes a deep breath as he tries to make sense of it all. "Yesterday, Mrs. Cope was the most vocal I've seen her in a long time, right?"
"Yeah?" Bella answers hesitantly.
"Today? Complete opposite. She could barely speak, but I knew she needed to tell me something." Edward says with a shake of his head in disbelief. "It was almost like she was drugged."
Bella shrugs her shoulders, always being the voice of reason. "She probably would have to be after yesterday's episode."
Edward shakes his head firmly. "She wouldn't let me drink the coffee Jane was making for me. And then she told me the name of a park," he says as he merges them onto the interstate. He tells her the rest of the story as he drives. How, for the first time, Jane was hesitant to let him inside. How despondent Mrs. Cope had been as if trapped inside her own body.
"Whispering Window Farm?" Bella pauses, shaking her head, her lips forming into a frown. "I've never heard of it."
"Google it for me," Edward tells her, ready for her to tell him he's crazy. "Just do it, okay?"
Bella sighs, pulling her phone out of her pocket. Her voice is broken when she speaks. "I hate you for this," she says.
He understands where she is coming from. "I do, too. I don't want to hope, either. But I can't ignore this," he says, closing his eyes as he lets this new feeling of anticipation flow through his veins. "Something just didn't sit right with me in that house today, and l – "
"Edward," Bella interrupts, holding her phone out to him. He looks over and sees a hand over her mouth. "Look."
He can only read bits and pieces as he keeps his eyes on the road, but a few sentences here and there stick out to him, and a fear he has never known before settles into his stomach. An article dating twenty years ago stares back at him from Bella's phone.
Yesterday, the remains of four-year-old twins Sam and Leah Uley were found in a remote area of Whispering Window Park after a week-long search since their disappearance from their front lawn in Seattle. Their father, Sam Uley, has been charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping. Their mother, Jane Uley, had been out of town on a business trip at the time of the abduction.
"They look exactly like Riley and Bree," Bella says weakly, and Edward feels sick to his stomach when she shows him the picture of the two young children. Their resemblance is uncanny, and at first glance, Edward would think it was a picture of his own two children.
It's the picture of Jane Cope in the faded black and white picture, or Jane Uley, that sends Edward into a panic.
"Fuck," he groans, a hand slapping the steering wheel hard. Thinking of all his conversations with Jane every morning almost makes him sick again. "Get Detective Newton on the phone. Tell him we're on our way there with or without him."
"God, Edward, what does this mean?" Bella cries as her fingers fumble through her phone to his saved number. "What if we get there and –"
"I don't know," he answers, unable to let her finish her sentence. "I don't know anything at this point. Just that we have to get there and find out for ourselves, whatever that may be."
The three-hour drive feels like an eternity as Edward speeds through the rolling hills and tall trees of Washington toward Whispering Window. Speed limits mean nothing as he passes other cars on the way, both of them clinging to their seats to keep them from flying forward. Bella's hands shake as she closes her eyes and prays that whatever they find won't kill her completely. One thing she knows for sure; she would rather their search come up empty-handed than anything else more sinister, though she must tell herself that it is possible she may find her children tonight, and not the way she hoped for over the last year.
"Don't do anything stupid," Detective Newton says on speaker phone as they fly towards their destination. "We've sent a local precinct to meet you there. Do not do anything without their approval, do you understand?"
Edward doesn't remember giving him an answer; he listens only to the GPS telling him where to turn and when. He hears Bella praying in the seat next to him, her mumbled words only for herself and God, and he begins a mantra of his own in his head.
Don't let this be for nothing. Don't let this be for nothing. Don't let this be for nothing.
A little while later, Detective Newton calls back again; his voice controlled as it filters through the car. "There is an officer located about a quarter mile past the West entrance," he says. "You need to meet him there."
"We're less than five minutes away," Edward says, glancing down at the GPS. He makes another sharp turn, almost invisible from the fog.
"Good," Detective Newton says. "He found something."
"Fuck!" Edward shouts into the car, suddenly unprepared for this moment. A million images pass in front of his eyes instantly, and he fights the urge to pull over to collect himself.
"Oh God, Oh God, Oh God," Bella cries, pulling her knees up to her chest while pressing her face against the side of the door.
Five achingly-slow minutes later, Edward sees the West entrance of Whispering Window and reaches for his wife's hand, hoping each of their halves will make them whole right now.
They need all the strength they can for this moment.
Like Detective Newton said, there are blinding lights of blue and red a quarter mile past the entrance, but he still hears Bella's gasp next to him as he pulls up behind the police car and parks the car.
"Edward."
He looks over at his name and sees Bella pointing to a place he can barely see through the strobe of flashing lights.
But she saw it.
And he sees it now.
In a partially hidden, dilapidated cabin sits a tall, lopsided, hand-rolled candle they would recognize anywhere.
"Bree!" Bella calls out, opening the passenger side door of the car to a rush of freezing November air. "Riley!"
Her shouts are almost unrecognizable, but he is grateful she is able to speak right now because, at the moment, he is speechless. He feels frozen in his place at the side of the car until he sees her run towards the cabin without a moment's hesitation. Snapping out of his zone, he pushes his body forward until he is right behind her. He has no idea what he will see when he opens the door, but he can't let that stop him from ending this nightmare once and for all.
"Mommy!"
A weight sitting on his chest for the past year lifts immediately at the sound of her voice, and he exhales deeply before whipping around, gasping for air he didn't know he was holding. He hears another voice. "Daddy!"
His beloved children are sitting in the back of the police car, wrapped in warm blankets.
Unable to grasp it all at once, Edward collapses to his knees on the sodden earth, his jeans now caked with mud. Through his tears, he sees Bella race towards them, nearly toppling them over as they climb out of the police car to nestle into their mother's arms.
"We knew you would find us, Daddy," Riley says hours later, once safely tucked into his father's arms. They are kept at the hospital for observation, but none of them complain as they are finally together again after a year of pure hell. "We never stopped looking out the window for you."
Edward wraps his arms even tighter around his son, grateful for this moment and all the moments in the future they now have again, thanks to Mrs. Cope. He presses his nose against the top of Riley's head, his scent bringing him back to life again.
Nothing else matters now that his family is whole.
A few weeks later, once they are settled in back home and life has begun to develop into their new normal, a knock on the door interrupts their Saturday morning. Their house is in disarray from decorating for Christmas, with white and colored sparkling lights blinking merrily from every corner. Edward welcomes Detective Newton inside before slipping out onto the back deck to share a beer.
"What was her reason?" Edward asks around a sip, making sure to whisper so as not to upset Bella or the kids.
"Just a mental break from reality," Detective Newton answers simply with a slow shake of his head. Edward can see the wear and tear on his face, the toll the case has taken on him over the last several weeks since Riley and Bree had been found.
"Jane Cope's kids were kidnapped and killed around this time of year, and seeing your children's resemblance to her own caused her to snap back into the life she had all those years ago. She treated your kids like her own. Kept them clean and safe and fed. Celebrated all their holidays and their birthdays. Supposedly, a part of her brain convinced her these were her children."
"I don't find any comfort in that just yet," Edward admits, wondering if he will ever find peace in his heart toward his neighbor. The same neighbor who watched him search this town high and low for a year, knowing she not only took them from their home and their loving parents, but kept them locked up in an abandoned cabin away from everyone and everything they ever knew.
"You don't have to. You may never, Edward." Detective Newton replies. "For me, I've seen these cases end a lot differently than yours. You're extremely fortunate."
"We know," Edward says, looking through the window to see the smiles on their faces as they decorate their tree with handmade ornaments. Edward sighs, tearing his eyes away from his family. "How is Mrs. Cope, Jane's mother?"
"As of now, she has been placed into assisted care. It's probably best for her at this point, considering she knew what Jane had done but wasn't able to tell you any sooner than she did."
"She saved us," Edward says.
"Enjoy them," Detective Newton advises. "Not many people in your shoes get a second chance like this."
A little while later, he heads off, pulling out of their driveway with a wave out of the car window. Edward waves back, ready to put everything behind him for as long as he can until the trial and sentencing begin.
For now, he is looking forward to making up for the lost time.
Walking back into the living room, he comes from behind and pulls his family to him, their squeals of laughter beneath their roof is now his favorite music of the holiday season.
It's amazing, Edward thinks to himself as he wraps his arms around his family, how the fog of the town suddenly disappears and the sun shines down on them all once again, whispering promises of peace through their window and back into their lives once again.