Isabella moved out of the mansion.
After her father left that afternoon, her resignation letter still crumpled in his hand, she had wasted no time in starting to pack up her things. She has been serious; she was done with it all. And that included the obscene properties.
Due to the housing crisis, she had the unfortunate advantage of having plenty of properties available for purchase. She sat at the desktop computer in her office, a room that was now nearly bare save the computer and scrolled through listings in the area she grew up in. She wanted out of New York entirely, wanted to be back in Pennsylvania, where the life she remembered was a little bit simpler.
When she saw her childhood home on a listing, her breath caught in her throat.
Charles had sold it after their death. She had begged him not to. As a concession, he had hired movers to put all of their things into a storage unit for Isabella to go through in the future.
That very evening, Isabella put in an offer at $25,000 above the asking price, offering to pay all closing costs as well.
It was accepted within hours.
As she prepared to move, she realized she had a staggeringly small amount of items that she wanted to take with her. In fact, all of the things she wanted out of the giant house fit into her car. She was keen to leave most of her designer wardrobe and tailored suits behind, having no intention of needing them in the future, whatever future that was. All of the expensive décor that lined their house also remained; a friend of Jake's mother had decorated the interior, Isabella had simply let her.
While she moved her things into her car and considered the fact that she would have to contact the Montgomery's to let them know about her decision to vacate the house, she couldn't help but wonder if she would regret this household reduction. She threw a box into the front seat of her Audi, closed the door, and then stared up at the giant, Tudor style house.
It held very few happy memories for her.
In fact, in retrospect, the house was the place where she felt the most like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. She fit…but only because of the pressure that had been used to get her there. Just like her career on Wall Street, it was never a place of true belonging and now that she had been away from it, she could see that clearly.
As she looked at the house, wondering if she would regret the actions she was taking, she shook her head, knowing on an instinctual level that she would not.
On the walk back to the house, she stopped in the middle of the paved sidewalk. It was winter now and she had not even thrown on a coat on the way out to the car. The snowflakes were coming down rapidly, and somewhere at the back of her mind, she realized it had to be Christmas any day now.
As she looked up at the house, rubbing her hands against her arms for warmth, she was struck by a curious thought. She held more happy marital memories on Trotternish peninsula on the Isle of Skye in a fake marriage than she did with this house that she had lived in for years. Her marriage to Jake, she realized, had been only tolerable at best and borderline abusive at worst. It was simply another facet of the round hole she had tried to fit herself in after the death of her grandparents.
A few days later, after she had notified the Montgomery's of her decision to move out, leaving the property to them to either maintain or sell, she pulled out of the driveway for the final time.
Instead of feeling any sadness, anger, fear, or even uncertainty about what her future held (she hadn't quite worked out that part yet), she felt liberated. The breath she took as she turned onto the street was big and the exhale of relief even bigger.
She was doing it, she thought to herself with a pleased smile.
She was making a choice to separate with a life that brought her no joy, a choice that had been easier and more instinctual than she could have imagined.
She was doing it.
~O~
A few days after her conversation with Edward, Alice informed the rest of her family about what had happened with Isabella.
Carlisle and Esme listened intently, each of them leaning against the bar at the Isles Inn. There were no guests in at the time, so Alice held their full attention. Neither of them interrupted her as she explained. Edward had given her permission and in fact, Alice had the sense that he was grateful for her telling them, saving him the task.
"So," she said in conclusion, "there ye go."
Carlisle blew out a long breath.
"Awright then," he said thoughtfully.
Esme said nothing.
"I'm not sure if he wants me at the house or no, but I figure I'll stay through Hogmany at least," she told them.
"Very sweet of you, love," Esme said, blinking a few times before smiling at her niece.
Alice excused herself to go and tend to the housekeeping aspects of her job. There were few rooms that needed cleaning, but she figured she would do those few extra well.
"That was an…an usual reaction," Carlisle said to his wife, lips curling around the r in a distinctly Scottish way.
Esme pursed her lips.
"Whit dae ye ken?" he asked her accusingly.
Esme looked at the door Alice had just gone through and was silent for a moment.
"She was Chase's donor," Esme said.
Carlisle's gray eyebrows shot up.
"How do ye ken?"
"My dear sister has a talent for finding information that is meant to be private. They told her something about a Montgomery Trust and well I…"
"…ye searched Isabella Montgomery on the web, did ye no?"
Esme nodded. She looked uncomfortable to have done so.
"She does not go by that name, but it was easy enough to find her first wedding announcement, her role at the bank, and her first husband's obituary."
"And ye dinnae say anything?" Carlisle asked. He seemed more curious than hurt.
"I had hoped it would not matter," she said ruefully. She had liked Isabella a lot. "The two of them seemed to be getting on well. And with her husband's death being so recent…I figured she had her reasons for keeping quiet."
Carlisle frowned, less sympathetic than his wife. "Aye, as she kept quiet about the information she had about those bankers she worked with."
"Honestly Carlisle," Esme said sharply. "Do you have any idea how tough it is to be a woman with a career? Especially a career which is dominated by men? There are plenty of men who still are of the opinion that women should be either in the kitchen or barefoot and pregnant. Add in the fact that she is still young and had the reputation of her father with or against her…I think you MacDonald men are maybe being too harsh in rushing to condemn her."
Carlisle didn't say anything, the thoughtful expression returning to his face.
Esme turned away from him and started to wipe down the cash register, despite the fact that she had been doing that before Alice had entered.
"Do ye think she'll come back?"
Esme frowned.
"I hope so."
~O~
Moving back into her childhood was not the immediate fix she had hoped it would be.
To be fair, she hadn't expected all feelings of safety and contentment to return to her; she was sensible enough to realize that those feelings had been the product of the love of her grandparents, not the building itself. However, she had been expecting at least some contentment.
The sellers of the house had been a newly retired couple that had moved to a condo down in Florida. As a result, they had offered to leave their furniture. The wife has assured Isabella that it was "only the best quality." Upon arrival, Isabella saw she was right. She had moved in her carload of stuff and it was a proper home.
A day later, she decided she needed to get a job. While she had a new appreciation for life outside of an 70+ hour work week, she did like working. It took a full 7 hours and an entire bottle of Chardonnay before she had a resume that she felt represented her qualifications but did not make her seem horrifyingly overqualified.
By the end of the week she had gotten a job as Operations Manager of the Liberty Bell Museum. The museum had been a place she visited every year of elementary school for a field trip, as it housed a full-size replica of the iconic bell and a mural about its history. She was to manage a small staff, made up of part-time moms and retired folks.
It was a few weeks before she got the hang of the slower paced yet satisfying role.
Christmas and New Years passed in that time without notice. She had spent Christmas watching holiday specials and attempting to teach herself how to cook. It did not take long for her to give up on that endeavor, it made her think too much of Edward, the surprising expert in the kitchen. Always keeping his wife fed.
It was not just cooking that made her think of him. He was the first thing on her mind when she woke up. She had fallen into the habit of calculating the time difference and guessing what he was doing on the other side of Atlantic. If it was a distilling day, if he was getting lunch at the seafood shack, or if he was at the inn…it wasn't necessarily the most healthy habit she had ever picked up, but she didn't try to stop herself either.
For the most part, Isabella attempted to keep her thoughts about him and Scotland at a very surface level. Acknowledging them but not delving into them.
However on the day before New Year's Eve when she had been driving home from work, Auld Lang Syne came on over the speakers of her car, a traditional version of the song. She didn't realize she had started to cry until suddenly she couldn't see the road in front of her. She blinked furiously as she threw on her blinkers, pulling off of the road and put on her hazards.
And for the duration of the song, she sobbed in her car as the weight of her failed fake marriage came crashing down on her. It came pouring out of her in a way that it hadn't since she lost Grannie and Grandad. Rather than try and fight it, she allowed herself the tears and the knowledge that what she had felt in Scotland had been something.
It was alright to mourn the feeling of being so alive, she told herself.
Seemingly as quickly as it came on, the Scottish song finished.
With its ending came the end of her batch of tears.
Once she got home and she had kicked off her wintery boots, she collapsed on the coach where her laptop was. She poked at her puffy eyes with a sign as the computer powered on. Then, she searched for therapists in the area. It would probably be a good idea to talk to someone, she told herself grudgingly.
The weeks slowly turned into months.
In the morning she would wake up, wonder about Edward, get ready for her day, work an 8-hour day that moved at a slow pace, feed herself a few times, and then when she got into bed, she had started a ritual of asking herself, "Is this the life I want to live?"
And then she'd lie awake for hours.
Because the answer was still no.
~O~
Edward hadn't moved out of that damn corner bedroom.
It was stupid and he was aware of it. It wasn't like she had died, he told himself. There was no reason that the bedroom that used to be his shouldn't be his again. He told himself this every evening as he passed the room on his way from the loo.
Yet every night, he went to the cold corner room and settled under three different layers of quilts.
For the days and weeks after she left, he couldn't sleep at night.
Having never had any bouts of insomnia in the past, he was distinctly unsettled by the feeling of lying awake, waiting for sleep to take over. He was bloody tired and wanted to sleep. Yet every time he thought he was getting close to falling asleep, he would remember that he was having trouble sleeping and then he would be awake again.
Had he cared to examine why he was having trouble, he might have realized that he was listening. He was listening to the sounds of a quiet house, keenly aware of any noise that could be the sound of a car parking in the driveway or the front door opening.
He was listening for her.
And every night, there was silence.
After his conversation with Alice and after she had shared the information with the rest of the family, he thought he would start to feel better. Start to get on with it. Move on.
Instead of the puzzled looks, he was on the receiving end of sympathetic looks for the most part. Carlisle, Donald, Robert…they also would see his misery and give him a nod and say "Awright then?" and he would nod, and that was that. Esme and Alice looked at him with concern but after awhile he noticed the signs of sympathy were not in their gazes. If anything, Esme seemed almost impatient with him.
"Why don't you call her Edward?" she said one night when he was at the bar with her.
"I cannae," he said simply.
"As a matter of pride?" she challenged.
"Principle," he corrected stubbornly.
"Why don't you go to New York?" she suggested, knowing it was in vain. "Work it out in person?"
"I dinnae ken where she lives nor can I spend a fortune on a trans-Atlantic flight. Ye ken I cannae afford that," he said with a tone of bitterness that was unlike him. While he was right about the cost, Esme did not much fancy the Edward that had been left in Isabella's wake.
"And the principle?" she asked, reminding him with a hint of sarcasm.
"Aye, that too."
"Bloody Scots," Esme muttered under her breath, dropping the conversation from there.
In truth, he had tried to call her.
It was after Christmas when he had been surrounded by family who had tried to coax him into the holiday spirit. Rather than be festive, he let the alcohol only intensify his angst. Angst and loneliness. The holidays were a time for companionship, yet he had no one.
Not anymore at least.
A choice he had made, he reminded himself every time.
He told her to go.
And at night when he couldn't fall asleep or even sometimes in the office at Sleat, he could have sworn the feeling in his stomach was regret.
The funny thing was, he didn't actually have her telephone number.
He didn't have any way of contacting her at all, his wife.
So, in a bout of extreme loneliness, he had searched for her on the internet.
He felt like an idiot for not having done so sooner. He had wanted to respect her privacy and understand her, foolish decision in hindsight of course. Perhaps it would have saved them trouble. In his defense he never imagined she would be so...rich, so seemingly powerful.
There were dozens of pictures of her that Google came up with. Pictures of her with her father and husband, clones save the fact they were 30 years apart in age. He barely noticed the anger he felt seeing these two men and instead, he could not stop staring at the woman who had been his wife.
He didn't recognize her. Sure, she looked the same. But nowhere did he see her rosey cheeks or sweet grin. Her eyes didn't twinkle at any of the fancy events she was at. After seeing her bent over her morning tea and her paperwork and curled up on the couch, her stiff and perfect posture was foreign to him.
This wasn't his Bella.
Yet looking at the pictures, he felt a deep pang of understanding. Or perhaps it was a feeling of loss. He didn't care to consider.
After coming up empty handed for her contact information for what felt like hours, he called bloody Bear Stearns. He couldn't believe he was going to get a bill for an international call for this damn bank.
"Hello, I would like to speak to Bella…Isabella Swan."
The name sounded foreign on his lips.
"One moment please sir."
He waited.
"Isabella Swan is no longer an employee of Bear Stearns.
And he hung up the phone.
as life begins to inch back our old way of "normal" I know so many are feeling languished and discontent as they grapple with this same question our Isabella is having to answer: is this the life I want to live?
if that is you, I wish you the strength to think deeply and if necessary, have the courage to move on.
more to come.