What a relief to finally write in Edward's POV again! And I've been excited for this one-shot for a long time because it covers an important moment in Edward's journey: Edward Masen, whose "life" has continued on paper since 1918, is finally being laid to rest. According to the Guide, Edward does this occasionally in order to inherit from himself. Even though it's only for show, I imagine this first "death" was a particularly challenging time for him in a mid-life crisis kind of way.

This is dedicated to Haemophilus Leona, my cybersister, headcanon twin, and good friend. While I've been writing here in the prequel years to detail Edward's journey up to meeting Bella, she's been writing on the other side of the coin: the Saga itself from Edward's POV. Her stories Saudade (New Moon), Frozen Fire (Eclipse), and Hope Springs Eternal (Breaking Dawn, in progress) are absolutely fantastic and line up so well with my own understanding of Edward's character. She's also written a bit of Edward's early years in Eternal Teenager, beginning with his transformation. If you haven't yet checked out her stories, you're in for a real treat!

Edward POV

Edward Anthony Masen, age 68, passed away in his home on Monday, March 3, 1970 after a second battle with leukemia. Mr. Masen worked as a tax attorney in Sacramento for 20 years, and later was a junior partner of a private law firm in Minnesota. He was originally from Chicago and will be interred beside his parents, Edward and Elizabeth Masen, at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery this Friday at 11 am.

Mr. Masen is survived by a nephew, Anthony Masen of Willmar, Minnesota.

That was it. A whole life, summed up and dismissed from the world in a single paragraph. I frowned at the one-inch-long block of newsprint, wishing we had dreamed up more of a life for the ghost of a man I had left behind when I entered this existence. A wife and children, at the very least... maybe an achievement or two that would have stretched his obituary into a second inch. But Carlisle had learned from experience that it was best to keep these things simple, especially when it came to inventing children. It had taken enough legal acrobatics as it was to conjure up the nephew, when the lawyers had known all along that I had been an only child.

I hadn't bothered much with Edward Masen in my earlier decades. Carlisle, posing as a long-lost uncle, had engineered my survival and inheritance in 1919, requiring me to only make a brief appearance to the lawyers once I was ready to do so without committing murder. After that he had handled the occasional correspondence, taxes, and decisions that maintained my estate. The house in Chicago had been entrusted to management as a rental property by a real estate company. That income, combined with the investments Carlisle had made with part of my inheritance, had significantly grown the estate as the years had worn on. Very occasionally, he would write to the lawyers and the real estate company as Edward Masen, keeping them up to date on his movements and making various inquiries and changes. I was invited to help him make any important decisions, but there hardly ever were any to make. Mr. Masen was a respectable fellow who kept to himself; he didn't require much in the way of maintenance. Not wanting to be reminded of what I had lost, I was happy to let Carlisle pilot that ship.

But as our family had grown, the task of maintaining all our identities had grown exponentially. There was not only the matter of the identities we were using at any given time; there were also Carlisle's many other identities that he had been collecting along the way, and the associated cover stories, accounts, possessions, and properties that accompanied them. There was my estate to manage. Rosalie's magazine subscriptions alone—subdivided into beauty and automechanics, astronomy, and a dozen other categories—were numerous enough to require an armful of address changes every time we moved. We collected more properties as we went along, each of which required either Carlisle or Esme to keep a continuous line of correspondence and tax ID; in essence, every time we moved without selling, one or more of our new identities had to stick around. And so even though we had all loved the Olympic Peninsula in a deeper way than our other homes, it was almost a relief when we decided it would be best to sell that one upon our departure in 1940. The Red Cross had needed the money, and we thought it best to give the werewolves peace of mind. Besides, we had decided to spend the remaining years of the war travelling and wanted to pack light.

But our paper trail only grew longer after that. We had made several contacts on our world tour that we intended to keep, both in the human world and the vampire one. Our list of addresses to write to every time we moved had more than doubled by the time we returned to the U.S. Esme began to spread her wings, sometimes dabbling in architecture or art as a student or as the owner of a small business. She had even published a book under a pseudonym in the late '50s, a coffee table collection of her best photographs. But the biggest complication ever to hit our file cabinet, by far, was Alice.

My sister's debut on Wall Street doubled our correspondence almost overnight. We learned quickly that in order for her extensive—and impossibly successful—ventures not to attract too much attention, she would need to diversify her investments, both in terms of accounts and brokers and also in terms of identities. She had at least twelve personas going at any given time in the stock market, and each of them traded through multiple portfolios and brokers. And that was disregarding her other projects, which were too wrapped up in clothing and jewelry for me to pay even the slightest attention. Rosalie sometimes collaborated with her on the latter, while Jasper did his best to keep up with her piles of mail. Then there were the philanthropy projects that we all had going, Emmett's episodic funding of bizarre research projects, the assistance we gave to the occasional red-eyed friend who knew of our expertise in the human world and needed a favor... it was dizzying, to put it mildly, and it got more dizzying every year.

We were all pitching in now, because it was getting to be impossible for Carlisle to ever start his new job every time we moved. We each tried to take responsibility for our own projects, so I took on the job of managing Edward Masen. But even with our portions of the burden taken off his shoulders, Carlisle still ended up advising and helping us a great deal, particularly when it came to managing our philanthropic ventures and accounts. And his own load continued to grow.

"I'm worried about him," Jasper confided to Rosalie and me that evening as I packed my suitcase. "This is getting out of hand."

I had noticed the strain Carlisle was under, too, though I hadn't put my finger on the reason. We had just moved to Minnesota, and it was normal for Carlisle's mind to be full of the details that needed to be taken care of. But looking back over the previous few weeks the reason for his stress was obvious.

"If he could just sell a few of the properties," Jasper went on, "close off five or so of the older identities—"

"And what about Alice?" Rosalie accused. "Her collection of identities is more than half the problem."

"We cover our own correspondence," he shot back. "I'm talking about the load Carlisle himself insists carrying. Mainly his own host of identities and the documents he has to prepare and submit for all of us, but also the way he keeps feeling the need to monitor and advise all of us in our projects."

"He feels responsible," I said defensively. "It was his idea for us to all have our own portfolios and get involved in charity work."

Jasper crossed his arms, slumping back against the wall. He was slowly getting better at his human mannerisms. "I've been keeping the D.A.V. afloat for a while now. I think I can handle it."

"Then handle it," Rosalie hissed back, dropping her voice as the signature jingle of Carlisle's keys sounded down at the front door. "Maybe he keeps stepping in because you never manage to file your taxes on time."

A quiet growl rumbled in Jasper's chest and I saw a hurricane of paperwork swirling in his mind. I rolled my eyes, heading downstairs and leaving them to it. Rosalie and Jasper were usually as thick as thieves, but Carlisle wasn't the only one feeling the strain lately. We had made the mistake this time of moving right when tax season was about to hit, doubling our usual to-do list that kept our first weeks busy at each new location. The non-profits would keep until the early summer, but everything else was pressing. Jasper would be irritable and thirsty until everything had been mailed—not only because his workload was the second heaviest, what with handling most of Alice's correspondence, but because he worried even more than Carlisle about keeping the cover stories water-tight. It was getting out of hand. Edward Masen might need to be the first of a long list of casualties this year.

"Edward," Carlisle greeted me as he put his head in the door. "It's time to leave. Do you have everything in order?"

I waved my airplane ticket in the air as evidence. "Ready." I followed him back out the door, suitcase in tow. I had everything I needed to transform myself into Anthony Masen, age twenty-four, once I landed in Chicago, along with the accompanying ID and documents.

By the time I reached the passenger door, Carlisle was already moving the mountain of mail he had just picked up at the post office, moving it in handfuls to the back seat. He was looking older and more tired than usual these last couple days. It was good for the cover story as a sleep-deprived emergency physician, I supposed, but it was difficult to see him like this. Carlisle felt it was his duty to be strong for all of us—not only as our leader and moral example, but to spare us everything he could of the downsides this life brought with it. On days like this, though, we all found ourselves wishing we could ease more of his burden. It was ironic; most of that burden was actually due to the benefits that resulted from our immortality and from the human lifestyle that we had chosen.

"Are you sure you'll be all right?" he asked as we pulled onto the highway. "I could catch the early flight tomorrow..."

"I'll be fine," I told him, barely resisting the urge to roll my eyes. This was what, the tenth time?

Carlisle nodded, but continued to imagine all the things that might go wrong with the lawyers. How I'd fare during the flight. What it would be like to come face to face with my own "death."

"I'm fine," I growled, and he finally let slip a little smile that cleared his brow and his mind for a moment. But he only went back to mentally fussing over his correspondence for the remainder of the drive. It was almost a relief when we reached the airport.

"I'll help you get that all organized when I get back," I promised, getting out. Another envelope had caught on the cuff of my slacks. I dusted it off, tossing it back in through the open window.

Please don't worry about any of that. Just take care of this and we'll see you when you get back.

There was the usual drama when I went to check my suitcase, and again when I tried to board. Was I traveling alone? Were my parents okay with that? Did I need an attendant to help me find the gate? I would have preferred to do the whole thing under the Anthony Masen persona, but when I had bought the ticket I hadn't finalized the details on his identity yet. Besides, my hair would only hold the dye so many hours before it started to run.

I had flown before. But it was always unnerving to feel the ground pulling away from under my feet, to know that I was trapped in this metal box with a crowd of humans... that I couldn't get away from them if something should happen. And as it turned out, this was one of the first flights on one of the new Boeing 747s... possibly the very first one in this particular aircraft, if the new-carpet smell was anything to go by. Despite the bumpy ascent and the accompanying panicked thoughts around me, I smiled to myself, wondering what the airline would think if they knew a vampire was among their first customers to make the flight. Why should we be exempt from making history, after all?

Rosalie had been particularly excited by the advancements in aviation lately. The space program had been an obsession of hers over the past few years, but since it was doubtful she'd ever get to tinker under the hood of anything at NASA, she had also taken in interest in airplanes. We'd had a running joke lately that we would soon be buying an airplane of our own. It would certainly be more enjoyable than this.

Once we were at cruising altitude, I relaxed and took out one of the books I had brought along, a new bestseller called The Godfather, and began to dream up the finishing touches to Anthony Masen.

I had portrayed a respectable level of shock when the lawyer called last week to inform me of my uncle's passing. We hadn't spoken in at least six months, I told him, so I had still thought that Uncle Edward was in remission from his first bout with leukemia. I was equally surprised to learn that I was the sole benefactor of my uncle's estate. It was always a balancing act, how much to play up that kind of reaction for a human audience, but the lawyer had taken it well. We had established years ago that Edward Masen had always been something of a recluse, in preparation for this day.

As the story went, my uncle had been cremated and the remains sent directly to the lawyer in Chicago, according to his wishes. Emmett had overseen that particular solemn duty. I would pick up the ashes from the lawyer's office when I got there, and that would be that.

.

.

.

My cab reached the hotel at sunset, just in time to catch the evening news. It was official: President Nixon had officially extended the Voting Rights Act, ensuring that 18-year-old Americans would be voting for years to come. It was ironic; despite the number of times I had cast my own ballot, I was still too young to legally do so.

The reporter skimmed over the day's news items. A new convention in San Francisco called "Comic Con" would be holding its inaugural event next week. Northern Ireland was still a war zone... I wondered how Siobhan and the others were faring. I had every confidence that Liam was the "unidentified group" that had retaliated against a massacre by British soldiers early last week. He ought to be more careful.

Then the screen flickered, changing to a cartoon image of a rocket to announce the real topic at hand. History had been made two years ago with the establishment of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and last week it had finally gone into effect, at least for the players that really mattered. The United States, the USSR, and the UK were now committed, on paper at least, to halting the production and transfer of nuclear weaponry.

The entire world was watching, holding its breath as it had done for a decade now, to see which nation would really take its finger off the trigger first. Because in reality, the Cold War continued to rage on. New reports were flowing in, revealing activities within NATO that were in direct violation of the new treaty. Meanwhile, dozens of smaller nations were falling into line to sign the treaty, voicing their demand for disarmament.

And things were heating up again in Vietnam. We had thought the worst was four years ago, when the U.S. had come dangerously close to introducing nuclear bombs into the conflict, but now it looked like the war was just getting started. A match, tossed dangerously close to the supposedly-cooling haystacks of the Cold War itself. When our school rang the bell for bomb drills, we took them as seriously as our human peers did. Our first project in our new home last month had been to dig a shelter of our own.

Immortality was cheap these days.

I flicked off the television set, disgusted. What was the matter with this world lately? I tried to lose myself in my book, but its drama centered around the New York Mafia hit a little too close to home in my present mood. I tossed it onto the nightstand and took out my journal instead, recording some of the details I was nailing down for the role I would be playing in the morning.

I lost interest in that, too, pretty quickly. I wasn't used to spending my evenings in the middle of a city; the crowd of minds and noises and flashing lights and smells made it difficult to concentrate. In the end I decided to go hunting... not for blood, but for memories.

It seemed wrong that Chicago didn't feel different than any other city. I had been here as a vampire once before in 1919, but I could barely remember my appointment with the lawyer or my reaction to seeing my hometown through new eyes, because I hadn't been paying attention. It had been sheer torture, back in those early days, to expose myself to a city's worth of thoughts. To say nothing of the relentless temptation to kill everyone in sight.

I had briefly considered making Chicago one of my stops during the four dark years of my rebellion. I had quickly arrived at my plan to feed only on the worst criminals, so it seemed only fitting that I should spend a few months protecting the city I had once called home. But I couldn't. Regardless of whether the spirits of my human parents had any means of seeing what I was doing, it just felt too wrong to bring that kind of darkness that close to their graves... to the people I had once known and cared about. There was also the possibility of cornering a victim and discovering that he was someone I had known. And since Carlisle had practiced medicine in and around Chicago once already this century, we had never lived near this area in the years since.

So this was really my first time back. I strolled aimlessly through the night, trying to match the buildings I passed with the blurry streetscapes from my human memory. I did find an old hotel that seemed to be in the right place, and a couple of small parks.

There was a certain street I wanted, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember where it was. I finally surrendered and ducked into a telephone booth. I flipped through the frayed telephone book in annoyance, looking for a decent street map. I finally found one and ripped it out, memorizing my route as I walked.

Once I got past the audience of cops and prostitutes and adolescent children out too late for their own good, I relaxed and slowed my pace. I still couldn't put my finger on any certain buildings, but this was starting to feel more and more familiar. After taking one last look at the map, I crumpled it into my pocket and turned down a street where the front yards were bigger. The mental barrage quieted a little, settling into that unique, rhythmic whisper that comes from a neighborhood where nearly everyone is asleep.

I knew this street. The houses nearly all looked wrong, but the roll of the hill felt right. I had ridden my bicycle here, laughing and calling out to... someone. I squinted at the pavement, feeling the tingle of a memory that was trying to form. I had fallen here one day. No, that wasn't right... I remembered getting off my bicycle, feeling a heavy weight on my chest... my mother carrying me home, rubbing my back and telling me to breathe more slowly. An asthma attack, presumably.

Happier memories came to me half-formed as I walked on. More bicycle memories... a nameless boy with freckles and black hair. A pair of girls, teasing me from across the street. One house seemed particularly meaningful, despite being the wrong color, though I couldn't figure out why. Perhaps the freckled boy had lived here? There was a brick firehouse that looked about right. And when I finally turned onto my own street, the bright scent of roses washed over me at just the right place.

Home.

I was fortunate that the real estate company had let the trees and brush get overgrown in the backyard. I found a sturdy oak whose middle branches offered a good view of the house. My eyes traced over the lines of the house first, finding comfort in the angle of the roof and the peaceful shush of the breeze slicing through the screens around the side porch. There was a Formica table perched inside and crumbs beneath it, evidence of the family who had rented the house for the past three years.

The interior was dark, but the moonlight was more than enough for me. I could see into the living room where I had spent hundreds of hours practicing the piano. I leaned out from the tree, trying to see whether there was a piano in there, but I didn't have a full view of the room. I should have come earlier, when the family was up and moving around, so I could have gotten a fuller view.

I briefly considered letting myself in. The windows were all unlocked in welcome, after all; I wouldn't need to break anything. It was my house. But... that was a line I probably shouldn't cross. I crawled up into the higher branches, rewarded by a tight knot in my throat as I looked into my old bedroom for the first time in fifty-two years. Two twin beds filled the space, complete with the lumpy, blanketed forms of two dozing boys. My first guess was twins, but after a few moments I thought the one on the right might be a little older, based on the quality of his dreams. I left them in peace, more interested in the room itself than its occupants.

More memories began to return to me, coming in such quick succession that I dared not breath for fear of interrupting the flow. I remembered a scene in which I was the one lying in the bed, crumpled in blankets. Mother was feeling my forehead, humming a tune that eluded me, but still placed an unexpected warmth deep in my chest. I could hear the clink of a spoon and smell the aroma of... chicken soup, I thought it was.

In another memory I was seated at a desk just there, over by the farthest wall, tinkering with a model airplane... or was it a model train? I remembered coughing, curling up with a book and wishing I could go play outside. I remembered sitting at the desk, now taller in my chair, writing with careful penmanship in a journal. I remembered playing on the floor, meticulously lining up row upon row of toy soldiers. I remembered posters on the walls, various incarnations of Uncle Sam or heroic-looking U.S. soldiers telling me to come save the world. That my country needed me. I remembered sitting at my desk with a forgotten pencil lingering over a page of mathematics, gripping the desk's edge with the other hand and refusing to look up as my mother pleaded with me to go to college instead.

One memory led to another, skipping back and forth through my brief span of human years and filling new, aching holes inside my heart. I kept my eyes locked on the quiet room until I came up empty, and even then I continued to stare, shifting my gaze to look again at the sleeping boys.

Was this what I would have had? What would it have been like to have children of my own? Would I have stayed in this house?

I really had no excuse to stay. There wasn't the faintest hint of vampire scent on the air, apart from my own, and the unlocked windows and cars told me everything I needed to know about the crime rate. I had learned all I was going to learn, if I was going to keep my vow to stay outside. But all I had waiting for me was a depressing hotel room with an even more depressing book—and there was something keeping me here, something even more intangible than the memories that teased the corners of my mind, flitting away whenever I tried to grasp them. I didn't think it was nostalgia, not really; for all I knew, half those new memories were invented. And while the sight of my human home did stir something deep within me, that was all it was: just a sight. A picture. There was hardly anything about the structure in front of me that was really familiar... that was really mine anymore.

That was the problem, I supposed. It was the lost potential... this new version of the life I could have lived. More than the house itself, I couldn't take my eyes away from the home I had been so eager to leave behind.

That was excuse enough, I decided. That it might give me some modicum of purpose to stay and guard a family I cared nothing about, in a house that was all but a stranger to me. I imagined the sleeping boys to be my own sons, and the dozing parents across the hall to be myself and the wife I loved more with each passing year. And so I let myself stay, just for tonight, keeping vigil over everything I had lost so very long ago.

.

.

.

I walked briskly down the avenue at nine o'clock the next morning, trying to make up for lost time. It wasn't that Anthony Masen had taken long to put together—a bottle of hair dye, a pair of eyeglasses and half a can of hair creme—but the sky hadn't been so cooperative. With all the technological advancement this century, the average vampire still couldn't so much as walk down the street on a nice day. Progress, indeed.

I was ten minutes late. The secretary ushered me into the office, grumbling to herself about how kids these days had no respect for schedules. I rubbed my hand against my suit jacket at super-speed, following her in.

"Ah, here he is," the lawyer, a ponderous old fellow who resembled a St. Bernard, greeted me.

I nodded, offering my warmed hand. "Good morning, sir. Anthony Masen."

"Reg Mattingly." The old gentleman stopped breathing for just a moment as he gripped my hand and took a sharp glance over my face. I worried that he was going to say something about my eye color, but instead he imagined a black-and-white photograph... one that looked startlingly familiar. My word, if the hair was a bit lighter he'd be the twin of his uncle in that old picture! The eyes, though...

The handshake went on for another uncomfortable second as he puzzled over my resemblance to... myself. All I could do was smile amiably in my best "trust me" form, hoping I didn't frighten him. At last he started breathing again, and, finally released my hand, collapsed back into his chair.

"You're the spitting image of your uncle, my boy, most peculiar."

"Thank you, sir."

"Well, sit down, sit down."

He cleared his throat several times, straightening his papers. His pulse was racing now, as he remembered a movie he had recently seen about ghosts inhabiting their ancestral home. I knew I should have worn a pair of those new contact lenses—surely we could have colored them somehow.

I rummaged in my briefcase, taking out my identification papers, and made a show of extracting the Anthony Masen driver's license from my wallet. He accepted them without a word and occupied himself filling out forms.

"When was the last time you saw your uncle, Mr. Masen?" he asked while still writing, once his heart rate had slowed to normal.

"Last summer, sir. I was wrapping up my summer vacation from law school..."

"Ah!" He brightened visibly. "Notre Dame, isn't it?" I nodded. "Harvard man myself. But go on, you were saying?"

"...I was just on my way back to school, and he had me over for dinner." I shook my head slowly, staring off at nothing the way humans did in these kinds of moments. "I remember thinking he looked so much better... I would never have thought..." I swallowed noisily, looking back into his eyes with all the sadness I could pour into it.

Goodness gracious, he's not going to cry? "Oh, I'm very sorry, of course, it was a shock for all of us..." He fussed in his pockets for a moment, producing a handkerchief that reeked of mucus.

"I'm fine, thank you," I protested, but he insisted. I found a clean corner of the cloth and dabbed at my eyes, trying not to let my nose twitch. "He never wrote to tell me he was sick again," I said flatly.

"He was a very private person, as far as I know. Goodness, I've worked in this firm for nearly thirty years and I've never even met the man. Now, I think everything is in order. Just some signatures..."

I signed a multitude of forms, most of which had to do with the estate taxes, the house, and the broker that handled most of the mutual funds. We exchanged a few more pleasantries as we flipped through the pages, mostly roundabout hints that he was hoping I would continue to employ him, and vague reassurances on my part that I would do so. I'd have to see how long he lived; since he was already graying and I hadn't run into any of his partners so far today, it was a possibility. One less complication.

"Well, I'd say that about covers it," he announced, tapping the haphazard stack of forms on the desk to neaten the pile again. "It was a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Masen."

"The pleasure was mine, sir."

Such good old-fashioned manners!

I gave him a youthful smile as I stood and gathered my half of the paperwork. "Thank you for everything. Just one final matter... the ashes?"

"Yes," he said, hurrying over to the door to escort me out. "They're waiting for you at the funeral home. Just across the street... you can make the final arrangements there."

"But I said I would pick them up here."

A beat of sweat formed on his forehead. "My apologies, Mr. Masen, but we thought we were respecting your uncle's wishes. He had already purchased a lot in the cemetery years ago, so we assumed..."

"I wasn't planning on a funeral," I said sharply.

"So sorry," he said in alarm. "Once you sign for the ashes, you may, of course, do as you please."

I sighed and reassured him of my gratitude, continued patronage, etc. and let myself out. By the time I entered the funeral home I had composed myself, but my annoyance soon returned when I learned that not only had a lot been purchased, but a tombstone had been engraved and installed, waiting only for the final date. I assured the lady that I seriously doubted anyone would come to Edward Masen's funeral, that I had only mentioned a date and time in the obituary to keep with traditional courtesy.

"I was going to sprinkle the ashes along a trail that he was fond of," I began, but it only set off a lecture on the rules governing when and how you were allowed to sprinkle human ashes. "I'll make sure to check with a zoning official when I get there," I muttered once I was able to get a word in edgewise. I signed for the ashes and talked my way out of paying for a whole new tombstone, on sale for a hundred dollars plus tax and engraving. She was just starting up on the inappropriateness of having the dates engraved at different times when I finally gave up and all but snatched the urn out of her hands. She followed me to the door, prattling on about how she supposed her man could try to match the style of the birthdate. I told her I would think about it and stormed out the door, urn and all.

But I had forgotten to check the sky, which was as sunny as it could be. I jerked back under the funeral home's awning, glancing around at the nearby minds in a panic. No one had seen me, it seemed, but that was no excuse. Wouldn't that beat it all—if after all these years of being careful, I finally blew my cover when I just so happened to be carrying what appeared to be human remains.

Hilarious.

My curiosity quickly got the best of me. I headed straight for the cemetery as soon as the sun winked out, following the directions on the brochure from the funeral home. It was probably for the best that I hadn't known about these arrangements last night; stalking a human home in a tree was a far less depressing way to spend an evening than skulking around a graveyard looking for my own tombstone.

At least the lady had circled the general area that I needed to be looking in. I strolled among the headstones and monuments, trying to find some pattern in the dates to guide my search. My eye caught on a few that had birthdates near my own, and I tried in vain to see if the corresponding names triggered any new memories, or at least a flicker of recognition. Thatcher. Jones. McConnell. Burbank.

Masen.

My feet came to a stop in the grass. I had known that the graves of my parents would be here; I had even planned to come to visit them regardless of what I did with the ashes. And it made sense that Edward Masen's grave plot would have been placed near theirs, if possible. But it was still something of a shock to see the three tombstones growing out of the grass in a cheerful little row.

Edward Lewis Masen

1860–1918

Beloved husband and father

.

Elizabeth Anne Masen

1867–1918

Beloved wife and mother

.

Edward Anthony Masen

1901–

Beloved son

.

I knelt down in the grass, numbly setting aside my briefcase and the urn. For the moment, I ignored the deep twist in my gut that came when I looked at my parents' graves, unable to reconcile the sight of my own name. When had Carlisle done this? My memory flicked through all the correspondence and records I have ever seen in regards to Edward Masen's upkeep; I had never seen a record of the plot being reserved or the tombstone being arranged. In fact, the engraved letters were just as worn as those on the other two stones... the stone itself just as darkened and weathered with age.

This had been here all along. He had done this in 1918.

I finally let myself look back over at the other two. And a memory did come to me, finally: the iron gate standing twenty feet off to the left was what seemed familiar. I remembered, now, kneeling in this very spot, looking on through my tears at the fresh mound of dirt that lay heavy on my father's coffin. My chest suddenly constricted along with the memory, bringing it further into focus. Mother was kneeling beside me, trembling and silent in her own grief. I slowly brought my hand up to my left shoulder, almost feeling the iron grip with which she had clung to me that day. As if she were afraid I would fall in... that I might soon be the one laid in the earth. My fingers dug into the fabric at my shoulder of their own accord. As if I could touch her hand there if I tried hard enough.

I remembered, with a renewed stab of guilt, how upset she had been about my desire to enlist. Had she been afraid, that day we had buried my father, that I would still leave her? Had I reassured her that I wouldn't, not now that he was gone?

I couldn't remember.

I reached out and traced the engraved letters on my father's tombstone, wishing I had more memories of him. I remembered my mother so clearly; why was it so much harder with the man who had surely been my hero? It hurt, as it had not in decades, that I could not remember his face. I had an old portrait stashed in our attic collecting dust, and I remembered the features—a strong chin, unfashionable sideburns, grey eyes that could burn me to the core when they held disappointment... and could make me feel taller when they were full of approval. But it was like reading the description on paper, as lifeless as his unsmiling portrait. And that was my own fault. Carlisle had warned me, when I was a newborn, that it would grow more difficult to access my human memories as time went on, much less retain them. That if there was anything I wished to remember forever, I needed to focus and retrieve it into my conscious thought, searing it onto my perfect memory forever. That the best way to hold on to my humanity was to recall as much of it as I could.

But I hadn't listened. There were certain things that I'd held onto, but I had been so wrapped up in learning new things, and so distracted by my thirst and my gift and the looming future, that I had let the vast majority of my human memories slip away. Worse than that; there had been days where I consciously resisted the torrent of memory that threatened to remind me of everything I had lost.

How would my parents feel, to know that I had done that? That I had chosen to forget so much... that remembering my father's face had somehow become less important to me than tearing through a new language, or tearing through a forest to satisfy an endless thirst?

What would he think of me now?

Self-discipline, son. Self-discipline is the beginning of every virtue.

The words slipped into my mind without effort. Were they Carlisle's? It took me a few brief seconds to confirm that they weren't, although the sentiment was certainly one he would admire. It did sound like something my human father would have said; I remembered now that he had liked to hand out these little axioms from time to time. I waited expectantly for more of them to come back to me, but none did.

My father had not been particularly religious; I remembered that much. I doubted that he would react with too much horror, if he were to learn what I had become. He would face it with the same tools he had faced everything else: a cool head, an impeccable sense of logic, and a drive to master whatever task he set his hand to. The same tools he had expected me to learn to use.

I frowned as the damning evidence flew unbidden through my mind. The years I had spent indulging the very worst parts of my nature. The times I had hurt those I loved, using my gift against them in my anger. The fields of study I had poured myself into, only to drop them in boredom half-finished and move on to whatever caught my eye next. The thousands of hours I had spent doing nothing more than staring into the void and wishing that things were different... that I was different.

Self-discipline, indeed.

I sat back on my heels, staring uncomfortably at the tombstone. The first raindrops began to stain it darker. How many times had I asked myself what my mother had been thinking when she had asked Carlisle to save me? How much did she know? What would she think of how I had turned out... the things I had done, and not done? What would she think of Esme, the woman who had taken so much of her place in my heart?

Questions that would never be answered. I had achieved some measure of acceptance with that fact, as the decades had worn on. But now as I faced my father's grave, I felt a new, urgent need to make an account of myself... to show him what I had done with the fifty-two years that had passed since we had last spoken.

What did I have to show for those years? A closet full of trinkets that would never leave their boxes. A few dozen compositions that would never be published. A shelf-full of journals that would never be shown to anyone. The only mark I had really left on the world was a mountain's worth of school assignments, and those had already begun to decompose. Not even the ashes I had brought here today were real.

Even the life we had fabricated for Edward Masen, save for the philanthropy in the last couple of decades, barely amounted to anything. I supposed I was glad, now, that we had made him a lawyer; at least if my father did have some mystical way of seeing it all, he could hopefully muster some pride that in the cover story, at least, his son had followed in his footsteps. His real son had never once darkened the door of a law school, and had never seriously considered doing so.

I pulled myself away from my brooding and picked up the urn again. I might as well do it here; God forbid Anthony Masen should not stick to the zoning laws, after all. I glanced around, grateful for the privacy the rain afforded me. This would have been far less pleasant to do at midnight.

I raked through the wet grass with my fingers, tearing up mounds of it and deepening the hole in front of my tombstone. At the last moment, my curiosity won out. I pried open the lid of the urn, sniffing at the gray powder inside. I was greeted with the unmistakable smell of charred mountain lion.

"Emmett," I muttered fondly, replacing the lid and shaking my head. Why was I not surprised?

I deposited the urn in the hole, covering it back up with the loose dirt. But it looked odd; something wasn't right. I tore up more grass, keeping an eye on the buzzing crowd of minds in the neighborhood around me, until I had a nice, coffin-sized rectangle of churned-up dirt stretching out from the tombstone.

Better. I stood to survey my work, crouching down to even out the lower right corner. On a whim, I plucked a fistful of the yellow flowers that were nodding in the rain and laid them in the center of the mound. The picture was complete, save for the fact that the rain was coming down harder now and turning the dirt to mud. Losing myself in my brooding again, I completely missed the approaching thoughts until they were right on top of me.

"Looks like I missed the whole thing."

I turned around in surprise to find an old man trudging through the wet grass toward me. He was a pitiful-looking fellow, wrinkled and bent over a bit, and nearly swimming in an expensive-looking overcoat. He walked with a limp that he seemed to be accustomed to. We couldn't see each other's faces right away, courtesy of the umbrella he was clutching. He made his way to my side, mostly ignoring me in favor of the tombstone and its handsome rectangle of fresh mud. I was surprised that anyone had showed up; I had run the obituary only to maintain appearances, after all. Edward Masen had no acquaintances, let alone friends.

"Saw his name in the obits the other day," the old gentleman announced. "Were you a friend?"

"His nephew," I said in a clipped tone. I didn't want company.

He tipped his umbrella up, peering at my face with rheumy eyes that widened with surprise. Edward!

My muscles seized in shock as his mind made an instant connection with my appearance—black hair and spectacles and all—and a memory of the young man I had once been. But unlike the memory I had seen in the lawyer's mind earlier, this man wasn't recalling a black-and-white photograph; he was remembering me. The Edward Masen in his mind was a living, breathing, seventeen-year old boy with sparkling green eyes, rosy cheeks, and a mischievous grin that threatened to break across his face.

It had been over fifty years! When I had planned this trip, I hadn't entertained more than half a second's worth of worry that I would be recognized by someone that had known me, even if only from an old photograph. I had satisfied that worry with the disguise, as we always did in these situations. But this geriatric human was seeing right through it! I couldn't even think about damage control yet; I could only stare in amazement at the images that he was conjuring up.

I had seen my human appearance in Carlisle's memory a few times. It was hardly an inspiring sight: a pale, sick, dehydrated teenager sporting a hospital gown and two days' growth of peach fuzz. And of course I remembered, with the same blurry distance common to all my human memories, what I had looked like in the mirror. But for the first time that I could recall, I was really seeing myself as a healthy human. And it wasn't just a still shot from 1918, either; he was remembering my appearance at various ages, going all the way back to childhood and my mop of bright red hair.

"You look just like him," the man said, still studying me with a fond smile. Even down to that dumbfounded stare, haha! Jiminy, it feels like yesterday... should have looked him up...

I reluctantly returned my attention to the man himself, not the slide show going on in his mind. It didn't seem to be a real breach, after all; he was obviously buying the nephew act. Humans were generally good about that; even when the truth was staring them in the face, they generally did the work for us. Our cover stories were fashioned around the conclusions that they were the most likely to draw, and this man was following the script to the letter. I gave him a peaceable smile.

"I've been told that many times."

He stuck a hand out into the rain. "I'm Leonard Shaw."

"Anthony Masen," I said, shaking it reluctantly. His hands were nearly as cold as mine. "You were a friend of Uncle Edward's?"

"Sure, we were kids together. Grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools... we got into a few scrapes." He chuckled to himself, and I was rewarded with more mental photos, mainly of younger days when he and I had supposedly played together: toy soldiers, snowball fights, things like that.

I stared hard at his face, mulling over the name. It felt like it should be significant, too. Leonard Shaw. Shaw. Len... "Lenny," I burst out, forgetting myself. This was the boy with the black hair and the freckles!

He let out a scratchy laugh. "That's right. He actually mentioned me?"

"A story or two."

He looked off into the distance, slowly letting his eyes drift down to the tombstone again. "I'm afraid we lost touch right around the time the war ended... Word War I, I mean. There was a flu epidemic that year. Let me see, must have been 1918... yes, 1918. He got real sick and lost both his parents, and some rich uncle came out of nowhere and swept him off to a specialty hospital or something..."

"And he never came back," I finished curtly.

Lenny shrugged. "Never came back."

We stood in awkward silence for a few moments, looking down at the tombstone again. Lenny was thinking about asking me to fill him in on my uncle's life, while I was trying to come up with a way to make him show me some more memories. But he was shivering from the cold and damp now, despite his coat and umbrella. Even more worrisome was my hair dye; its odor was growing stronger, which meant it was beginning to run. I was lucky my hair had stayed black this long.

"What miserable weather," I commented, tugging at my own coat. "Guess I'll be going in a minute."

Lenny nodded in relief. He hadn't wanted to be impolite and leave so quickly, but like many older humans, he was thinking how the wind seemed to blow right through to his bones. And there's something off about him, he thought warily, glancing away when he caught my eye. "Good to meet you," he said, and left without waiting for my answer, limping quickly away.

I kept a lock on his mind as he went, hoping for another clue about the childhood we had shared. But there was nothing, except for a morose slideshow of other gravesites he had visited in recent years.

Well, that's another one down from the old class of '19... I'll probably be next... His thoughts shifted into a depressing collage of recent medical tests, doctors giving him bad news, and dishes full of food left uneaten. But then he smiled a little and pictured a collection of smiling children. Some of their faces sported the black hair and freckles he had long since lost—his grandchildren, surely. World goes on, I guess, he told himself in consolation. I turned back to the tombstones just as he looked over his shoulder at me again in farewell.

I studied his retreating form, finally reaching out with the full potential of my gift. I could feel every aching, creaking joint, every wheezing breath. I could feel the painful chill of persistent cold deep in my bones. Most of it was typical for a man his age, especially in this kind of weather, though I could also detect a seeping exhaustion that hinted at a poor prognosis.

I felt like a cad for giving him a reason to come out in the rain. But I was grateful, nonetheless. Not only for the new memories, but for the surprising fact that someone still cared enough about me—the real me—to come out in the rain to say goodbye. That someone had remembered me, even if I couldn't remember him.

It troubled me that I couldn't. Even the images that he had given me felt only vaguely familiar. Surely we hadn't been close friends, at least not in our adolescent years, for it to all feel so distant. I had remembered other names and faces back in my first year. But we had been close as boys, it seemed... why hadn't I remembered him before now? Despite Lenny's age and the fuzziness of his mental processing, those childhood memories of me had been crystal clear. I wished that I could return the favor... that despite my age and the changes my mind had gone through, I could honor our friendship by remembering more. What bothered me the most, though, was that I couldn't even seem to care; despite the obvious connection we had once shared, he still seemed to me like any other human stranger in a crowd. Just another old man.

But I supposed that was what I was too, now... an old man. All those signs of seventy years' worth of wear and tear—the arthritis, the weak lungs, the stoop and the limp, the weathered skin and gray hair—that was what I was supposed to look like now. I turned my hands over, feeling their smooth perfection... their falseness. I didn't envy Lenny his slow decay or the pain of his approaching end, but those things were only natural. It was only right, because none of us were meant to live forever. There was nothing wrong with immortality when it was achieved the natural way: legacy and grandchildren, maybe a reaching faith as one looked past the final breath. Passing on genes and knowledge and wealth and stories. The tired satisfaction of a life well lived. That was what old age was supposed to feel like.

It was a startling change, to think of myself as an old man. I had certainly felt old before now, as the human trends had seemed to pass me by with increasing speed, and as my schoolmates seemed to look and act younger every year. But the reality was that those schoolmates really weren't my peers at all; Lenny was. And according to his thoughts, a good portion of the class of '19 had already beaten Edward Masen to the graveyard. I glanced around with my eyes and my gift, effortlessly tabulating the apparent ages of all the humans within my reach. I was older than four fifths of them, at least. The day was quickly approaching when I would be older than all of them. When the only real peers I had left would be the blood-drinking sort.

I stared in contemplation at Edward Masen's tombstone, particularly at the dash after the 1901, and the empty space after it. A part of me wanted to leave that space empty forever. It was the kind of stunt that most vampires would probably enjoy in my position; just a little private rebellion against mortality and all its conventions. My lips twisted into a sardonic smirk as the popular tune ran through my mind. Ain't no grave gonna hold this body down...

But we Cullens didn't leave loose ends like that. After another glance around the rain-shrouded block to ensure I was alone, I knelt right on the dirt mound and began to carve. It was a messy business, what with my fingernails being the only available tool. The complicated lettering used back in 1918 wasn't making it any easier. I did my best to make the second date imitate the style of the first. To human eyes the match would probably look genuine enough, not that any human would ever bother. I brushed away the last of the crumbled stone, surveying my work.

Edward Anthony Masen

1901–1970

Beloved son

Seeing the finished product was an uncomfortable thing. Edward Masen—a man who had existed only on paper for more than half a century now—really was dead now. I rose to my feet, feeling the phantom stiffness in my joints left over from Lenny's mind. Or was it my own advanced age that suddenly felt so very real to me? It made me feel tired, in a way I never had before... so very tired. For just one imagined moment, my immortal body felt heavy and empty of life. Real stone, still stumbling around long after the life it represented ceased to be.

I retreated several steps until my knees hit a stone bench. I didn't bother about the rain puddle it had collected; I just sat down heavily, unable to pull my eyes away from the three tombstones. The imagined fatigue soon passed, leaving a hollow emptiness in its place.

I felt... disconnected, I supposed. It wasn't just the uncomfortable realization that I was now an old man; I felt a real sense of loss. Even though I had rarely paid him any attention, Edward Masen had always been there with me, quietly living out his life in the rental agreements and interest statements and tax forms that were mailed back and forth from Chicago to wherever we had lived at the time. I had never realized until today how much comfort that had brought me, that he was getting to live out that life. It was something none of the others had gotten a chance at. Only now did I understand how little I had appreciated the privilege that Carlisle had arranged for me... how I had squandered it.

The rain grew heavier, but I didn't mind. I didn't want any more "old friends" coming out and catching pneumonia just to discharge their duty; I wanted to be alone. I let the sheets of water and fog pour down without protest, cutting me off from the sights and sounds of Chicago. There was only this graveyard and its inhabitants, every one of them cold and dead... including myself. The darkness of night seemed to come on quickly after that, darkening my mood with it.

I continued to stare, recalling the sparse details of the life we had built for Edward Anthony Masen. There wasn't much, beyond the financial records; we had moved him a few times, to keep the lawyers guessing, and the past twenty years had brought him an uncharacteristic knack for playing the stock market. Most of that money had been poured directly into anonymous philanthropy, divided between dozens of organizations. Even when playing the best kind of human, it was wiser to keep a low profile.

But that was it. No wife, no children, no significant contribution to the world. No landmark legal cases—that one would have been especially unwise. But I wished, now more than ever, that we had done more with him. I wished that it would take more than three seconds to mentally recite the sum of his achievements. My eyes drifted unwillingly back to my father's tombstone again. I wished that I had more to tell him about both of the lives I had been conducting over the course of the twentieth century.

The rain pounded on, mercifully filling the black silence of my thoughts. I knew I should leave, that sulking here wasn't going to help anything, but I couldn't. I felt an uncomfortable sense of belonging here in the graveyard, close to my parents. Close to the ghost of myself. In any case, this was where creatures like me were supposed to lurk, wasn't it?

I was beginning to understand why.

Edward.

Carlisle's mental voice derailed my spiraling thoughts instantaneously. I looked around and found him approaching the graveyard from the east, still in his hospital scrubs. He was already soaked, as was the overnight bag slung over his shoulder.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him, frowning.

He studiously kept his eyes on his feet as he picked his way through the sodden grass toward me. He joined me on the stone bench, looking thoughtfully at the row of tombstones in front of us. Alice thought it might be a good idea.

"And why is that?"

"She was worried about you." He finally looked at me. "She said she saw you spending night after night here in the graveyard. Sometimes she saw you spending other nights in a tree, overlooking a house. Breaking into it, even though there was a family inside."

"I never decided to do those things!"

He laid a hand on my arm. "But you're on a path where you will. She doesn't see you coming home at all anymore. Talk to me, son. I know this must be difficult—"

I jerked my arm away, getting to my feet. "You don't know anything about how difficult this is!"

"Then explain it to me," he offered quietly.

I turned away and angrily raked a hand back through my hair, scowling down at the inky hair dye that clung to my fingers. Anthony Masen was already washing away. Why did we work so hard to create these identities in the first place? This always happened; the false humanity fit so poorly that it just washed away.

"You shouldn't have come," I snapped, trying and failing to shake the dye off my hand in the rain. I smeared it across the leaves of a unfortunate bush, cursing Alice's interfering gift. The worst part was that I could see how those visions had come to her; I had already wanted to stay. No doubt I would end up skulking around this graveyard night after night... no doubt I was going to haunt my old house, combing every inch of it just so I could eke out a few more memories to mourn. Why did she have to get Carlisle involved, though? He already had too much on his plate.

Edward, please. I want to help.

I groaned silently, turning back to face him. He was looking up at me with those gentle golden eyes that could infuriate me like nothing else. Why did he have to be so nauseatingly patient? I forced a breath in and out, letting the tide of my anger run its course before I said anything stupid. Of course Carlisle understood. Of course he had dropped everything and flown halfway across the country to sit with me in a rain-soaked graveyard. His worry for me aside, he looked better than he had in weeks. Caring for his family meant more to him than anything in the world.

I finally let out a long sigh, feeling my resistance drain away with it. "I'm sorry."

Carlisle nodded in brief acknowledgement, inviting me back onto the bench. I sat down, letting my eyes drift back to the tombstones again.

"I ran into an old friend today," I began hesitantly.

"Oh?" A series of faces, several of the vampires that we knew, flipped through his mind like the pages of a book.

"No, not that kind. It was an old man... one of my friends from boyhood. He saw the obituary and thought there was a funeral."

Carlisle's eyebrows shot up in alarm. "And he recognized you?"

"At first... well, no, not really. He made the connection right away, but he bought the nephew act well enough."

"I see. And... it was hard for you, seeing him again?"

I told him everything: how precious the new memories from last night and today were to me, and yet how distant and flat they were. How it disturbed me that I still couldn't remember Lenny. What a shock it was to realize that this wrinkled, shrunken, dying human was my age. That soon, I would have outlived everyone I had ever known. That it really was time for Edward Masen to be dead and buried.

"I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful," I hurried to add. "It was an unusual gift, that you were able to keep Edward Masen alive for me all those years ago. So... thank you."

"You're welcome." He paused, looking at his hands. "I wasn't sure how you would feel about the tombstone, so I never said anything. I'm sorry if it wasn't the right thing to do."

"No," I protested. "It's all right. I think... it helps. I needed to see it to let him go."

Carlisle gave me an odd look. "Let him go?"

"Edward Masen."

"But now you have Anthony Masen."

"It's not the same thing."

"Why not?"

I threw my hands up in the air. "It just isn't! Edward Masen was a real person."

"Edward, you are the real person."

I glowered back at him, unwilling to take the bait. We both knew where this conversation was heading, and I didn't feel up to going there right now.

"We don't need to rehearse the usual debate," Carlisle said with the barest hint of a smile, which I couldn't help but return.

"I thought I was the mind reader."

He focused on my appearance, making sure I could see what he saw. It was difficult to hold onto the image of the old man I was when faced with the physical reality: a sulky seventeen-year-old boy, albeit a rain-soaked one with black dye clinging to half his hair. I don't see a corpse, son, Carlisle thought pointedly. Nor do I see the statue of a young man who once lived. I see my son, who was born in 1901 and is still alive and well, bringing joy to those who love him. Does our joy mean so little to you?

"No," I confessed with a guilty sigh. "It means a great deal."

If you feel you must mourn Edward Masen, then do so. But you'll do it back at home with us. Agreed?

I hesitated for one stubborn, childish moment. I didn't want the doting comfort of those who knew me; I wanted to be alone with my grief as I sorted out what I had left of myself and what I didn't. But if there was one thing I had learned in the past fifty-two years, it was that Carlisle knew best, particularly when it came to my own bungled attempts at growing up... or growing old, as the case may be.

"Agreed. I just..."

"What?"

"I just wish we had done more with him, you know? I wish Edward Masen could have left his mark on the world somehow."

Carlisle frowned. "Isn't it enough that we constructed a successful life for him? Not to mention the fact that you've donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in his name, and it's changed the lives of people around the world. Does that mean nothing to you either?"

I sighed heavily, looking away.

"Forgive me," he corrected, backtracking in his thoughts. "What did you have in mind?"

"It doesn't matter now, does it? It's too late."

"I don't see why it has to be. Whatever new project you wish to take on, you can do it through Anthony Masen. And if it really means that much to you to involve the name of Edward Masen, I'm sure you could arrange it somehow. People often give legacies or create foundations in the name of a deceased loved one."

"What kind of foundation?"

Carlisle thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, Edward. I'm leaving this one to you. You know how glad I am that you've taken my advice and turned your new wealth toward generous philanthropy, but you've never seemed all that interested in the projects themselves. I have a feeling this new venture will be far more meaningful if you come up with it yourself."

I shrugged my agreement. "I can't think of anything right now."

"No rush," he said lightly. "Edward Masen isn't going anywhere."

I coughed out a dead laugh. "Graveyard humor, Carlisle? Really?"

He smiled, rising to his feet. "Let's go home, son. Daylight isn't far off." When I hesitated, he held out his hand, looking me in the eye and leaving no room for question as to the firmness of his thoughts. We're leaving, Edward. Right now.

I let him pull me up and guide me out onto the main sidewalk, taking one final glance back at all that remained of my human family. Once the graveyard was out of sight, I was able to think more clearly.

"Law school," I announced without preamble. "I'm going to go to law school next."

Carlisle turned back, just as surprised as I was. "You are?"

I nodded firmly. "And if we can work it out, I'd like to go as Anthony Masen. He's supposed to be there right now, after all." I drew a deep breath, full of sudden inspiration. "And remember how helpful it was when Rosalie and I were in medical school?"

He nodded warily, not sure what I was cooking up. "Go on."

"Well, I could do the same thing with law school. It's been getting more and more complicated to keep up with all our identities, all the paperwork for our cover stories. I could learn about those things. I could study whatever cases and trends are out there when it comes to identity, ah, management. It might help us keep us one step ahead... maybe learn a few new tricks we haven't thought of before, or at least simplify the mess somehow."

"I suppose it could be helpful. But why the sudden interest in studying law yourself? It made sense to have Edward Masen to follow in his father's footsteps, but..." Ah... I think I understand. This is for your father?

"It's for both of you."

Carlisle pressed his lips into a disapproving line, trying to decide how best to talk me out of it, but I didn't give him the chance. "Let me do this, Carlisle. I want to."

"Why? Other than to prove something that you don't need to prove?"

"Why aren't you at work right now?" I shot back. "Because your family needed you. It's..." I waved my hand in the air as we walked, trying to think of the right word. "It's meaningful to you to set aside your own schedule when someone you care about needs your help. A schedule that you can't tell me isn't already full to overflowing with stress, especially since we happened to move during tax season. So if it's meaningful to me to help you with that somehow, since I care about you, isn't that a good use of my time?"

Carlisle slowed his steps, thinking over my words. "I suppose it is, now that you put it that way." He finally smiled at me, taking in the ridiculous sight of my half-dyed hair. How did this happen? I flew halfway across the country to help you through a difficult time, and here you are planning a stint in law school in order to ease my own burden.

"You deserve that, and more," I admitted. "And as for my human father... all right, maybe I do feel a belated need to follow in his footsteps for a while. Is that so wrong?"

"No..." He thought for another moment. "Not if you decide to study law as a tribute to him, or to learn more about the field he was so devoted to. But please, Edward, don't do it because you feel you need to live up to any expectations he left behind. I've gone down that road myself, and it doesn't go anywhere." And so have you, he reminded me gently, bringing to mind my first attempt at medical school back in 1950 and the unnecessary angst that had followed.

"The tribute one, then."

"In that case, I think it's a fine idea."

We decided to forego the cab. Instead, we took advantage of the early morning fog and enjoyed a brisk walk through the South Side. I was able to point out a few landmarks, though Carlisle remembered many more. But to both of us, the city was a stranger in many ways. The passenger jets that roared over our heads as we neared the airport were a particularly stark reminder that with regards to the Chicago of 1918 and the London of 1663... we had both grown old.

Before we entered the airport, Carlisle turned and looked out at the skyscrapers one last time. He was remembering the day he had found me in the hospital.

I nudged him forward. "Sunlight."

He continued to look out at the sunrise as it brightened the rooftops one by one, lingering over the past with a distant smile. Just remembering. I know it was difficult for you to come back here, Edward. But I must confess, Chicago holds one of my fondest memories.

"Come on," I said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Let's go home." When he finally turned to come with me, I gave him a nod which hopefully expressed the gratitude I couldn't put into words. And then I took my own final look at the city I had once called home... where my human life had ended. Where the Masen family had ended.

And where another family had begun.