Conversations

Chapter 6

Esme

As I approached the big white house, all I could hear was the piano, filling the air with a pleasing melody. Opening the front door, it was not just Edward seated on the bench as I'd expected. My imprint sat beside him, their height difference completely opposite while their hair color matched exactly. Ness was playing on the keys at the high end of the keyboard, and Edward played the low notes.

I had gone to hang out with Quil and Embry, and we ended up tearing it up in wolf form. We spent like six hours just racing around in Canada. It seemed Edward had been teaching his daughter while I was gone. Bella stood at the side of the instrument, looking on with pride and affection. Dropping my tired ass into the nearest chair, I watched the mini concert until the end. Ness was clearly enjoying the music she was creating; it was impossible to tear my eyes away from her joy. Finishing with a flourish, I applauded and whooped as Bella scooped her up in a big hug.

"Hey Jake? Renesmee is thirsty," Bella told me as Ness laid her hand against her mother's neck. "I think we'll take her out for a hunt," she continued, nodding toward Edward, who rose, looking ready to leave. "Do you want to join us?"

Truthfully, I was starving and bone-tired from running with Embry and Quil all night. The last thing I wanted to do was wolf out again and run some more. But if Nessie wanted me to, I would.

My imprint leaned forward in her mother's arms, her palm outstretched. As Bella started to move closer so Ness could share her thoughts with me, I heard some clanking noises in the kitchen. Edward looked toward the sound, then put his hand on Bella's arm, stopping her progress. Ness turned to her father and frowned.

"I know you want him to come with us," Edward told her in a placating tone. "But your grandma has already started to make him something to eat. You don't want to make Grandma sad, do you? Besides, Jacob just got here, let him take a rest. He needs it more than you do."

Nessie looked disappointed but she gave in, conveying her resignation to Bella. "I'm sorry, baby," Bella cooed. She swallowed hard before saying, "I'm thirsty too." She shifted Nessie to her other hip and nodded at Edward. "Okay, let's go. See you in a bit, Jake." She smiled and waved as she passed me to the door, and I blew Ness a kiss which made her giggle. Edward followed them out, but stopped in the doorway, shooting me a crooked smirk and a raised eyebrow.

"Last one," he said in a low voice. "She's just dying to talk to you." With that, he followed his wife and child out to the forest.

How mortifying to have Edward actually acknowledge that I'd been asking around about him. He didn't seem to mind too much though, did he? Instead of chewing me out, he seemed to find it amusing? I didn't know what to make of it, so I headed into the kitchen, where apparently Esme was chomping at the bit to be included.

The vampire mother hen was humming as she stood over a pot on the stove, stirring a soup or sauce, I wasn't sure. Whatever it was, it smelled good. She stopped humming when I entered and looked up, beaming when she saw it was me. How she'd missed my approaching "stench" was beyond me. I guess her mind had been elsewhere. Maybe on the very conversation we were about to have.

"What song was that?" I asked, wanting to break the strange tension in the atmosphere. She drained the pasta from the other pot as she spoke. "Oh, it's one of Edward's compositions. It doesn't have a name...we just call it Esme's favorite." She laughed. I couldn't help smiling, even if it was so damned sweet, I might get a toothache.

She set the pasta aside in a bowl to wait for the sauce to finish simmering. "Would you believe it if I told you he didn't like me at first?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

I laughed outright at the idea that anyone on the planet could dislike this woman. "What?" I asked incredulously.

"It's true. He was not happy about me joining them."

"Why?" I asked, truly mystified as to what could possibly make Edward dislike the kindest, softest person ever.

Esme sighed. "What you have to understand is that Carlisle never intended to change another person after Edward. He didn't want to play God," she said, using finger quotes. "It was mutually understood between the two of them that Carlisle didn't want to bring more vampires into his life. He had companionship that he was more than happy with. He didn't need or want anyone else. Carlisle and Edward made a good coven of two. They complement each other well, share a lot of interests. They're very close."

It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Edward looked up to Carlisle and wanted to make the man proud. It seemed that everything he did was in an effort to emulate his maker, which I didn't really fault him for. The doc was the kind of person anyone would try to model themselves after. I could see how Carlisle's supposed betrayal would have hurt Edward. At the time, he was only a kid really, and thought he knew Carlisle's feelings about growing the coven, but that had been turned upside-down, probably unexpectedly. Maybe Edward had been left out of the loop when it came to Esme's turning. My curiosity was brimming over. "But then, there was you." Esme closed her eyes and nodded. "Why did Carlisle change you, Esme?"

Her gaze turned wistful as she thought of the past. "We met ten years earlier when I was sixteen. I broke my leg and Carlisle was the doctor that fixed it. I was totally infatuated with him, but he was gone by the time I had my follow-up visit." Esme looked down for a moment, twisting a lock of caramel hair in her fingers. She looked so human. I was impressed by the level of skill she had to act human even at home. Or maybe it was instinctual for her by now, after so long. Strange. I was pulled from my mind's tangent when she spoke again.

"Carlisle found me near death. He recognized me from before and it seems he was as enamored by me as I was by him. He turned me without asking Edward." I nodded. It was as I suspected then. "To be fair, there wasn't time to wait for him to return. I was as good as dead. So, Carlisle turned me, and the spark we both felt when we'd first met turned out to be the spark of true mates. Like Edward and Bella are. Of course, Edward didn't understand at the time. He was jealous of being replaced as Carlisle's main focus, and bitter about my budding feelings for Carlisle. Carlisle felt the same way about me, though I had no idea at the time. Edward knew of course, so he realized long before we did that he was about to be pushed to the sidelines once we got together. I never wanted that to happen, but it is inevitable. Young love makes you blind to the world around you, even what is right in front of you." Well, that I could certainly agree with— Bella had been blind to everything but her vampire. "Eventually, he couldn't stand it anymore, I guess, and he left us."

This was what Rosalie had referred to, I was certain. There was something about this disappearing act Edward pulled that was really important. I knew I was missing some essential piece, and I hoped Esme would be the one to finally tell me what happened which seemed to completely change not only Edward himself, but had a trickle effect on the whole family.

"I felt a lot of guilt over his absence. It affected Carlisle very deeply and I had grown to care for Edward a great deal. Edward and I both had an empty space inside us, one that we could fill for each other. He was in need of a mother, and I was in need of a son." Esme paused, chewing her lip briefly. It seemed Bella's nervous human habit had been adopted by many of her new vampire family. Sighing heavily, eye filled with pain, she revealed, "My baby son died a few days after he was born. That was why I jumped from that cliff. I was so close to death that the coroner didn't realize I was still alive, and he took me straight to the morgue, where I would have died had Carlisle not been working there that night." Whoa, I was not expecting that to be how Esme died. I was utterly speechless. Luckily, she didn't wait for a reply. I'm sure my sympathy showed on my face. "I couldn't help thinking Edward could fill that void, but he didn't like the idea. Maybe he thought I was being too presumptuous, far too soon. And maybe I was. But I was still in mourning." She shrugged. "When he returned to us years later, he was more accepting of the new dynamic of the family and allowed us to be surrogate mother and son. He still wanted a mom, and he knew I wanted someone to take care of." She chuckled. "And that's the really long way to tell you, that was when he wrote my song!"

We had a quiet laugh together and I looked out into the main room where the piano was. Esme looked at it too, her expression darkening. "That was the only happy song he ever wrote though. After his return, he was tortured, believing he was a soulless monster."

I began to think this was the thing where maybe he'd killed some people, which Rosalie had alluded to. It just had to be. Why else would he think himself a monster without a soul? "Why did he think that?" I fished.

Esme hesitated, avoiding my gaze by looking up at a corner of the ceiling. "Well, it isn't my place to reveal what happened during that period of his life." Internally, I rolled my eyes. She was responding just like Carlisle had. I knew I wasn't going to be getting answers from her. "Besides, I wasn't there to see it. But perhaps being alone allowed too much time to reflect on his vampirism, and no one was there to try to ease over the undesirable aspects about what we are. He was gone for years, and by the time he returned, those feelings were deeply rooted. Anyway, that's a good measure of how Edward is feeling, by listening to what he plays," she said, gesturing toward the instrument.

Esme was avoiding the details of Edward's disappearance, obviously a sore point in her life she no longer wanted to think about. I let it go, although the curiosity was absolutely killing me.

She continued. "For so long, the music he'd play was along the lines of Rachmaninov or Beethoven. Beautiful and fascinating, but often melancholy, dark, and haunting. He would play more upbeat music at our weddings or when we all wanted to dance, but it wasn't part of his usual repertoire. This is the most I have heard him play happier music by his own choice. Edward has struggled much in this life, and his compositions reflect that. He really is brilliantly talented. It's not fair that his nature precludes him from sharing his talent with the world."

That was a depressing thought. To be someone who, apparently, is this brilliant composer, but no one ever gets to hear your work? It could be groundbreaking, or inspire other new and wonderful breakthroughs in music. But no one would ever know of his talent. No wonder the man was fucking depressed. Thinking over the times I'd heard Edward play, I realized I'd only heard the happier songs. He never played while Bella was pregnant, or when the other vampires started to arrive and the Volturi came. But ever since then, everything was gravy, and everyone was just glad to be alive and be together. So, all the compositions I heard him play were upbeat in nature. I wondered if he would play some of his darker stuff for me if I asked. I suddenly felt really bad for what Edward had been through in his life. I had to wonder if Bella even knew about the less obvious consequences to always hiding what you really are.

"Bella knows, but it is a surface knowledge. She is too new to truly grasp the ramifications of forever, and the limitations we will always live with."

Whelp, I guess I'd spoken aloud. But Esme's response didn't surprise me. Bella was very one-track-minded when she wanted something. She could only see her own reasons, and dismissed any opinions that opposed hers out of hand.

"So, Edward played miserable music— and moped and brooded constantly— because he thinks he has no soul?" I asked, trying to bring the conversation back around.

"That is what he believes, yes," she answered solemnly. "He's never been able to see the positive side of our existence. But he has to have a soul. I've watched him support and respect the privacy of every single family member. He only meddled once, to tell me I should move on Carlisle, because he was never going to make the first move," she revealed, chuckling.

"I thought he hated you."

"No, I said he didn't like me. But he was perfectly polite and pleasant toward me, knowing it wasn't exactly my fault he was feeling badly. He also knew my mind of course, and was sympathetic to the abuse I had suffered in my human life." Hold up! Someone abused this woman? I couldn't wrap my mind around the possibility. She continued, not noticing my surprise. "So, Edward didn't take out his anger on me. But he was very cold toward Carlisle. I think he nudged us in the right direction just to free his own mind of our tumultuous thoughts! Then again, once we got together, our thoughts became much worse, which I'm sure he hadn't anticipated."

We laughed together, although mine was a little forced. I didn't want to think about Esme and the doc together like that any more than Edward did.

"Anyway," Esme resumed, "yes, he thought he was soulless. I think now, he is starting to doubt his convictions, but he truly believed he was just a monstrous creature that didn't deserve anything good to happen to him. And it was that way for decades. I constantly worried about him. We all did. Of course, he hated our pity. When Bella came along, she was such an immense relief to us all. When he left her— for her own protection, he said— I was against the idea. I knew it would tear them both apart inside." Unfortunately, I couldn't disagree. I'd seen the empty shell Bella had become.

"When he thought she had died, and he went to Italy to get himself killed…" Esme trailed off, looking for all the world like she might cry. She took a deep unnecessary breath to steady herself, but did not finish the sentence. "When Bella flew there to save his life, I think that was when he began to believe he might have a soul after all. Of course, I always believed he did, right from the beginning. You simply cannot compose music of any kind if you don't have a soul to feel it with. Edward has a soul, he has to, to be able to love and protect a human girl so completely. And to not kill you when you tried to steal his girl!"

We both laughed heartily at that. It was funny, but we both knew it was a funny tainted with the remnants of our past hostility.

"Edward is one of the strongest people I know. I'm glad you've decided to get to know him."

Esme turned back toward the stove and lifted the lid on the sauce. She dipped in the spoon and held it out toward me. "Taste?" I leaned forward over the counter and had a taste. I couldn't help but groan with delight. She smiled. "I guess it's ready!"

She turned off the burner under the sauce and tossed in the strained pasta, then served up a bowl and placed it in front of me. Taking a spoonful, I was delighted to find little meatballs in the sauce. "Wow, thanks, Esme, this tastes amazing."

She beamed and I ate a few mouthfuls before she spoke again. "I hope you'll speak with Edward directly. I have a feeling you two could be friends, if you give him a chance. He may seem like he has a tough exterior, but on the inside, he's a caring, thoughtful man. We all love him and put up with his teenage angst for a reason, after all. I hope you'll take the time to discover those reasons for yourself."

With that, she patted my cheek and left me to eat in peace. Or it would have been peaceful, if I didn't have so much to think about! Esme was right, I had now spoken to everyone besides the man himself. I wondered if it would be as weird and awkward as I was imagining or if it could be like Esme wanted, us building a tentative friendship. After all, I now understood much of his backstory, and could sympathize with what he had been through, and in some ways, will continue to go through for eternity. But there was a missing piece in all of this. I wondered if he would tell me what he'd done, which Carlisle, Rosalie and Esme had all referred to, or if I would be left to ponder and imagine what horrors he may have committed.

A/N: Sorry for the delay, everyone. I've been battling some terrible migraines this week! This chapter had been previously started, and the final chapter is only a bunch of notes, so there's a lot of work to do. That being said, the feature is NOT dead, Angela! I hope to have this story completed sometime over Thanksgiving weekend. I'm not going anywhere, after all…