As much of the family was struggling along, Esme was struggling right along with them. Having Carlisle nearby made it easier, as did keeping busy. She was currently hard at work removing the lacquer from an antique sideboard she had bought at an estate sale for only $100. With skill and a bit of luck, she was hoping to restore it to the beauty it had had in its prime, which apparently had been roughly around 1910. In the meantime, she was working diligently – if only to distract herself from the tumult in the house. Bella and Edward were apparently not speaking to each other, Jasper and Alice had locked themselves in the library, and Rosalie and Emmett were…well, yesterday's occurrence had given her a moment of hope that things would be alright, but then it just got worse. Much, much worse.
She wondered for a moment if perhaps Rosalie leaving would be a good idea. Or Emmett. Or maybe everyone just needed to…no. No, she was just getting upset. That was a crazy idea. They were a family. They would always be a family. How could she possibly think of separating her children like that? Of being separated from them? Things would come to rights sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.
She tried a little harder with the lacquer thinner, wearing down the varnish with an overeager arm that came from her bottled-up frustrations. In a moment, the beautiful woodworking below was revealed, no longer covered up by some seventies glamour-obsessed lacquer fetishist. Imagine ruining such a piece that way, Esme tutted to herself as the door to the kitchen, her private workspace, swung open and Edward walked in.
"Esme, have you seen my green scarf?" her son asked casually, leaning against the cabinetry.
Esme's mind flickered to thoughts of the scarf, a beautiful cashmere one Bella had bought him last winter and that he had torn a hole in during a hunt last week, a hole she had only just repaired. Before a word could pass from her lips, Edward had smiled and murmured a "Thank you."
"It's in my mending drawer," she said, nodding over to the panels at his right. Edward opened the drawer and pulled the long seamless scarf from inside, inspecting it with a careful eye.
"And you can't even tell it was ever torn," he said with a smile as he came over to her.
She smiled too, slightly embarrassed but pleased by her son's praise.
"What would we do without you?" he asked, leaning down to kiss her cheek.
"Have ratty scarves and holey socks, I suppose," she said wryly, putting down her varnish-remover and turning to face her son.
"You know we'd miss you much more than that," Edward said with a hint of knowing to his voice. Esme narrowed her eyes at him, inspecting her son. Had he heard all of what she had been thinking about the family splitting up?
"Yes," he replied simply. "Do you really think we need to part ways just for things to get back to normal?"
"I didn't say that," she defended herself. "I only want everyone to be happy. And I don't know how we can possibly achieve that with everyone being upset with everyone else."
"You can't interfere all the time, Esme. I know that well. You just have to let things take its course."
She smiled a bit then and said softly, "You sound like your father." She could see Edward trying to hide the puff of pride that swelled within him as he fought to maintain a serious demeanor.
"Well, Carlisle would say the same thing," he went on. "Everyone should make their own decisions, I suppose. Even about whether to stay or to go."
"Or to forgive or hold grudges?" Esme said suggestively, thinking of a certain brown-haired girl she knew.
Edward set his jaw. "Perhaps."
Esme stepped away from her half-finished project, wiping her hands on her trousers. "Yes, you are rather like Carlisle. But it's funny sometimes how much you and Rosalie favor each other."
Leaving that thought to echo in his head, she moved to the back staircase, climbing the flight that would take her to the bedroom she shared with Carlisle.. When her kitchen-cum-workspace wasn't a respite enough, the bedroom provided a safe haven from the rest of the house as well as a place to let her thoughts roll about in her head – hopefully without too many of the others listening in. The bed looked so comfortable and inviting that she couldn't help but crawl in, even in the middle of the morning, and close her eyes, pretending as if to go to sleep. She almost wished for the ability now, just to block out the turmoil in the household. Her eyes still closed, she rolled onto her side, curling her knees in to stay tucked up like a little ball. She lay there, relaxing her mind and body, emptying her head of thoughts for a while…until she heard footsteps just outside the door – Carlisle's step, sure and quick.
He came through the door with a frown on his face, the same frown that had been there for weeks now, ever since the day this had all started. He was feeling the stress just as much as they all were…but his frown broke into an endearing smile when his eyes met hers.
"Darling," he said simply, and the word rang through her like birdsong. She held out her hand for him, willing him to come to her. Come he did, sliding onto the bed beside her and pulling her into him, his strong body against hers, his cheek resting on her head. Curled up against his chest like this, it wasn't all that hard, Esme thought, to believe they could somehow make it through.
Edward felt Esme's admonishing pierce through him the minute she left the kitchen. Was he really behaving as badly as his divorce-happy sister? Heaven help him if he should ever be equated with Rosalie. He nearly winced at the thought as he began his walk upstairs to his room. Did Esme think he was being just as stubborn, just as obstinate? True, the argument with Bella had lasted far longer than he had meant it to, but it was truly her fault. She was the one who had been so stubborn. Yes, that was it! Bella was the one acting like Rosalie. Bella was responsible for…well, not all of the problems. No, that was most certainly blamed on Rose. But even so, Bella was being rather ridiculous, what with rarely straying from her room and –
And of course now was the one time in days she would stray.
Bella stood in the hallway, her arms full of dirty laundry on its way to be washed, her face just as surprised and off-guard as he felt. Yet even in her surprise, she was still so incredibly lovely that his heart nearly started beating again. Her white teeth bit down on her reddened lower lip, and he longed to do the same thing…but he couldn't. Not when she was being so stubborn. She was probably looking at him and thinking of how mad she was or how ridiculous he was being or…
"I'm sorry."
Edward was shocked to hear the words he had just said come from his wife's mouth at the same time. He fought for a moment to penetrate her mind, hoping to see inside…and was of course disappointed for the millionth time in years. It didn't matter. She was apologizing, same as he. She was sorry they were fighting and things could (at least begin to) get back to normal. With a deep, relieved sigh, he leaned his forehead down to hers, glad that perhaps they could start over once again.
Downstairs in the library, Jasper too gave a relieved sigh. The tension in the house had alleviated slightly with Bella and Edward's reconciliation, which meant the stress upon his empathic shoulders was also lessening.
Unfortunately, it wasn't lessening enough. From somewhere on the same level of the house, Jasper could feel a sudden rush of anger flood his senses, and he left the library to see what was going on – and to see if he could stop it before his head exploded.
Of course, it was Rosalie and Emmett. The two of them had been the cause of his troubles for months now, and their divorce had only worsened it. His head was pounding, his skin tingling with the force of their ire, and he longed for them to just shut up and make up so that their hatred could stop being his. At this point, he was almost anxious for one of them to move out, if only to ease his own suffering.
Currently, Rosalie and Emmett were standing in the living room having one of their bimonthly screaming matches with one of Esme's painstakingly reupholstered antique loveseats between them, rather ironically. Jasper tiptoed to the doorway, looking over Bella and Edward's shoulders at the two of them as they hurled insults.
"What started it this time?" he asked softly, listening as Emmett called his ex-wife an 'egotistical auto-whore.'
"Rose let some kid from the university drop her off after class," Bella explained in hushed tones. "She made sure Emmett saw her kiss his cheek –"
"He's this upset over that?" Jasper tried hard not to smirk.
She shook her head. "No, she also ran his Babe Ruth card through the shredder."
"Good Lord…"
"Well, she was retaliating," Edward threw in.
"For what?"
Here, Bella smirked. "Emmett took all her panties and made them crotchless."
As Jasper was stifling a guffaw, Carlisle came up behind the two of them, a frown on his face. "Again?" he asked disdainfully.
Edward nodded. "Again. They haven't broken anything yet though."
He spoke too soon. The second the words left his mouth, Emmett picked up a beautiful Tiffany vase from the buffet and tossed it at Rosalie, missing her head by an inch – purposefully, they all knew. Emmett was angry with Rose, to be sure, but he'd never intentionally hurt her. Rosalie was another story. She picked up a handful of rocks Esme had placed around a bamboo plant and began pelting them at Emmett's body, hitting his arms and chest with deadly accuracy.
"Can you stop them, you think?" Carlisle asked, his eyes meeting Jasper's.
"I can try," he offered. Lately, his skill with them had been lessening. Whether it was from overuse or the fact that they were just too angry, he didn't know, but it was worth another shot. He concentrated heavily, channeling their anger into himself and sending it back out as waves of calm, waves that seemed to slow Emmett down but had no affect on Rosalie, who had now moved onto throwing the stalks of bamboo themselves.
"Rosalie, really," Carlisle beseeched, "this all has to stop."
"Stop? You want me to stop? Make him stop!" She was sounding like a petulant child, but, by the looks of it, obviously didn't care as she started tossing anything within reach, Emmett's forced calm making him an easy target. The most he could do was catch each item and throw it to the ground, letting it shatter at his feet rather than being angrily tossed back at her. After the rocks and bamboo, he broke everything she hurled, including the small sculptures and vases of flowers and a padded ottoman and –
A thundering of feet on the stairs took Jasper's attention for just a second, small feet making such a big noise as Alice raced into the room, her face filled with upset and terror.
"No, don't!" Alice managed to shout – just as Rosalie grabbed the next thing within reach…a large wooden cross. The cross that had decorated every house they had ever lived in. The cross Carlisle's human father had made with his own two hands so long ago.
It seemed to fly across the room in slow motion, Rosalie's face too irate to realize what she had done and Emmett much too stubborn to hesitate catching it and cracking it in his strong hands, splintering it into two pieces. Only after it had broken did either of them stop to look and actually understand their destruction. Emmett was too aghast to say anything. He just tried lamely to put the pieces back together as Rosalie gave a sputtering, insufficient apology.
"Oh, Carlisle, I'm so, so sorry," she mumbled, her yellow eyes wide and her face even paler than normal. Jasper glanced to his left where his father stood, the anger that poured off of him no doubt felt by every single person in the room, empathic or non.
Rosalie was still babbling on, unaware of the fury bubbling up inside Carlisle, growing more and more with each passing second. "Really, I'll fix it, we'll get –"
"Enough!" Carlisle thundered. His eyes were blazing black and his voice was like none Jasper had ever heard come from the continually calm man. Everyone in the room froze, Alice on the stairs, Rosalie and Emmett near the loveseat, and himself, Bella, and Edward in the door just a foot away from his quivering frame. No one dared to speak at the patriarch let out a stream of harsh words such as he never had before.
"That is enough! What you two are doing is ruining this house and this family!" He turned to Rosalie and fixed her with a stare. "You need to stop the dramatics." He turned and did the same to Emmett. "And you need to quit being childish. I am sick and tired of all this foolishness causing everyone pain. Do you stop to think about what you're doing to your brothers and sisters? Your mother? Me?"
Emmett and Rosalie both hung their heads, ashamed.
"No, you don't," Carlisle went on. "All you think about is yourselves, something we've never done in this family. And if you begin to break off without thinking of others, soon we'll all fall apart. You are both causing us all so much destruction and heartache that if you cannot get your act together, I will not hesitate to throw the both of you out."
Every pair of eyes in the room widened, hearing the truth in his words, and every pair followed him as he stalked up to Emmett, wrenching the broken shards of his father's cross from his hands. Carlisle paused, his eyes mournful as he stared over the pieces, before walking up the stairs, brushing past Alice, and going into his room, slamming the door behind him.
The room was quiet, and the air was a mixture of anger and sadness and shock that coursed through Jasper twofold. No one spoke, no one moved, until Emmett opened his mouth.
"Way to go, Rose," he muttered, kicking at the pile of broken wood and glass at his feet.
"Me?" she cried. "I'm not the one who broke the cross."
Perhaps it was the empathy. Perhaps it was because, beside Carlisle, he was the oldest. Perhaps he was just fed up. Either way, Jasper found himself shouting next, "Will you both just shut up?"
Again, the two of them were quiet, this time watching as he stalked up the stairs, his jaw set tensely as he tried to ignore the barrage of feelings coming from every square inch of the house. It was driving him insane, this constant pulling and pushing of emotion. First Carlisle and Esme were calm and then they were at their wits end. Bella and Edward were mad at each other and then they were back to being fine. Rosalie and Emmett either hated each others guts or were fucking like animals. And Alice, heaven bless her, was trying so hard not to mention anything that all her feelings were stored up inside like a champagne bottle that had been shaken and was ready to explode – which was just about how he was feeling soaking all those sensations in.
By the time he had gotten to the bedroom, he had nearly made up his mind on what he had to do. Leaving was something he had done a few times before, either in spurts lasting a few days or a few months. Each time it had helped to clear his head, to set him straight. Only thing was, he had come back every other time…and if things didn't get better around here, he couldn't see himself doing that again. There was, however, something he hoped would be different.
"Going away again?"
Alice was poised in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, her face soft and sad and only slightly disappointed. Jasper gave a tight little nod and watched as she silently moved to the closet, coming out a moment later with an armful of his shirts and pants, placing them on the bed, and pulling one of her antique Louis Vuitton trunks from under the bed.
"Here, fold those and put them in," she said, pointing to his clothes before disappearing back into the closet and walking out with another pile of clothing, lying them on the bed next to his before again going back to the closet. Automatically, Jasper reached for the next article to fold – but stopped when it wasn't the cotton button-up shirt he expected it to be. Instead, his hand had closed around a floor-length dress made of filmy, chocolate-colored fabric – Alice's dress, one she hadn't even worn yet, by the look of the tags still on it. He glanced up and found her staring at him from the closet, a pile of red-soled high heels in her hands.
"You didn't think I was letting you go alone, did you?" she asked with a smile – a slightly sad smile, but a smile nonetheless. Jasper smiled too, coming over to where she stood and wrapping his arms around her, shoes and all, grateful for the billionth time in his existence that she was present in it.
