Chapter Eleven

I was alone when I awoke the next morning. But I was alone and tucked into my warm bed with Manhattan at my side; there was no sign of the brother who had just saved my life in that dark alley.

The previous night seemed so impossible that it might not have happened at all. The only evidence was the aching soreness in my every limb and the letter propped up against the photograph on the nightstand. The letter had my name written across the front in the same elegant hand as my birthday note.

Dear Emily—

I'm afraid that perhaps I've made this life harder on you than it needs to be or than I meant to. I had hoped that I would be able to just walk away from the life I knew, but I cling to it as desperately as you do. There are too many memories, yours and mine combined, remaining with me; I spend too many of my days reliving these memories, which are almost as painful as watching you drown in your grief.

Please, my dearest sister, forget me. Forget me, forget your grief, and move on with your life. I don't deserve the tears you shed for me, and you don't deserve the heartache I've caused you. So, although you will probably fight me on this, please just go on like I had never left. Find a respectable husband, perhaps a young soldier returning home from the Great War and hoping to forget the horrors he's seen in France; raise a family to replace the one you've lost, name your son Edward, your daughter Elizabeth.

Soon, your memories of me will fade. That much I can promise you. But my memories of you will never fade. I could never forget the warm, loving girl I was and am still proud to call my sister. All I ask of her is to forget me and never wander alone at night again. An angel won't always be there to protect her.

Your loving brother,

Edward

I broke into tears again. I would never forget Edward, even if his angel's face had been there in front of me to beg. He had been my best friend yet my older (although only by an hour), protective brother; no girl in Chicago could have asked for a better brother, and no girl could have forgotten that brother, even if he'd asked it of her.

That afternoon, when my tears had dried, I went back to the house my father had bought just two years before Edward and I were born. It had snowed sometime during the night, and daily life continued, so these city streets held no fear for me now.

Hardwicke Avenue in the daylight was just as I'd remembered it, even after over a year later. The neighborhood children were another year older, just as I was, but they still played raucously in the street, the air echoing with their peals of laughter as they threw snowballs back and forth. I even saw the young, ebony-haired girl that my mother had watched over until the girl's widowed father came home every evening.

Sarah recognized me instantly and cried aloud, "Emily!" She skipped through the snow to me, bringing several kids with her, and threw her arms excitedly around me. Looking up at me with her wide, brown eyes, she said, "I never thought you'd come back. Father said you would never come back, not after what happened to everyone. But I waited and waited because I knew you'd come back someday." I could manage only a weak smile that didn't reach my heart.

"Emily?" I looked up at the familiar voice. Mrs. Benson, who lived four houses down the street and who had been Edward's and my piano instructor, had also drawn near several steps behind the neighborhood children. I gently pried Sarah from my skirts and rushed into Mrs. Benson's arms. She clasped me close for a moment, then pushed me away gently, and said, "I'm so glad to see you here again. Nothing's been the same without you." Her kind, smiling eyes were looking into mine as she asked me quietly, ""How are you holding up, dear?"

What could I tell her? The unbelievable truth? That my brother, who had been dead a year, had saved my life last night and singlehandedly killed eight grown men, each one at least twice his age? That my brother was supposed to be just as dead as my parents? That I had come here, hoping to find any evidence of the brother I may or may not have lost to the Spanish influenza?

So I lied to her. "Oh, it's been hard," I replied, casting my eyes to the ground. "I miss them every day. But I'm getting better; I don't spend every night crying."

Sadness flitted across Mrs. Benson's lined brow. She murmured, "I'm sorry, Emily. I wouldn't expect you to forget your parents and brother so easily. But if you don't mind me asking, what's helped you the most?"

Oh, what was one more lie? I let a small smile flicker across my lips as Dr. Cullen's face slipped into my mind. "Truthfully," (I flinched internally at using the word in such a lie,) "Carlisle helps a lot. He's a great comfort to me."

"Carlisle?" Mrs. Benson queried, her brow furrowing in slight confusion. "As in Dr. Cullen from the hospital?"

I nodded. "Actually," I lied again, "we've been engaged for several weeks now." Surely I would be damned for all these lies.

Her smile was more dazzling than the snow glistening on the sidewalk. "Such a handsome, nice young man," she murmured fondly, "and a doctor no less. He'll take good care of you." Her smile slipped a little. "But I haven't heard anything of the engagement from anyone."

The slight look of suspicion in her eyes made me know exactly what she was thinking. I saw how her eyes casually flitted to my stomach, checking if I might have been hiding something. In our society, there was only one reason to keep an engagement secret, and it would have caused quite a scandal.

"Oh, Carlisle's been so busy down at the hospital that I hardly see him," I explained lightly. "And we're moving to Philadelphia just after New Year's to be with his family. We've decided to put off the wedding until we've had time to settle in." I hoped that would quiet the gossiping whispers, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. I was never coming back, and neither was Dr. Cullen.

Sighing, I said, "Well, I should be going. I promised Carlisle I would meet him at the hospital when his shift was over. I was so glad to see you again, Mrs. Benson." I embraced her and turned to leave, pausing to saying goodbye to Sarah and the other children who knew me.

Mrs. Benson's voice still had a trace of suspicion as she called after me, "Well, take care, dear! Congratulations on catching the most attractive man in Chicago!"

I waved vaguely over my shoulder and returned to Aunt Sophia's house. There, I sat at my window and wondered what I had come to. I had just given one of my mother's closest friends a ridiculous web of lies that I was going to move to Philadelphia with and then marry Dr. Carlisle Cullen, a story that was sure to start rumors. Surely, I thought, I was losing my sanity with each passing day; I should have checked myself into the asylum.

And I probably would have if I had survived the next two weeks.