Chapter Summary: Well, I guess Edward really didn't need to say anything, now did he? As if he could get a word in edgewise anyway.
"Good evening, Cullen residence, Esme speaking, may I help you?"
Do you ever notice how people answer the phone these days? Is it anything like how Esme answers the phone? I try to tell her she's supposed to say: "Yeah?" so it won't blow our cover. I've even tried roll play.
'Ring-ring,' I'd say, then I'd tell her, 'Now you grunt a disinterested yeah, okay, Esme?'
She just looked at me like I was some garden gnome.
So much for our cover, but Edward was from the same era:
"Esme," he said. "It's Edward."
That would be the pliocene era. I told them to get with it. And Esme and Edward were many things, but one thing they were not was with it.
But I was taken right out of my rumination by Jasper.
"What's wrong with Edward?" Jasper asked.
I was confused. Edward was on the East Coast. There was no way Jasper could feel Edward's ambivalence at his predicament, and there was no way to pick up anything other than Edward's detached (feigned) calmness.
"What do you mean?" I whispered at the same time Esme said in the same voice she used to answer the phone that Edward had just used.
"Hello, Edward, what a pleasant surprise!" ... for somebody who had been waiting for his phone call all semester ... "How are you?"
But she spoke very, very slowly and very, very loudly ... for vampires.
She responded to Edward in Edward's pitch and speed, because Edward was speaking at human speed.
There was only one reason to do this, and the only reason up to now was Bella. Bella hadn't yet arrived in Forks.
Everybody knew something was up.
"Esme," Edward breathed out a quiet sigh, "I'm fine. Look, Esme," Edward's voice got quieter but there was a frantic edge to it, "there's something I need tell ..."
"Who's Esme?" a groggy voice called out from the phone earpiece ...
A female voice.
"Who is that?" Jasper asked me in surprise.
"Edward, who is that?" Esme's voice became protective-mother dangerous.
"That is ..." Edward began embarrassedly, but again he was interrupted.
"I thought your LDR heart-breaker's name was Bella; I didn't know I have more competition! You holdin' out on me, Edward?"
'Southern hick' overlaid the slurred, loud voice.
"'LDR'?" Jasper asked me in confusion.
So I spoke loudly for all interested ears, which would be every ear in the house.
"'Long Distance Relationship'" I said, then scrunched deeper into Jasper, covering my head with my arms. I had just painted a big red target on myself with my ooh-I'm-so-helpful assistance that said I had foreseen this ... and not shared with everyone in the class.
"Hmmm," Jasper and Esme hummed disapprovingly and simultaneously.
Edward, not picking up my murmur through the phone line didn't comment, because he was otherwise engaged.
"Esme," he said in annoyed disapproval, "is my mother."
"Huh," the voice answered disbelievingly at the same time that Esme cleared her throat.
"Edward, answer the question," she said in a voice that brooked no further delay.
Do mothers get that voice when they graduate mother school? I wondered as an aside.
"That would be Paige," Edward answered, in the lost voice. That was a voice one didn't hear all that often from Edward.
"Edward," Esme was working on her control, "it's ten o'clock here."
"I'm aware of the time, Esme," Edward said quietly.
"You call your mother Esme?" Paige's voice was nettled. "Is that how it is for you rich folks?"
"Edward, that means it's one a.m. there," Esme was losing the fight on maintaining her control, and Paige's comments weren't helping.
"Yes," Edward responded tightly, but added apologetically in a buzz of words only we could hear, ... and Paige couldn't. "I thought she would remain asleep. I was mistaken; I apologize for the abrupt introduction."
And even if she did manage to hear them, she wouldn't have been able to process them into words or to know what they said or meant. The human brain functioned so much more slowly than the vampire mind ... for us, a second really can and does stretch out to eternity.
"Edward," Esme said, very tightly, back.
His comment was meant to diffuse the situation.
But think about it (I have as I considered the alternatives spiraling out before me) ... telling your mother you've got a girl in your dorm room she knows nothing about and that you were not planning on telling her if she stayed asleep?
"What is this ... girl ... doing ..." Esme annunciated each word with slow, powerful attention, "in your room at one o'clock in the morning ... besides sleeping?"
I could just hear Esme's jaw working, as she could not allow her hand holding the receiver to do, that is if she still wished to continue the conversation.
I'm not all that sure she was all that sure she did.
Edward blew out a long sigh. "Esme," again speaking at human speed, "it's not what you think ... Paige had brought me to her sorority, and she had drunk rather more than she should have, and I felt it my duty to ..."
"Edward, han' me the dam' phone!" Paige almost snarled at him with impatience.
Here it came: the train wreck named Paige, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
You think seeing the future is a blessing? A 'neat' superpower to have? Well, you see what I see the last couple of years and let's see where it lands you.
No, I'll tell you were it lands you, because I know. It'd land you in the asylum. Exactly where it landed me, with the shaved head and the shock treatments that burned every single living thought from my mind, so I would just shut up and quit babbling those uncomfortable things that consistently came true.
Have I thanked God for Jasper and the Cullens today?
No, I haven't.
Thank you, God, for the Cullens and my Jasper.
My Jasper said, "Uh oh," feeling my dread, and probably sensing it had to do with Paige.
And he did exactly what I love him for, he kissed the crown of my head and crushed me in his powerful embrace, giving me the comfort that only he can.
A rustling of sheets and padded footsteps of bare feet on the tile over concrete floors through that damned modern phone that just shares much too much information confirmed for us all what Edward had admitted: Paige was sleeping in his bed.
I didn't have to wonder what she was (or wasn't) wearing — Edward's decisions at that those junctures as to what to remove were glaringly clear — but I'm sure the rest of my family was.
"So, Esme," Paige's nonchalant voice began.
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, call her Mrs. Cullen!" Edward's strangled voice whined, trying to preserve that last shred of dignity.
Hear that sound? The sound of Esme's grinding teeth? That is the sound of the last shred of Edward's dignity being lost.
"Oh, old school, 'kay, ..." we could hear Paige trying to readjust her approach. "So, Mrs. Cullen, right?"
"Yes," Mrs. Cullen answered tightly.
"Edward's mooommmm, right?"
Silence.
"Well, I'm sure you're worrying about your baby's virtue, ..." Paige waited at beat then sighed. 'You're whole family's an uptight bunch,' she muttered in a voice that she believed she thought to be soto voce.
Who is that little vampire in Jasper's arms cringing? Why, that would be me, now, wouldn't it?
"Well," she continued relentlessly, "I'm sorry to report that your beloved son, Edward, has been a perfect gentleman. His virtue is still intact from the scary upperclassman ... classwoman."
Grinding teeth.
"Paige, is it?" Esme responded tightly, "Actually, I was concerned for yours."
A chuckle from the other end of the line.
"Well, 'concern' yourself no more, honey," came the uncaring — almost sarcastic —reply, "because that's not something I've had to worry about since I was thirteen."
This was a day for my family to get with it with the TLAs (three letter acronyms). First it was LDR, and now it's TMI.
'Too much information.'
Unfortuately, for Esme, the school teacher who had been teaching girls at the age when Paige lost her virtue, the information flow was just beginning.
"Oh, God!" we heard the sound of a hand smacking a perfected forehead and then brushing through unruly bronze hair. "Paige, may I please speak to Esme for a moment?"
"No," came Paige's absolute reply.
"Look, Mrs. Cullen, I don't know what your family's deal is, but a pretty rich boy not going home over Christmas break? Pretty rich uptight virgin boy? I'm not buying that story that he can't afford plane tickets when he wears a different preppy-boy shirt every day with that cologne ..."
I was pleased, when I checked up on him from time to time, that Edward didn't neglect himself and go for the grunge college boy look.
"A college boy wearing cologne? Only one kind of college boy wears cologne ..."
Train-wreck Paige couldn't be stopped.
"That is, no college boys! You ever smell the boys around here?"
I had, not at Virginia Tech specifically, but no matter which college they came from, they all smelled delicious to me.
"A boy only wears that smell when he's on the hunt, and Eddiekins wears it all the time, but he's so wound tight, well, ..."
Paige paused, looking for words. She couldn't find any.
"And he's definitely not gay, because my guy-friends are batting zero on that scorecard, too, and not for lack of tryin' ... and he's coming off a broken heart with no angling for sympathy sex, with me right here saying, 'com'n git your sympathy sex, hot stuff'? What kinda boy you raising?" She demanded.
"A proper boy," Edward interjected, defending Esme from Paige's onslaught.
We heard a hand go over the receiver. "Properly fucked up!" Paige's voice was loud enough that even if we were human, we would have heard her voice through her hand. "This isn't the 1950s anymore, Wally Cleaver."
Actually, the 1950s had a rather more, erhm, modern view than how both Edward and Esme saw things.
"Look, ..." Paige spoke again into the receiver again.
Esme's cold voice stopped her.
"What's this about Edward not coming home over Christmas break?" she demanded imperiously.
I was kind of hoping that Esme would miss that little detail in the repeated shocks Paige delivered so that Edward could have — prior to this mess — delivered the news a bit more gently.
"What, he didn't tell you?" Paige sounded just as surprised. "Well, Jesus fuck-me-runnin' Christ, I thought mama's boy was more out of diapers that this ... what, you got him so scared to death of you he can't even tell his own mom — oh, I'm sorry," here she didn't even bother to hide her sarcasm, "his own Esme that he doesn't want to go home to a loveless family over Christmas break? At least he'll get Southern Comfort ... both kinds if he wants ... from my family. At least, in our family, we talk. My family supports me, no matter what my major may be, or where I go to school, or whatever. My family loves me."
I heard Esme take one slow breath. Then another one.
"I ... we all love Edward, and he knows that." Esme spoke very slowly, as if to an addled child. Or as to a drunken college sorority girl angling for sympathy sex from her Eddiekins.
"Oh, yeah!" Paige defied, undaunted. "And he calls you 'Esme,' huh? Not 'mom'?"
"He's called me 'mom' ..." Esme said hesitantly.
"Uh huh," Paige said unconvinced into the receiver, then, away from the phone, but not bothering to soften or muffle her voice, called out, "Edward, how many times have you ever called Esme 'mom'?"
A slight pause of regret, then a whispered "Once" answered her question.
I swallowed. I remembered the date and the event where he did. It was when Bella and I returned to Atlanta after snatching Edward from the maw of destruction that is the Volturi.
"Huh," said Paige forcefully, "you know, stand-offish proper manners and all that shit is really just a disguise for what it is. But I could be wrong, I guess."
Paige wasn't guessing anything right now.
"So, tell me, Edward knows you love him how? When's the last time you told him this? Tell me the last time you told Edward, 'I love you,' huh, Esme?"
Silence.
I realized, with shock, that loving, compassionate Esme had never told any of us that she loved us. It was understood that she does. It was implied in her every look and action and word.
But she had never said it.
And, yes, we knew she lost her baby, and we understood we were so vital for her, and we understood that was still hard for her, even now, to get close to anyone, because of that terror of losing that person, but ...
But Esme had never told any of us that she loves us.
Paige continued cruelly, "At the airport, perhaps? When you were sending off your darlin' son all the way across the country for his first big adventure starting off as a frosh in college?"
Esme whispered fervently, "He knows I love him. I love him with all that I am."
"Uh huh." Paige was merciless. "Well, why don't the next time you think that, you tell him, huh? Maybe he wouldn't have been so fucked up if he got a little more love at home."
Esme had finally lost her cool, but her cold tone didn't betray her: "Unlike you?"
Even if her words did. She would have never said that otherwise.
"Yeah!" Paige answered defiantly, "unlike me! I'm not the mommy's boy with the stick stuck so far up his ass he can't even lose his virginity to oh-she's-so-perfect girlfriend number one — his first girlfriend he got just graduating high school? — nor crack a smile that isn't so wry that you could start your own brewery."
I whispered to nobody in particular, "I think she's confusing wry and rye."
Then I buried myself back into my Jasper, grimacing. Me. Big mouth. More trouble.
Paige would have continued even if she heard me. "The thing about mommy's boys? Besides being a major pain in the ass? So you're welcome for giving me this pretty-boy fixer-upper over Christmas break? Is that they're not drowning in mommy's love, they're that way because controlling, possessive mommy withholds her love."
Paige had really paid attention in Psych 101. I rolled my eyes at my own sarcastic thoughts.
"So, instead of sulking in his dinky dank dorm room like Mr oh-I'm-not-emo was planning, he's gonna be spending in Radford with my family where at the very least he'll get good, plain, honest all-american organically raised beef and free range chicken eggs, and goddam real love and affection that he's been missing all his ..."
"I'm a vegetarian," Edward muttered his out helplessly.
It was helpless against Mac-truck Paige. "Not anymore you are, buddy, you need some red meat in you to thicken your blood! No wonder you look so pale! You look like what you eat, tofu-head. You know ..." Paige turned her attention back to the receiver.
And then she made a snap decision. I stiffened and held my breath in anticipation.
"I oughta go to your place for Christmas break, it sounds like your whole family needs a good uptight flushing, and Paige here is the girl to give it ..." Paige paused again, and I relaxed, just a little bit, in the pause.
"Nah," she said, "one major project at a time, but I tell you what, Mrs. Cullen, ..."
"Paige," Esme said in a very, very controlled voice, "may I please speak with Edward?"
A pause.
"Hokay," Paige breathed out deferentially, "um ..."
We heard the sound of the phone being gently taken out of the grasp of a living human's hand. We heard footsteps, as we could not hear Edward's silent ones, return to the bed, and a loud thump of a little girl sitting heavily on a college dorm twin bed.
"Fuck," we heard her mutter. "Fucking A-plus, Paige. Great first impression with the mom of the boy you have the hots for."
It sounded like Paige got a very clear message that Esme was sending.
And it was clear to all that Paige had the 'hots' for Edward, but this wasn't a girl who just had the 'hots' for Edward.
"Esme ..." Edward's voice came out slowly across the line.
"Farmer-girl Paige." Esme said just as slowly.
"Yes, her family appears to be bicentennialers, but ..."
"Hey," came an angry voice who recognized Edward's coded term, "there's nothing wrong with being farmers! Hell, America was founded on farming, for crying out loud! Besides, I wanna go into medicine, ya know? Pediatrics, 'cause I love kids, ya know, ... and ya know, I love making them, Edward, hint, hint, practice now, hint?"
Another pause. I could just see Edward regarding Paige in silence.
A loud thump announced Paige's head hitting Edward's pillow.
"Oh, shit! I fucking did it again!" Paige lamented. A whisper of movement and then Paige's muffled voice from beneath the pillow. "I blame the Jägermeister!"
"German?" Esme asked, shocked, into the phone.
German. Yes. German Paige. Just like German Bella Swan. Not Italian Bella Swan as a certain big brother of mine jokingly mistook her for.
Or, at least I hope it was a joking mistake.
"They call them 'Dutch' here. Yes," Edward confirmed, "Paige is Dutch, but this ... this thing isn't ..."
"Edward," Esme cut him off, "I think — or I hope — Paige is learning the value of silence, so perhaps you could benefit from the same lesson?"
This was the first time — ever — that I heard even a hint of reprobation in Esme's voice toward anything Edward had said.
"Yes, Esme," Edward answered, chastised.
"And I'm to understand that you will be spending Christmas break at Paige's family, not here?" Esme asked, just as firmly, disapproval coloring her voice.
"Yes, Esme, I'll be at the Morgan's."
"And you will tell me how this all came to be?" Esme demanded.
"Suffice it to say," Edward began quietly, but I could almost hear the smile in his voice.
I noticed that this was first time, in a long time, that Edward was being honestly amused about something.
"... that Paige has a rather convincing approach to persuasion, and also is rather persistent in not accepting answers she doesn't wish to entertain."
"You could have told her you were coming home, Edward," Esme said, reproachfully. "That would have convinced anyone to leave off the persuasion until at least after Christmas break."
"Yes, Esme, I could have told her I was coming home ..." Edward grew silent for a second. "If it were true, but, like I said, Paige was prepared to camp outside my door, shadowing me, because she did for weeks, and was prepared to escort me to the airport, so I didn't really have a ready ..."
"'For weeks'?" Esme asked incredulously.
Edward was quiet.
Me? Not one peep.
"Edward?" Esme's voice sounded betrayed.
Silence on the other end of the line.
Esme sighed. "I'd like to speak to Paige again, please."
"Yes, Esme, of course." But Edward's voice was reluctant.
"Edward?" Esme said quickly.
"You don't have to say it, Esme; I already know." Edward said sadly.
"Do you now?" Esme sounded unconvinced.
Edward whispered, "I don't have to have the ability to read your mind to know in which direction your thoughts tend, Esme." Then in a normal speaking voice, "We've know each other long enough, you and I, to leave the unsaid things unsaid. Here's Paige."
"Edward!" Esme demanded at the same time Paige said away from the phone, "What? No way! Can't you tell her I'm asleep or puking or something?"
Edward ignored Paige's obvious gaff and sighed into the phone, but said obediently, "Yes, Esme?"
"I love you, my s-... my son. I love you."
We heard the brush of the phone against stone: Edward nodding.
The phone was handed off.
"Um, hi?" the girl now sounded entirely cowed.
"Paige Morgan," Esme's voice caressed the syllables thoughtfully.
"Yeah ...?" Paige asked confused.
"It's a good name," Esme concluded decisively. "It sounds filled both with light and with confidence."
"Um, thanks, Mrs. Cullen. Um, and can I say, like, um, I'm really sor-..."
"Paige," Esme interrupted firmly, "shhh."
Paige shushed.
"Paige, I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer it truthfully, okay?"
"Um, was that the question?" Paige asked meekly.
"No," Esme said coolly, "this is. Did you mean the things you said?"
"Mrs. Cullen, I'm sorry, and I'm really, um, drunk, and ..." Paige began.
"Paige," Esme silenced the girl. "I didn't ask that question; please answer the question I did ask. Did you mean the things you said?"
"Um," Paige said weakly, "which parts?"
"I think," Esme said coolly, but there was a touch of kindness in her voice, "that I'll take that as a 'yes.' Given this be the case, I'll be picking you and Edward up at the airport in Virginia at Spring Break. I'll fly you out here, and we can talk about ... things."
"Um, ..." Paige was rendered speechless.
"Paige?" Esme pressed.
"Yes, Mrs. Cullen?"
"You've been seeing Edward for weeks?"
"Yeah, sorta ..." then Paige explained: "I mean, hanging out, you know? I took pity on the lost puppy dog look, and, well, I mean, he's kinda, you know, ..."
Paige's explanation rather withered in the thoughtful silence.
"So," Esme said quietly, "I don't need to tell you his situation, and I don't need to say for you to take care of my Edward, because you have been, haven't you?"
"Um," Paige stuttered, "I think it depends on how you mean 'take care of him,' Mrs. Cullen ..."
"I think if we are not going to be shouting at each other and instead are going to be conversing with each other we can try 'Esme' again, Paige, if you are willing?"
"Oh, shit, I think I just peed!" cried a disbelieving Paige.
"I beg your pardon?" Esme asked coolly.
"Oh, I mean, um, yeah, that'd be coo-..." Paige started tentatively, but then started again, trying to be more polite: "I mean, yes, please, if it's all right with you, um, ... Esme."
Paige tasted Esme's name carefully as she said it.
"Okay, then," Esme agreed easily. It sounded like she was growing more comfortable with with the girl. "Now, get some sleep, Paige. You, as an aspiring doctor, know the importance of sleep for the body and mind, right?"
"Yes, Mrs Cul-... Esme ..." Here Paige paused for a second. "You could tell your son that, too, ... he really looks like he could use a good night's sleep, you know."
"You are the mothering type, aren't you, Paige." Esme sounded surprised and pleased.
"Yeah, well, sorta, I guess," Paige answered humbly. "Um, did you want to say goodnight to Edward?"
"Yes, thank you, Paige, and good night." Esme said kindly.
Edward returned to the phone: "Esme."
"What are you going to do with the meal situation?" Esme's voice was now businesslike.
"What I can do, Esme," Edward replied fatalistically, "Eat the ones I must and avoid the ones I can."
"Which would be none of them, buster!" A voice floated out of the phone on our side. "'Cause I'll be watching you like a hawk!"
Edward sighed.
"Edward," Esme said carefully, "what is this all about?"
"Paige is a nice ... and persistent girl, Esme." I could almost hear Edward's shrug.
"You got that right, buddy!" the voice confirmed strongly, but then added as an afterthought: "well, persistent, anyway."
Esme ignored Paige's comment. "A nice and persistent human girl, ... that you don't love?"
Edward was quiet for a second, then said: "You know whom I love, but ... well."
"Jeez, Edward! I'm not deaf! She's moved on, hasn't she? So you move on, already, too! Or," then Paige's voice became a whisper, "better yet, don't move on and come to bed."
We heard patting sounds, and then her voice became pleading and playful, "I kept a spot warm for you ... I'll help you forget her for a while, at least, huh?"
Paige, of course, didn't realize that we heard her every word.
"... but she loves you." Esme summarized the obvious, that is, 'obvious' from Esme's view of the world.
Edward was silent.
"And you, Edward," Esme continued relentlessly, "enjoy her company, for whatever reason, enough to rescue her from a drunken revelry and bring her to your room ... after weeks of not throwing her out by her ear."
There was a thought-filled pause on the other end.
"Do you hear her thoughts, Edward?" Esme demanded.
"Esme, please ..." Edward pleaded, "Please don't compare one person to another. B-..." Edward didn't bring himself to say the name that he probably thought all the time. He continued down a different path: "Paige is herself. That I can hear her thoughts ... or not ... shouldn't matter nor be important to who she is."
Edward obviously added in the 'or not' in an attempt to cover that he did, indeed, hear the cacophony, the confused muddle of sights and sounds and tastes and feels and the thoughts they generated in the small human frame in his very room.
But I saw the signature reactions cross Edward's face, even thought they were too subtle for Paige to discern, when Paige was quiet ... and when Paige was ... not so quiet.
"'Paige is herself.' Hm." Esme paused thoughtfully, then seemed to change topics without preable: "Emmett is coming down from Denali to visit for Christmas break," Esme concluded. "Would you like him to give you a call while he's here?"
"Yes, Esme," Edward replied, "that would be nice."
"Good," Esme said forcefully, "then I'll see you and Paige at Spring Break."
"Will ... will ..."
Edward's voice was crestfallen. He couldn't complete the question, but we all knew what he was asking.
"Edward," Esme said firmly, "it doesn't matter if she's here, or who is here for that matter. You are going to see her again sooner or later, and six months is already too long for me not to see you. I hope she is here for Spring Break. Bella," Esme emphasized her name, "is family, and I love her, too, Edward. I love her as I love you."
"I... Esme, I don't kn-..."
"Shhh!" Esme hissed. "I'll see you at Spring Break, and Paige, too."
Edward sighed, defeated. "Yes, Esme, Spring Break."
"And I assume from the lack of side comments that Paige is now asleep in your bed?" Esme asked.
'Mom' Esme just had to add the obvious 'in your bed' to the question, didn't she?
"Yes," Edward answered tensely.
"Then I'll bid you good night, Edward," Esme said formally.
"Good night, Esme ..." Edward was quiet for a second. "You do know that ..."
"Yes, Edward," Esme sighed. "It's hard to say, isn't it? I love you, too. Good night."
Esme quietly put the phone receiver down.
See that? Did you see that?
That is why Esme is our mother, see? Because she always manages to catch us red-handed, but then has that word of advice or that ineffable something that solves or resolves the situation for her children in a way that only she could have seen or thought of.
Of course Edward and Emmett are in the same situation, but Emmett has been at Denali for six months with Tanya. He doesn't love Tanya; he loves Rosalie, and well, last I checked, Tanya doesn't love him, either, but they like each other and enjoy each other's company and give each other comfort ... sexually and otherwise.
Edward would never think to ask Emmett because Edward's problems are always Edward's problems, and nobody else's, to be burdened with.
And what about me, seeing this situation evolve from Paige's awkward yet determined greeting to mopey and distant Edward to Edward gallantly rescuing the drunk Paige by putting her into his bed? Did I think of the obvious help one brother could give to another?
Well, 'obvious' after Esme's recommendation made it so?
Esme is a mother to us, and not just because she loves us to death, but it's also because her every moment is thinking of us as her children, and thinking what would be best for us, and how she could make the best happen for her children, no matter into what foolish and childish situation we put ourselves.
And did you see how she handled Paige? Esme's definitely not a doormat: she drew a very clear line for the girl, but then, she didn't crush her, and she didn't get all 'I'm the mother, and you're my son's girlfriend who so obviously comes up short.' No, she took what Paige said, no matter that it was delivered in a way she didn't expect and wasn't accustomed to, and she said, 'let's talk.'
How many mothers would give their son's oh-yeah-I-have-a-new-girlfriend-in-my-dormroom-at-one-a.m. the second chance that Esme did?
A knock at our door interrupted my glowing reflection of Esme.
"Jasper, Alice, are you decent?" The not glowing-reflection-of Esme, but the real, honest-to-goodness Esme waited for our reply.
See, I had been so dreading how the phone call from Edward, and the developments I had seen there, would affect Esme that I didn't look a bit further to see how the affected Esme would affect me.
That future was right now, and I didn't have to be a seer to see the upcoming mother-daughter talk wasn't going to be pleasant.
I sighed, accepting the coming well-deserved drubbings for not telling the mom everything that her darling boy was experiencing so she could go into the phone conversation forewarned.
Jasper held me tightly and almost growled toward the door. I felt animosity and protectiveness thicken the air around us. But I didn't need to be keyed up for the coming conversation.
I patted Jasper's arm affectionately.
"It's okay, Jas," I told my honey-haired honey ruefully, "I was the one who wanted to be in the Cullen family that I'd do anything for it, so now, here's one of the anythings: a nice chat with Esme."
"As long as she's nice," he growled into my ear.
Jasper always felt a little bit the outsider, and he didn't mind putting himself between me and anybody or anything else ... even if it were 'mom.'
But Esme's not my 'mom' ... she is my mom, no quotes. No, she's more than that. My own real mother abandoned and forgot me, ... probably gratefully, too.
Esme loves me. Forever.
Even when she's angrily waiting outside my door to tear me a new one for holding back on her.
I sighed and blew a raspberry kiss on Jasper's big, strong arm.
'Unwilling' is much too weak a word to describe how Jasper let me go. But he did let me go.
I got up and walked to the door, opening it.
Esme regarded me with narrowed eyes.
"Alice, could we talk in my room for a moment, please?" Esme asked in a very tightly-controlled voice.
I smiled weakly at her, nodded once, and stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind me.
Not looking back.
I hated seeing my Jasper weak, be it with fury or blood lust, or with ... anything. My Jasper was a big, strong, powerful warrior of a man who loved me, and when he was weak, I wanted to be there to comfort him, not to see him wallow in his weakness.
... as he had done before.
And, besides, the chat with Esme couldn't be all that bad ... could it?
I didn't check. I didn't want to know the answer right now.
The pit of my stomach probably felt very much like Paige's did after her cumulative missteps dawned on her alcohol-addled brain.
I didn't have Paige's excuse, however.
Esme led me to her room ... to Carlisle's room ... to my parent's room, closed the door behind us, and went to the center of her domain, turning to face me, and crossed her arms.
"'Paige Morgan'?" Her voice, although quiet and controlled, was both furious and incredulous, and her eyes were dangerous.
I noted to myself that this was the first time I saw how scary Esme could be.
When it comes to family, you don't cross Esme.
I swallowed and nodded. The reminder that I was family too didn't feel all that comforting under her penetrating gaze.
Esme was indeed my mother: her eyes saw everything, and I, her child, had absolutely no maneuvering room now.
I opened my mouth to explain or to apologize.
Or to do both.
[1] New Moon, at the end of ch 21 "Flight" Edward calls Esme 'Mom' after Esme gets right in his face and tells him never to do that to her again. To do what? Well, be Edward and go 'solve' everybody's problems his own way. Oh, well.
[2] Wally Cleaver is an upstanding young man in the 1950s TV series Leave it to Beaver. I only know the TV series by name and reputation.
[3] "Bicentennialers" are family farms that have existed since the American revolution. It's rather a point of pride along the Appalachia, especially with family farms disappearing. Appalachian Farming Life: Memories and Perspectives on Farm Families in Virginia's New River Valley, Mary LaLone, under the auspices of Radford University, Brightside Press, Fairlawn, VA.
[4] "Paige Morgan" also happens to be the name of a wry college girl interested in going into pre-med, who falls for (literally) a handsome prince (of Denmark) named Edvard, who happens to like expensive cars. Of course, "The Prince and Me" is pure-D fiction, whereas this story is the real deal! ... um, yeah ...