Author's Note: The first part of this chapter references characters and moments from "The Esme Chronicles: The Human Years," the first story in "The Esme Chronicles." It is published on this site.
May 1928
Wisconsin
The scent of the air was familiar although I hadn't been in the area in six years. You don't easily forget the way the air smelled and felt the first time you hunt as a vampire. The air that you breathed is imprinted in your nose and on your throat. The foliage was still blooming since it was only spring in Wisconsin. My first hunt had taken place in June, but the air was still familiar with the earth, the trees and the lake.
We had hidden the new Model A off the side of the road in the trees, and were taking the last few miles on foot. If we had driven to our destination late at night, some curtains would no doubt have been peeked through. We wanted our return to go completely unnoticed…well almost completely.
In one hand I gripped my husband's hand. I could feel the metal of his wedding band against my skin. In the other I held a bouquet of flowers we had picked up earlier that I was carrying to its resting place. That was the part that may have been noticed.
When we had returned to Rochester from Denali we had already decided that the stay would be short. Carlisle immediately began looking for his next position. I didn't care where we went, but I had one request of him – apply in areas where there were colleges or universities that would allow me as a woman to study. I didn't need an all women's school. I actually preferred the challenge of co-education. He was thrilled that I was ready to continue my studies.
He was elated when he was offered a position with his alma mater, The University of Pennsylvania, including a teaching tenure. I was happy with moving to Philadelphia because there were numerous schools of higher learning. I didn't expect to get into the prestigious university where Dr. Cullen would be imparting his wisdom upon the doctors of tomorrow. I had applied to six schools in the area including the University of Pennsylvania. I was past application deadlines, but my forged transcripts were relatively accurate for what I had achieved as a schoolgirl. I don't know what Carlisle did, what strings he pulled or lies he told, but I was shocked when I opened the letter with the Quakers seal and found that I was accepted.
Carlisle still owned a home in Philadelphia that was rented out through a property manager. It had been maintained, but it had few renovations over the decades. Carlisle had modern plumbing and electricity installed, but he said that little else has been done but coats of paint. I thought of it as a dream project, and was looking forward to bringing a home built in 1763 back to its former glory.
We only shipped so much from the Rochester house and the rest we sold. I had a feeling that the Philadelphia home would require different furnishings to fit its personality. We were selling the Rochester house as well. The place of such pain when Edward left held no connection for either of us. We knew if Edward wanted to come home he would find us.
We began our journey by car to Philadelphia and we had stops to make along the way. The outskirt of Ashland was on my list.
As we reached the edge of town we could see a singular light in the window of the house Carlisle had brought me home to on the night I died to be reborn. As we quickly departed Ashland in 1921 he had the house put on the market.
"I should have kept it," Carlisle grumbled as we walked by.
"For what purpose?" I asked. "We couldn't live here again any time in the foreseeable future."
"For nostalgia. For our personal history. We may be able to return in a century."
He sounded so reasonable, but I didn't feel his same "nostalgia."
"I'm sure if you are desperate to return here, and want the home again it will come on the market over the next century, but I honestly don't believe there will ever be a time when I would want to live here again. This place may have given me you, but it was also the place where I was driven to my death. The pain is too deep," I whispered. I would need to visit this place, but I wouldn't live here again.
"I'm sorry, Esme, for being so thoughtless of your feelings." I could hear his remorse.
"It's a mixture of emotions. I opened my eyes to you in that house. I awoke from a nightmare to a dream come true, but the nightmare that I left behind was very real."
He pulled me close and kissed my temple. "I'll do everything I can to make sure the nightmares never return."
The moon was nearly full and shed more light on the night than we would have liked, but we were not aborting out mission. We walked on in silence through the town and headed toward the outskirts. His thumb was rubbing over the back of my hand trying to relieve some of my tension as we arrived at our destination. He could be by my side and support me, but there was only so much he could do.
It had been six years, but I remember the exact spot and headed for it. We made our way carefully through the cemetery, not that we would disturb anyone, but respect was to be paid for the dead. I could see a small headstone marking the spot. I hadn't ordered one. There hadn't been time before…
"I took the liberty of having a memorial made. It was the least I could do after taking you away from here so quickly," Carlisle said quietly. I squeezed his hand in a gesture of thanks before letting go to kneel down and place the bouquet at the grave of my son.
The inscription was simple:
Beloved son
Edward Thomas Barstow
Born: June 11, 1921
Died: June 17, 1921
Forever in your mother's heart
It was the perfect remembrance. I reached out and touched the stone before resting my hands on the ground and quietly speaking. I knew he would hear me.
"I'm sorry that I haven't come back to visit you sooner, Edward. I'm sorry that I had to leave you at all, but when you left me I couldn't face a life without you. You made me so happy and I loved you so much. I wish I had gotten more time with you to show you just how much. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about you. I remember your eyes and your hands and the little noises you made. Your smile lit up my life. I wanted so much for you, and I was going to make sure you had the moon.
"I miss you. I'm happy now, but I miss you. I'm re-married to a man that I wish would have been your daddy. He's a good man that loves me and takes care of me and makes me happy in a way that only you ever did. He gave me life after I lost mine with you.
"I won't ever be able to visit you as much as I should or would like to, my darling baby boy. I have a few things from your short time with me like your blanket and your bear. I can still smell you on them. I won't forget you. No matter how long I'm on this earth I will never forget you.
"I love you, Edward, and I hope you are in a better place. I promise you that I will never pass by this place without stopping to see you, but you will always be with me in my heart."
I was out of words, but I was not out of cries. I wept until I couldn't weep anymore. Carlisle stood close by for support, but also let me be. He knew there was only so much he could do, and I had to release the emotions that I had not let out while I was waiting six years for this moment. When the sobs had nearly subsided, he knelt down and wrapped his arms around me. He knew it was now time for comforting. He knew me so well.
"Thank you," I finally choked out.
"That's not necessary, love," he said soothingly. "Thank you for letting me share this moment with you."
"I needed you here," I confirmed.
"I know."
We sat there for another twenty minutes before I finally pulled myself together. I leaned down and kissed the ground. "I love you, Edward." I looked up toward the sky that I shared with my other son. "Watch over my other, Edward, because I love him, too."
I heard the air catch in Carlisle's throat behind me. I grasped his hand that was at my stomach. I slowly got to my feet and turned away. I met my husband's eyes and saw that he felt my pain – all of it.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that out loud," I said taking his cheeks in my palms.
"No, it was…perfect. Thank you for asking for his protection."
I nodded and clenched his hand as we began our journey back to the car. We didn't make it far. There was recent plot that I had ignored before on my singular mission. I glanced at the headstone and froze when I saw "Ida Mason."
I had told Carlisle about what I remembered of Ida during my time here. He recognized the name. She had just passed in March.
He let go of my hand and returned a moment later with a bloom from the bouquet I had laid at Edward's grave. He slipped into my hand. I knelt down once more to say a silent goodbye to my friend and placed the flower on the ground.
She was fading from my memory, but I knew what she had done for me.
I walked away with Carlisle holding me against him. I didn't look anywhere but straight ahead on our journey back to the car. No, I could never live again in the town where pain remained. The only good thing that survived it was forever by my side.
May 1928
Chicago
I had never been to a city as large as Chicago. Columbus, Milwaukee and Minneapolis were all major cities, but there was something more to Chicago. It felt older, more populated and vast. It would be easy to get lost here – to disappear.
"That's it," Carlisle said with a gesture to the stately brownstone on the left. There were no signs of life beyond its windows on an otherwise occupied residential street. He pulled up to the curb, and turned off the engine. I didn't move. I just stared up at the house that once was a home to a lawyer, his wife, and their son.
"Esme?" he asked gently. "We could come back later if you like."
"What would later do? It won't change anything," I said as I opened the door, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Carlisle got out and came around to my side to take my arm.
The evening twilight cast long shadows as we crossed the short distance up the stairs to the front door. Carlisle unlocked the door and ushered me inside. It closed, and the noise of outside faded away. No one had been in there in a while. A layer of dust covered everything.
"Someone's supposed to be coming in to check on the place and clean it every month. I'll have to contact the Masen family attorney to report that the upkeep has not been kept up."
I could smell Edward in the air, but it was different than what I was use to – what I remembered. In the dim early evening light that seeped in around the heavy drapes I could see that the furniture was covered. Most of it hadn't been used in a decade. My eyes passed over the parlor to my left, then down the dark hallway and up the stairs.
Part of me wanted to explore every inch of that house to learn more about the boy who grew up in it. The other part of me felt like I would be desecrating the place by touching anything.
"Esme?" Carlisle questioned. I was sure my frozen state was making him uneasy. He rubbed his palm over my arm. "Edward wouldn't mind us being here. He knew we would have to come here at some point."
"But it's his house," I whispered. I had the strangest feeling.
"And isn't your home his home? It goes both ways, love."
"It feels haunted…by memories."
He chuckled, but there was a slight bitterness in the laugh. "Do you want me stay with you and ward off any ghosts?"
I shook my head. "Attend to what you need to take care of."
He kissed my forehead and said, "His room is the second door at the top of the stairs." I nodded and began ascending the staircase. After a moment's hesitation, he followed me.
I found myself at his door, once again pausing and wondering what I would find behind it. I slid my fingers around the knob, turned it and pushed the door open. I was instantly met with his scent – diluted, but still him. I instinctively took a deep breath filling my lungs with its familiar fragrance.
"His scent changed when he became a vampire. His human scent was still there, but to me his scent was more powerful and more distinct," Carlisle spoke quietly.
I stepped forward, and in the dim light took in the boy's room. On the beige walls I saw a Chicago Cubs pennant and a purple one that proclaimed Northwestern. A Great War recruitment poster hung near a desk with books stacked on it. A full bookcase sat next to the desk. A navy blue comforter covered the bed. On top of the tall dresser sat a few framed photographs. Everything was preserved under a layer of dust, waiting for a teenage boy to come home, but that boy would never return. He was dead and his room was a time capsule.
I took the few steps toward the dresser to see the pictures. Several cufflinks were scattered among the frames, along with a comb, a tin of pomade, two ties, a glass marble, and a baseball. I picked up the picture of the young couple. I knew immediately who they were, but I questioned Carlisle. "Edward, Sr. and Elizabeth?"
"Edward said it was taken at the time of their engagement in 1897."
"They were so young," I said in awe.
"He was twenty-three and she was eighteen."
"He resembles his father more than his mother, but there's something of his mother in him."
"You can't tell here of course, but he had his mother's eyes and her hair color."
"It's the shape of her eyes too. She was beautiful."
"She was," Carlisle agreed.
The question that entered my mind surprised me, but I heard myself asking it. "Why didn't you save her?"
He sounded astounded as he replied, "It never crossed my mind. I had never changed anyone at that time and there she was begging me to save her child. There were so many things that went through my mind that day. She had already lost her husband. She never asked for her own life. She only wanted one thing and that was to save her son."
"But she was so lovely and she knew your secret," I maintained.
"She knew I was something different, but I had never allowed myself to change anyone before. I couldn't give myself permission to do it. She consented to give me her son. She begged me to save him, not her." He sounded apprehensive.
"But she was at that point a widow," I insisted. It would have been so easy for him to have gained the family he had wanted all at once.
"I wasn't attracted to her, Esme," he insisted. He sounded appalled at my inference. "I wasn't thinking of her in that way, and I'm sure she wanted to go onto her next life to her husband. Edward was so young. She knew he had so much more life to live. She wanted his survival. She wasn't looking for her own."
"Neither was I, but I'm happy that you saw fit to ignore my need for my own destruction."
"Esme…" He didn't know what else to say.
I picked up the other photograph, and I gasped. There were four young people in it. Two couples. They were in formal attire. On the right side of the photograph with a pretty girl on his arm was a tall, young man – a boy – a human – there stood Edward Masen.
"He doesn't remember much," Carlisle said impassively. "He said he thinks it was at a dance. That was one of his good friends, Bill. He was killed in the war. The girl with Bill is Mary. The girl with Edward is named Emily."
"Was she his girl?"
"He doesn't remember much about her. He knows he cared about her, but he thinks it was more of a friendship."
He was so young. He was good looking, but not as defined in his good looks as he was when I last saw him. There was a slight gangly awkwardness in his appearance. He filled out a bit more after this was taken or after he was changed.
I walked over toward the bookshelf. There was an ample selection including works by Zane Grey, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Charles Dickens, and a volume of Shakespeare. A Princess of Mars and Riders of the Purple Sage sat on his desk along with several text books and notebooks.
Carlisle spoke, "He had just started his senior year. His father was already ill. He managed to make it through his first week of classes before taking to his bed. His father died a few days later. That's when Elizabeth and Edward were taken to the hospital by their neighbors."
I looked around the room and saw not a young man, but for the first time a boy. I felt the ghost again or maybe I only knew the ghost.
I felt the dust in the air tainted with his human scent in my lungs. I backed out of the room. I was too overwhelmed. I leaned against the wall in the hallway feeling like it was keeping me from falling over.
"Esme! Esme!" Carlisle's hands ran over my cheeks. I could hear how worried he was in his voice.
"I need to get out of here," I croaked.
Not another question was asked as he lifted me into his arms and fled down the stairs.
I had been curled up against Carlisle for almost an hour. He had rushed me out of the Masen house and into the car. He kept calling my name, but I was numb, and kept waving him off. He held me against him as we checked into The Palmer House.
I heard the front desk clerk ask about me. Carlisle just said that his wife wasn't feeling very well. When the clerk asked if he should send for a doctor, Carlisle told him he was a doctor. I could sense his impatience, and his concerned eyes as we rode the elevator. He tipped the bellman, and practically kicked him out the door before hanging the Do Not Disturb sign and locking the door.
I was completely unhelpful as he removed my hat and my bobbed wig. He pulled my dress up and over my head, and sat me down to take off my shoes. He took off his own shoes and jacket before sitting on the bed and pulling me toward him. I curled up against him, pressing my cheek against his chest. His fingers were slowly picking out the pins, undoing the pin curls in my hair. He was patiently waiting for me to return to him.
"Could you have saved my son?" I asked so quietly that it would never had been audible to human years.
"Not from what you have described to me – the infection and its quick onset; the doctor indicating that it was probable that he was born with it – there was nothing that could have been done to save him." He paused before guardedly adding, "And if you are speaking of saving him in the way I saved Edward Masen that would have never been an option."
"That wasn't what I was asking. An eternal, blood-sucking infant would be cruel," I said sullenly.
"Yes, it would be."
My thoughts turned to our Edward. "He was so young," I muttered.
"I would have never done it."
"Edward Masen," I clarified.
His hands paused in my hair, gripping the strands in his fingers. No air moved through his chest. I turned my face further into his chest, and brought my limp hand to life to smooth over his shirt before grasping the fabric. I was hoping his concern over my comatose state wasn't turning to loathing.
"He was seventeen. He was a young man and his life was about to be cut dramatically short," Carlisle reasoned.
"Eternity." It was forever. Could young be too young?
"I don't regret it, Esme and I won't," he insisted.
"He wasn't even done with high school," I cried.
"You've known this for a long time."
"I've also only seen him in this existence." And I truly saw where he was in his life and what he literally left behind.
"And you've never had doubts about his age in this life."
"He left his homework on his desk."
"His life was ending. No matter my decision, his homework was never going to be completed." He sighed deeply, reigning in his frustration with me. "I'm a selfish creature, Esme. I will never regret changing Edward. He gave me the companionship I longed for. For all the struggles of our relationship, I have never been happier in this life than I have been over the last decade. I also know that if Elizabeth Masen hadn't encouraged me to change Edward, if I hadn't brought him into this second life, I would have never had the strength to change you. Edward would have stumbled out of my life even sooner without you to make him stay as long as he did, and when he did I would have been completely alone again."
I wasn't appeased. "You and Elizabeth made the choice for him."
"And if I could do it all over again I would make the same choice." We were at an impasse.
"He would be twenty-seven today."
"He would be in the ground today," he said emphatically.
I knew he was right, but I let my mind wander.
"But what if he hadn't been plagued with illness? The boy would have become a man. Maybe a lawyer like his father. A beautiful wife, maybe the girl in the picture, and a couple of children running around his house."
"That was never his fate, Esme." I could hear his sadness mixed with weariness, but I pressed on. I was beyond reason.
"I would be thirty-three. Growing up I always thought I would have a half a dozen children by my early thirties."
"That wasn't your fate either. My love, the things that happened to both of you…I love you both so much that I wish your human lives had gone differently. I wish Edward was exactly as you described, happily married with a career, a wife and children. I wish that 16 year old girl had married the man of her dreams-"
"That came true," I interjected.
He clarified, "A human man, who adored you, and gave you your half dozen children, and kept you happy and safe. I would give you both up for you to have had lives you deserved, but I can't change what is and this life is too long to live with regret, especially when I have you in my arms."
He had humbled me. I slid my hand over his arm. "I'm sorry. I don't mean …I don't know what I mean. It's just been so much. Visiting Edward's grave and then seeing our Edward's room frozen in time, and seeing he's never been mine."
"What do you mean?" I had confused him and worried him, but I knew his arms would always take me in. So many doubts, but maybe it was this one, this realization, that touched me more than his youth.
"I'm not his mother. I don't know how I could ever delude myself into thinking he was a son to me. Elizabeth Masen loved him so much that she tossed him into your arms. She let him go instead of taking him with her to heaven, and I can't be that. I can't let him go."
"Esme, his mother made the decision when he couldn't. He was of sound mind when he decided to leave us, but don't think that he left you because he didn't love you."
"I was trying to play a role that wasn't rightfully mine. I'm not meant to be a mother," I miserably asserted.
"Stop it." he wrapped his arms around me practically crushing me against him. He was fiercely trying to get through to me. "Stop torturing yourself. This is the cruelty of our existence. This is the one thing I would give anything to change. My love, do you have any idea what I would go through to give this to you if there was any way I could? It tortures me too, even more so since he left. The thought of you growing round with our child, of having a little girl with your caramel hair or a little boy with your hazel eyes. The thought of you embracing motherhood as you raised our children, I may not say it, but it doesn't mean I wouldn't want it." I could hear his anguish. "I can give you anything your heart desires, but it breaks my heart that I can't give you the one thing you want the most – the thing you so richly deserve. Don't doubt for a moment that you weren't meant to be a mother. Edward needed you in that role more often than not. If you are concerned for his youth, well yes, the one thing he still needed in this life was a little parental guidance and he was happy to have you in a motherly role."
"Our son would have your eyes," I whispered.
"And his mother's heart," he said soothingly with a kiss on my forehead.
"I would never give you up," I promised. I needed him then and always. "You are the love I waited my whole life for, but for all the possibilities that we have laid out before us, there are some that can never be. The reminders of the children I've lost has just been too much and the harsh reality that there will be no more sons or daughters to call my own…our own…it hurts so deeply, Carlisle."
He brought his lips to the top of my head and softly said, "I know, my love."
I felt the weight of my body and my mind. "I'm so weary. I wish I could sleep and everything would be better when I woke up in the morning."
"I can't do anything to make you sleep, but I'll be here to hold you and chase any nightmares away."
"You always have," I said as a flash of a long ago dream of the man beside me and a child that was just a figment of my imagination ran through my mind.
He pulled me onto his lap and held me through the night. He comforted me when the sobs took over, and whispered words of love when I just curled into him in silence. I needed to let it out, and he was being my strength.
By the time the light started to peak around the curtain, I was cried out. I was lying on my side facing toward the window. He laid right beside me, and still held me to him. I turned over to face him. His eyes met mine, and I could see his worry, but also how he was being strong for me.
I touched his cheek. He closed his eyes as he pressed his cheek into my palm. He turned his head to kiss it before returning his gaze to me. I spoke.
"I love you so much. I'm sorry that I'm grieving what's gone, and not celebrating what is. Our life is going in a new direction…a new beginning. I have you and you have me. It's a new dawn. Thank you for letting me grieve. I can't promise that I won't feel moments of melancholy, but I'm going to do my best to make you happy."
"You already make me so happy." He gave me a weak smile. "My love, you're allowed to be upset and get angry with me and question me. I'd rather you do that than bottle it all up inside. We only have each other now, but no matter what happens we'll always have that."
"We're on our own," I said, giving finality to the statement.
"We are," he said as he sat up. "So here's what I propose. I don't want to upset you anymore so how about I head back over to the house to meet the freight company. When I come back we can do whatever you want to do."
"I want to go with you." I didn't want to be alone, and I hadn't finished my exploration.
"Do you think that is wise?"
"I wasn't finished looking around. I want to see more photographs."
"Esme…" he said warily.
"I'll be alright. I'm cried out," I eagerly insisted as I pleaded with my eyes.
He sighed as he stood up and said, "Get dressed."
He couldn't say no to me.
It was brighter in the Masen house that morning, and it gave it a different feeling than the ghostly glow did the evening before. I let the demons win that night, but in the light of day I put my mind in a different space.
I wondered how many times a little boy went up and down the staircase as I walked up it. Maybe he slid down on the banister once or twice.
I poked my head into Edward, Sr. and Elizabeth's bedroom – I touched the bed that Edward most likely came into this world in, and was certainly created in. I moved dust covers aside that covered the book cases in Edward, Sr.'s office to admire his library. I lifted covers all over the house to find their wedding portrait, a baby portrait, and several family portraits with Edward at different ages. He was a beautiful child, and even with such serious looks I could see a sparkle in his and his mother's eyes. At the piano I found a photograph of just Elizabeth and Edward when he was probably ten or eleven and they were smiling…happy. I knew her then. The sparkle in her eyes made her an acquaintance. The happiness on her face made her my friend. I may never have known Elizabeth Masen, but her selflessness gave me the greatest gifts and she would always have a special place in my heart.
After taking a small souvenir from Edward's room, I found Carlisle in the guest room, which, with Edward's blessing, had become his storage space. He had already moved quite a few things, which, from the looks of the containers, appeared to be works of art.
"I'm surprised you have so much," I said as I stepped into the room that still had a lot in it.
"I've collected much over the year. It's mostly artwork and books that I've held onto."
"You had an awful lot of books already with us," I said with a chuckle.
"That was only about a quarter of my collection. The rest are in these crates," he said gesturing to the stack that went to the ceiling.
"Are you bringing them all?" I asked with surprise.
"If you don't mind?" he questioned.
"As long as they don't completely distract you from me," I teased.
In a flash he had his arms around me. "There's no book that's good enough to distract me from you."
I laughed and turned my head to the side as he nuzzled my cheek. A different shape case within arm's length caught my attention.
"What is this?" I asked curiously.
I could see slight embarrassment on his face. "It's nothing."
I gave him a reproachful look before slipping out of his arms to investigate. He didn't stop me. I opened the clasp of the case and opened it. I smiled.
"You've been keeping a secret from me, Dr. Cullen."
"The instrument's quality far outweighs the owner's musical talents," Carlisle confessed, but I didn't believe him.
"It's been sitting here so long that I'm sure the quality may have waned."
"It's a Stradivarius. Even if it needs to be restrung I promise the quality hasn't waned."
"You play the violin and you own a Stradivarius." I closed the case and picked it up. "This is going with us."
"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. I received it as a gift when I was in Italy."
"I'm sure I won't be, and I'm not taking no for an answer. When we arrive at our new home I'm expecting a concert."
"Yes, my love."
I smiled to myself as I walked down the stairs with the case in my hand. There were still things I didn't know about my blonde god. So many years of history left so much untold. I loved surprises, like that violin case, which lead to something new tidbit about Carlisle. Now with only each other to focus on, in between my studies and his work, there were more opportunities for discovery. As I looked around the foyer once more I knew the crates would lead to more stories. The possibilities for us were nearly limitless. Yes, there would be moments when I would wallow in sadness. I knew I couldn't escape it, but I was going to make every attempt to focus my energies on my husband, my education, our love and our home.
This was a very emotional chapter to write. I had tissues in my hands on several occasions. Please let me know your thoughts by reviewing.
Thank you as always to my betas, Melissa, Ali and Heather!
"Miracles and Mischief" is now a multi-chapter fic! The first two new chapters are up.
Do you have a question for Esme? She's on tumblr now and answering your questions! AskEsmeCullen on tumblr. The link is also on my profile page.