Time no longer seemed to hold much meaning for Father Edward. He still recited sacred words and saw to the needs of his congregation, and yet always found himself looking to the empty pew hidden in the back corner. In the bustle after service, he caught glimpses of chestnut hair, always just around a corner, behind the next group of waiting bodies. He heard her laughter hidden in the breeze, saw the forgiveness and warmth in the deep pools of her eyes behind his own closed lids. He felt the brush of her cheek against his hand in each babe at the baptismal fount.
He'd been the one to read as she was lowered into the earth beside Sheriff Swan, just steps from the wooden crosses where his parents had been laid to rest. He reflected often that it seemed fitting, for her to be with his family. For she was, family. He'd come to realize it in the time since she had gone. Yet was she really gone? He'd felt the life leave her body, had sat with her as the sun rose on a day she'd never see until the Newtons woke. He'd waited as Jessica prepared her as best she could, and walked stoically with Michael and his sons bearing her frail form to church one last time upon a board. He'd seen the shovelfuls of soil pile on the plain pine box, encasing her in the earth's eternal embrace. He had pounded in the newest wooden cross to mark her place. She was gone. And yet, she was everywhere.
When he ate, he thought of plump mushrooms and fresh berries, carried from the woods just for him, and the food turned to ash on his tongue.
When he slept he heard her voice calling, ephemeral. Sometimes he couldn't make out the words at all. On the nights when he could, he dreaded the dawn. "Edward," she'd whisper to him, the barest hint of an angel's whisper in his slumbering ear. "Edward, I love you." And he would realize, too late, just why the chasm in his heart bled as she slipped away.
"You are my life now," he would tell her memory. "Always."
To the world, Father Edward was nearly the man he always had been, though the fire in his eyes had dimmed and his shoulders slumped with a weary weight. Silver spread through his auburn hair. As time passed his robes hung loosely and his cheeks hollowed. Had it been weeks? Years? He couldn't recall.
"Eat," the busy bodied women of town admonished him. "You'll waste clean away!" And he would put on a smile, and force down some of their lovingly prepared foods, but never really tasted it. He drifted, waiting. Still, he talked to God. His prayers were fervent, asking for peace, for forgiveness. Asking for the wellbeing of his flock, of his parents. Of Bella.
When he walked, his path wandered through the crosses in the yard, ending always at Bella's side. He sat with her, alone in his silence, and grieved the gift he hadn't seen. Sometimes he wished he'd never known, that he'd lived the length of his life blissfully ignorant to his failings, his blindness and faulty commitment. He wished often to hear an answer when he sat to speak with Carlisle, to know what wisdom he had to share instead of substituting his own imagined answers. And still he prayed.
Father Edward grew tired, his strength slipping away just as his satisfaction in the emptiness of his life had. He slept strangely, and at odd times. He would wake, quite addled, from unplanned naps among the pews or laying in the grass outside. Sometimes it took him a while to sort out just where he was, and how he had come to be there. He began to assure himself with a list of facts, inalienable truths for his world.
My name is Edward Cullen.
I serve God as Father to my church.
My parents were Edward and Elizabeth Masen, and Carlisle and Esme Cullen. They have all died.
My love's name is Bella Swan, and she's gone.
The people worried for Father Edward, worrying something had gone wrong. He agreed to train a new Father, a young man who felt the fire to preach in his bones. Edward watched impassively as the town got to know him, as he was accepted and grew to earn their respect. And he let himself fade further away.
More and more, he slept. He waited. He dreamed, and felt the creeping peace of certainty. This life cannot be all there is. A loving God would not condemn us for one blind mistake. He hoped.