A World Full of Strangers
Disclaimer: All the characters in the story are the property of Stephanie Meyer. I have borrowed them for my entertainment and (hopefully) your reading pleasure. I make no profit from their use.
Chapter 7: Dilemma
"How is she?" I ask Esme, when she and Rosalie return with Renesmee.
"Confused," answers Esme, looking at Renesmee with concern, and then rushes upstairs where Carlisle is working in his study.
Edward comes into the room, anxiety written all over his face. He must have known they had returned by hearing their thoughts. And whatever he heard has him deeply concerned. When he sees our daughter, he hesitates, but she walks over for a hug.
"I'm sorry, Daddy," she says sadly. "I know that you love me. I know how hard you and Momma both worked and sacrificed to bring me into the world. And I really don't want to leave you. I still need you both. I should have thought about it more carefully before I spoke. I mean, I'm sorry if you thought that I loved Jacob more than you."
"Are you sure?" he asks softly, stroking her hair.
"Yes," she replies. "I love my Jacob and I know that he needs me, but I need you more. You all are right. If he needs me so much, then he can come with us."
"Of course he can, dear," I add, to make her feel better, even though I don't believe my own words.
Emmet opens his mouth, but Edward glares at him over her head. Just getting her to admit that she needs us and wants Jacob to do the following is a big step forward. Rose rests a hand on Emmet's arm, to further emphasize this.
We have to tread lightly now that she is thinking in the right direction. Carlisle comes in and begins pacing. Whatever Esme told him that Renesmee said while they walking, has clearly upset him.
"We all need to sit down again," he says urgently. "Before this goes any further. Renesmee, I have something to tell you that you need to know before you entangle yourself any more with Jacob Black."
"Carlisle . . . " begins Edward.
Carlisle looks at him intently and shakes his head slightly. Edward looks resigned. Whatever Carlisle is going to say is going to upset Renesmee very much. I prepare myself to try to help my daughter through it.
"I'm sorry, son," he says. "But we have to do this my way. Renesmee is old enough to hear this. And it is something that Jacob needs to know also."
"What is it?" asks Renesmee, now trembling.
Edward and I sit down on either side of her on the couch. Edward still had his arm around her, so I pick up her hand. I notice the promise bracelet that Jacob gave her years ago that she has never taken off. I have never been sure if she really knew what it meant. But we all certainly did.
"Renesmee," he says, when everyone is seated. "Esme tells me that Jacob has given you the expectation that you will marry him when you are old enough. Is that true?"
I feel myself stiffen. Alice's eyes open wide and Emmet and Jasper look fierce. I know that the only reason that Rosalie and Edward are in control of themselves is that they knew this already. This is what Edward was going to tell me once we were alone again.
How could Jacob have told her such a thing? She is barely more than a child. He had promised us years ago that he would not do this without warning us first. Now that he has broken that promise all bets are off as far as I am concerned. The rage I felt years ago when I first learned that he had imprinted, begins to resurface.
"Yes," she swallows. "My Jacob told me that he belongs to me. He says that we will be together forever."
"Did he ever say where?" he asks noncommittally.
"Well, no," she replies. "But I think that he has always assumed that we would live on the reservation."
"Well, there are a lot of difficulties with that scenario," he says. "Needless to say, marriage involves things that are much more complicated than the close friendship that you have shared up to this point. But the most important thing that you need to know is that your genetic make up is not the same as his. Now I have taught you enough about genetics that you know that humans and vampires have different numbers of chromosomal pairs."
"Yes," she answers, looking down and blushing. "Humans have twenty-three and vampires have twenty-five. One of the reasons that Momma had trouble carrying me while she was still human was that I was too much like a vampire. I was too strong for her and it took you a long time to figure out that she needed to be drinking human blood for nutrition because that was what I wanted."
"Very good," he says, clearly pleased that she remembers this. "I think that you should know that you also have twenty-five chromosomal pairs, just like the rest of us. It's one of the reasons that you share our immortality and our preference for blood. You are also stronger than humans and you learn much more quickly and with greater retention.
"Your cognitive abilities were apparent in utero. You even responded when Edward told you that you were hurting your mother when you moved too much or too quickly. In the long run, it saved your mother because you were willing to work with us to keep the damage within her body to a minimum.
"Your human qualities are your circulatory system, body temperature, and physical aspects such as eye color and complexion. But physiologically you are much closer to a vampire than a human. The same is true for the Brazilians that I studied when we visited.
"Now we've never told you this, but Jacob is not fully human either. The werewolf part is self-evident, but not the genetic. He has twenty-four chromosomal pairs. This is what the Quileutes call the 'wolf gene,' which is passed from parent to son, or daughter, as is the case with Leah. From what I have been able to discover, until she came along, the women had merely been carriers of the gene."
"What does that mean for me?" she asks, quietly.
"First of all, Jacob is not just any werewolf among the Quileutes," he says, "His great-grandfather is Ephraim Black, the last official chief of the tribe. At present there are still traditional Quileutes who view him as his heir, not Sam. There are certain duties and expectations of this role that Jacob has been ignoring."
"But I don't understand what this has to do with our genes," she says. "Or what it has to do with the imprinting."
I see Edward flinch at the word "imprinting" coming from our daughter's mouth. I feel the same way. It's another one of those things that I wished that he hadn't told her.
"I have talked to Billy Black about the phenomenon, from a purely theoretical perspective. His traditions and myths are my science," he continues. "Billy believes that the purpose of imprinting is to create better wolves and to find a mate who will have the best chance of passing on the gene.
"He has never understood why Jacob imprinted on you, since the chances of someone with an entirely different chromosomal structure being able to pass the gene on to her son seems nearly impossible."
"Wow," says Jasper. "That's weird. But Bella and Edward had Renesmee and obviously other wolves mated with humans to continue their species. Why wouldn't the gene pass anyway?"
"Well, I can't answer that question," answers Carlisle. "But leaving aside the reproductive aspect, everything that I have learned about the werewolves is that they exist to kill vampires. Renesmee is half-vampire. In fact, before Jacob imprinted the pack was ready to kill both her and Bella, simply because they didn't know that she would be harmless to them."
"But my Jacob saved us," says Renesmee, with more pride in her voice than I liked to hear. "He told me that if it wasn't for him imprinting that they definitely would have killed us."
"Well, that point is certainly up for debate," growls Emmet, wounded that she might ever have doubted his ability to protect us.
"So Billy doesn't want Jacob to marry Renesmee," says Rosalie slowly, ignoring him. "Because he doesn't know what kind of child they might breed."
Renesmee now turns bright red and covers her face with her hands, obviously deeply embarrassed by the idea of Jacob and her "breeding" anything. It further reinforces for me that despite her level of physical growth, she is still very much a little girl emotionally.
"The Quileutes are a superstitious race," says Carlisle. "And there is good reason for that. They are a small tribe that has managed to survive quite well both beside and in the white man's world. They have mostly intermarried either among their own people or neighboring tribes.
"Their Native American bloodlines are much more pure here than say the Cherokees or the Hopi. Billy told me that if one of them marries outside of their race, they move away. It is a point of pride that those who are here are full-blood, so to speak."
"Doesn't Jacob understand that?" asks Jasper.
"He understands," I reply. "But he's been fighting against it from the beginning, first with me and now with Renesmee. Who knows why? I'm not even sure that he does. But it always seemed odd to me that he never imprinted on some Quileute or other Native American girl. Of course, none of the other wolves have imprinted since he did."
"Not since all the extra vampires went away," remarks Jasper.
"True," says Carlisle. "But that does not get Jacob entirely off the hook. Sam, Paul, Jared, and Quil all imprinted before he did. That's really all they needed to carry on the line, especially if we leave for a century. But Jacob is still not free to marry as he wishes. He belongs to the tribe and owes them his first allegiance. I am not sure that it is even possible for him to leave just to be with Renesmee."
"I don't want Renesmee to get caught up in this power struggle within the tribe," says Edward. "And we would certainly not leave her here without us to protect her. She may be immortal, but she is still vulnerable to any human physical attack."
"This is true," answers Carlisle. "She could bleed to death or suffocate from various injuries. She has nowhere near our inborn defenses."
Renesmee is very quiet. Listening to all of this talk of her vulnerability and that she might not be welcomed as Jacob's wife by his own father, has underscored the seriousness of the discussion. The genetic issues may be embarrassing to face, but this is essentially a life and death discussion.
I feel sorry for her, remembering my own time caught between these same two worlds. But my dilemma was based in the irreconcilable differences between my best fried and the love of my life. Her own situation is much worse than that, fraught with even greater possibilities for heartbreak and tragedy.
Sensing her father's disapproval, she turns to me for solace. Despite the fact that we are close in size, she feels very young in my arms. She may be growing into the body of a woman, but she is really still very much a child. And I can feel that she still needs her mother. Yet, recognizing my sympathetic emotions seems to make her braver. Finally, she speaks very quietly.
"I don't want to leave all of you," she says looking around. "I can't leave you. You're the only family that I know except for Grandpa Charlie, but he's different. He doesn't know who I really am. If I could have my wish, I would want all of us to stay here in Forks forever. But I understand your reasons for wanting to move. So now I just have to wish that my Jacob will come with us."
Rosalie sighs loudly at the phrase "my Jacob," but doesn't say anything. No one says anything. No one wants to add to our girl's pain.
"When do I have to tell my Jacob?" she asks.
"We will tell Jacob," answers Carlisle. "All of us. It is not your burden to tell him. You are simply a child obeying her parents."
But Renesmee shakes her head.
"No, I am not just obeying," she says clearly. "I am staying with my family because I want to. I love them and I will go because of who I am. I've made all of you suffer in the past from nearly killing my Momma being born to nearly getting you all killed by the Volturi.
"It is my turn, my responsibility to the family, to be unselfish now. I am not doing anything because I have to, but rather because I want to. And it's not like I am repaying a debt. I love you and I am a part of you. I understand that better now. I will try to make my Jacob understand it too, so that he will know that he has to come with us."
Edward looks around at all of us, and nods. Renesmee's words are nothing but the truth. In the past few hours, since we first told her that we were leaving, she has matured a lot. I know that this will create a true dilemma for Jacob. His imprinting means that he will give her everything that she wants. The question now is: can he give her this?
I am glad that Edward cannot read my thoughts unless I let him. Right now my heart is aching for both my daughter and the man who imprinted on her. This is not going to be easy. In fact, it is going to be dreadful. Despite her intense dislike of Jacob, when I look up, I can see that Rose is looking at Renesmee sadly. She doesn't want her to feel any pain either.