Chapter 47
Carlisle threw on a black thermal shirt over gray sweatpants and put on a pair of thick socks. He ran a towel over his hair once more to dry it out more than he had and tossed it into the laundry basket.
Esme knocked on the door and opened it before he called her in. She gave him a closed mouth smile and edged her way into the room.
He looked at her with his eyebrows raised before he couldn't resist smiling back. "You think this is funny, huh?" he asked.
She chuckled, "No..."
Carlisle eyed her and shook his head, "No?"
"Maybe just a little," Esme told him, crossing the room. She pulled him in for a hug and kissed him on the cheek.
"Did they clean up the mess?" he asked her.
She nodded, "All of it. We put a little piece of cardboard over the window for now. Emmett is going to replace it in the morning."
Carlisle shook head and pushed his hair back with his hands. He looked over at Esme for a moment before they both shared a laugh again.
"I can't believe you were in on it," he said, shaking his head again.
"I was not in on it," Esme told him with a laugh, "I had no idea until just before the window broke."
He continued to play it off, pretending to be mad at her and clicked on the television. "You just let me take all those hits to the face out there."
She put her hands on her hips and looked at him as he sat down on the edge of the bed and began flipping through the stations. He kept his eyes on the TV until he couldn't help it anymore and looked over at her. "We have to do something back to them, you know," he said.
A smile spread across her face, "I like the way you think. What can we do?"
They both sat in silence for a moment before Carlisle grinned, "This may take some time."
Alexandra crossed through the hallway and stopped at their door. She looked in and Carlisle turned to face her. He waved her in, "What's going on Alex?"
"Where's Yale-New Haven hospital?" she asked him with a sense of softness in her voice.
Carlisle and Esme looked at each other and he stood up, "Um... Connecticut. Why are you asking that?"
"Well," she started, "I spend a lot of time in your office. I like to read."
Esme smiled and Carlisle nodded, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"I found a letter saying you would be hired there as long as you went there to fill out the paperwork and finalize it." She held out the paper in front of her and he approached, taking it from her to re-read the document himself.
His eyes scanned the page and he looked over at Esme. The two of them had been having discussions about relocating, as they had been in Forks for awhile. Upon the growth of their family, and now relationship with the Quileute tribe, Masen and Leah's relationship in particular, they'd found it more difficult to just pack up and go than in the past. Both of them, however, knew it was necessary if they wished to remain in the public eye.
"Are we moving?" Alexandra asked, after he didn't say anything.
Carlisle looked back at Esme, who had a half guilty expression on her face.
"We're not sure when," Esme told their daughter, "But we'll probably have to sooner rather than later."
"Why do we have to?" she asked, "Masen just got that job with the police, and everyone's here. William and Maddy have a house. They're in school and the Denalis."
"Nothing's final yet," Carlisle explained, "It's just an option." He looked at Esme again, then back to Alexandra.
"This is our true home," Esme went on, "We've lived all over the country at different times, but we come back here whenever it's possible."
"What about Masen and Leah?" she asked.
Carlisle, nor Esme knew how to answer. The reason they'd stayed in Washington even as long as they had was because of the children that each of them had, had. None of them could bare the thought of being on the opposite end of the country from their children, though in Masen and Leah's case, they could never ask them to be apart, or for Leah to leave her family. There was no fair way about it. Someone would have to make a little sacrifice for their typical relocating plan to work.
"What about Nessy and Jake?" Alexandra went on.
Esme sighed and moved over to put an arm around her daughter, "We're not sure what to do, Alex," she admitted, "It had always been so easy... well, not easy, but we were able to adapt. Now, there's no way I could leave Masen and just go." She looked at Carlisle who gave a subtle nod, agreeing with her statement, "And I would never ask Leah to leave her family either."
"The same thing goes for Nessy and Jacob," Carlisle told her, "We've had talks with Edward and Bella about this."
"Not for awhile," Esme pointed out, "Maybe we should all sit down again."
He nodded, "We're going to have to make a decision here, sooner or later."
Alexandra sighed, "I don't want to leave either." Her eyes drifted to the floor, then to the ceiling and back toward her father, "But if we have to, we have to. I get it."
There was a silence that fell over the three of them before Carlisle pulled his daughter in for a hug and kissed the top of her head, "Get back to your reading, or whatever you were doing in there. We'll work things out."
"Should I prepare myself to move?" she asked him.
He sighed and looked at Esme who gave him a little shrug. "Not just yet," he assured her.
"What about Yale?" she asked him.
"Nothing's set in stone," Carlisle said, "And I probably won't take it. Like I said, it was just an option."
Alexandra stepped away from him, then nodded, "Alright." She smiled at both of them and left the room.
Esme looked over at Carlisle, "We need to figure this out."
He looked down at the paper in his hand, then folded it up and put it in the pocket of his sweatpants. Esme could see there were ideas he was playing with in his mind.
"What are you thinking?" she asked him.
Carlisle moved his eyes to meet hers, "I'm really the only one who's on anyone's radar," he explained, "I mean, the people I work with see me every day. They know my routines, what I look like and all that. Masen, too, but he just started out, so he has his share of years before anyone were to question his aging, or lack there of."
Esme nodded, though knew he was about to continue so she just listened.
"The rest of you would be perfectly fine blending in. We really only associate with the tribe and others of our kind these days; except for Charlie, who I guess technically is considered part of the Quileutes now after going through the ritual process."
Esme nodded again, thinking how lucky they were to have the wolves. It made Charlie nearly untouchable by Aro and the Volturi, as far as the rules were concerned, considering he was now a member of the tribe.
"Anyway," Carlisle went on, "What I'm getting at is, if we remained under the radar just a little more than we are now, we could probably manage to stay. The kids can still easily pass for being in their twenties. The few classmates I've seen of theirs in passing around town still look fairly similar to what I remember of them from graduation, and the party we had at the house."
"What about you?" she asked him, "What are you going to do about work?"
"Well," he said with a shrug, "I could take a few years off. I mean, I've worked for nearly my whole life," he laughed to himself at the thought of how long he'd actually been practicing in the medial field, "Maybe a couple years from now I could continue. Maybe somewhere not far from here... Oregon, Alaska, or even Canada."
"But you love what you do," Esme said, shaking her head, "You're such a great doctor. I wouldn't want you to have to sacrifice that."
He shrugged, "I've been fortunate enough to be able to balance work and family for this long. But if I had to make a choice, it's not even a question. You're all far more important to me than that. It's not really fair to the kids if we just pack up and go. I know you wouldn't want to leave Masen, and as we've said, we'd never ask Leah to leave her family. Rosalie, I can imagine, feels the same about William, as Kate does with Madison. Emmett and Garrett, too."
Esme gave him a closed mouth smile, though he knew it wasn't necessarily a happy one. "You do so much for this family," she told him, "I don't want to have to see you give up your career."
"Like I said," he told her with a smile, "I've given so much time to the medical field. We have enough money in the bank to last us... a long, long time."
"It's not about money," she said, shaking her head.
"I know," he assured her quickly, "But if this is all it's going to take for us to stay here, all together, then I have no problem doing that." They looked at each other for a moment before Carlisle pulled her in for a hug.
"This is much more stressful this time around," Esme said to him. She sighed, "We always come to these crossroads."
"We'll be fine," he assured her, kissing her forehead, "We always are."