Chapter summary: I don't know what runs through her head, so I don't know what she'll ask, but I know it'll be insightful, even if it's so very far off. Then how will I answer? Will she see the truths beneath my lies? Like she always does? Can she see into my soul as she sees into the sanskrit? Why can she so easily penetrate my façade with those big doe eyes of hers when I can't even begin to fathom the well of her sadness?

The darkness and the silence didn't lull me to sleep. No, it pressed down on me. It only made things more unbearable.

"Rosalie ..." I began.

"Too much thinking," Rosalie's quick answer tried to stop me.

"Well, how do you stop thinking?" I demanded.

"I cannot, but you can: by sleeping," she answered wistfully. "That's the beauty of sleep. Everything is better after a sleep. But for me ... well, I do not sleep. I didn't appreciate it until I realized what I now miss. So, sleep now, and tomorrow will be ... well, tomorrow, we can start over ... that is, you can start over. Sleep allows you to start over. You can start over after you sleep: so sleep."

It was like a lullaby, her lilting words, and her ever so subtle purring.

But it wasn't working.

I held onto that chair with all my might.

"I can't sleep," I said after a moment.

"Closing your eyes will help," she answered.

"How can you tell that they're open?" I asked.

I felt her smile in the darkness answer me.

"Rosalie ..." I tried again.

"I will tell you a story now," she commanded.

She wouldn't let get in a phrase in edgewise, but I sure as shooting was getting this one in: "Not like last night's," I whispered fiercely.

"Hm. Are you going to tell the story for me then?" she asked quietly.

"No, but I want you to answer my question that you keep deflecting," I responded with my own demand.

"I have a question of my own for you," she countered, still quiet.

I considered. Would I be willing to trade answers? Yes. Yes, I would.

"That sounds fair," I answered. "I'll answer your question if you answer mine."

"There is no such thing as a fair quid pro quo." Rosalie's voice was distant. "The term itself is absurd."

"I'd agree with you if I knew what you were saying; is 'quid pro quo' samscript, too?"

We were both being so quiet as we spoke. But I noticed in myself that it was easier for me now to say I didn't understand her; I didn't feel so bad about it, because it seemed that it wasn't a failing on my part if she used words I didn't understand or in ways I couldn't comprehend.

"I believe you mean to say 'sanskrit' ... the plosive does not include the 'p' sound. No, 'Quid pro quo' is from the Latin," Rosalie explained evenly. "It means 'This for that' or, in this case, 'your answer for mine.' I cannot measure the value of either to tell the fairness of the exchange, if such an exchange could ever be fair. I think in a quid pro quo exchange both parties end up losing something, and how can that be fair?"

"How about this then, Rosalie," I answered after I thought about her words. "Why don't you ask me your question, and I'll answer it if I can, and then I'll ask my question, and you'll answer it if you feel like it? How about that?"

"I don't see how putting yourself entirely at my whim ... again ... is fair at all to you."

I smiled into the darkness. Rosalie didn't want me to feel bad that she so totally overwhelmed me? That she so totally outclassed me? But I kept these ironic thoughts to myself and responded instead with: "If I can ask my question after I answer yours without you deflecting me again, I'll've made more progress than I have so far tonight. That may not be fair, according to you, but that's good enough for me."

Rosalie thought for a bit in silence.

"Hm. All right then," she said, acquiescing. "My question is this. Why do you react so strongly to a certain word that I said when I was about to depart?"

"That was the last word I ever heard from my Ma when I was a little girl," I said.

Rosalie was quiet for a second, thinking. "When did she die?" she asked.

"She didn't," I responded evenly.

"Then how can you say that will be the last you will ever hear from her?" Rosalie asked.

"Well, besides the fact that somebody says I'm a dead girl," I started with a slight edge of a reminder of my situation. "There's just the way things are. Pa tells me about Ma like he's reading headlines from the newspaper. Facts about some movie starlet; you know, somebody I'd never dream of seeing or having a conversation with. Because I don't. Her letters to me? 'Rushed. Thanks for your note.' is what I usually get from her. Always so busy-busy-busy living her exciting life Back East. Besides, she married a man in his early twenties, and he's not even, you know, our kind, for crying out loud. Mrs. Philip Dwyer. What kind of name is 'Dwyer'? It sure ain't any kind of Dutch. And how do I say hello to the guy? 'Hi, Dad'? To a boy who's barely old enough to be an older brother?"

"But that's all pointless. When am I going to go Back East? Because she's made it plain that she's not interested in coming out to nowhere Ekalaka to visit the nobodies she doesn't give a fig for: plain country folk like us from a nowhere town. That's what 'goodbye' means to me, it means I may as well be dead, for all she cares, 'cause she could care less."

I had never thought this. I had never worked out these feelings that I didn't know I had. I had just stayed on with Pa and took care of him. And he, God bless him, had never had one bad word to say about Ma, so I never dwelt on it.

"So when I say that word, it feels like your mother is leaving you all over again," she stated.

I thought about it. "I don't know," was my answer. Because I didn't know. I just knew that it killed me inside.

"Hm," was Rosalie's reply. She was distant again, lost in thought.

"Yeah," I added, thinking more on it. "But I was worse, wasn't I? I didn't even say goodbye to Pa. He didn't even get that from me. Just one morning I was gone. Disappeared. I didn't even get to say goodbye to Pa, and I won't, either, right? It's not like I can leave him a note. 'Dear Pa, kidnapped by a vampire, but I'm good. No worries.' I can't see that note going over well with anybody involved. So Pa has to live with never knowing what happened to me, and, as you pointed out, it's all my fault for being just too damn smart for my own good and just too damn stupid about it all: instead of keeping my big discovery to myself, I had to run right over and crow about it to you."

"What was I thinking?" I asked myself ruefully. "I'll tell you what I was thinking: nothing. As always." Just like always, you stupid girl. I heaped the hot coals of accusation on my own head.

"I actually see you as a person who is lost in her thoughts, not as a thoughtless person," said Rosalie, interrupting my self-reproach.

"Well, enough about me," I interjected, "now my question."

"Why is it wrong for your mother to marry somebody named 'Dwyer'?" Rosalie asked, not allowing me to move on.

"It's not wrong," I answered simply.

"You seem to think it is," she countered. "I though that was one of the reasons for this country existing, moving out of Old World thoughts of exclusivity to an homogenized society. I thought we weren't Germans or English or Irish or Italians or Poles. I thought we were Americans."

I noticed she left 'vampires' off the list.

"Look," I said, getting irritated. "She can marry whoever she wants to marry, that's not it ..."

"Then what is?" she asked annoyingly in that reasonable tone.

"That it's another fling of hers, another whim!" I answered angrily. "Just like Pa was. And then she's going to have another baby that she doesn't want again; just like me!"

"Look," I said. "She's not some teenager pining over a boy at a baseball game, that's supposed to be me, not her! She's too old for that now, but now she marries this kid trying to recapture her youth? Newsflash: it's not gonna come back, and when she gets unhappy in this arrangement, she'll move onto the next, leaving more broken things in her wake!"

"Do you do that?" Rosalie asked.

"No!" I shouted. So much for me getting sleep. "I take care of Pa; I ..."

"No," Rosalie corrected me, "you said you were supposed to pine over boys at baseball games ... do you?"

I rolled my eyes in the darkness. "Oh, please!" I snorted.

"So when your mother ..." Rosalie began.

"Look," I shouted, "it's my turn to ask the question! Can we please just drop this topic?"

Rosalie was quiet for a moment. "I think that depends on your question," she answered, not committing.

I took a few calming breaths. "So can I ask my question now?" I asked.

"I'm sure you are able, but, yes, you may ask your question," Rosalie said quietly.

So much for the calming breaths, but I had to ignore her irritating way of correcting me, and focus here.

So I worked on not being irritated and focusing. The silence helped a bit, and counting to ten helped a bit, too.

"So," I said, more calmly now, "my question is this. So," I said, trying to think of a way to say it, "... when I said you could be Nathan Hale's mother, you got really offended. I thought age didn't matter to you anymore, so why did my asking about your age make you so angry? I mean I'm sorry, but I thought that it was something that didn't bother you."

"My age doesn't bother me," Rosalie answered slowly, "as I don't have one anymore."

"So why ...?" I began.

"I rather expected you'd be asking a very different question," Rosalie's voice was introspective. "But then I keep mistaking you for just any other person, even though I know you are not."

"What did you think I would ask?" I asked, curious, despite myself.

"I thought you would ask something about you," she answered. "Or I thought you would ask something about me that discomfits you. I didn't expect you to apologize for one little comment where you felt you hurt me, when the majority of the day is my unrelenting attack directed against how wrongly you see yourself."

"Well, the different there, Rosalie," I said in reply, "is that you think you're doing something to help me when you say those things, but I'm just mean when I say those kinds of things to you."

I remember particularly my snide comments about it being 'nice' that she gets to be bossy and my dig about her praying before she 'eats.' I'll have to make sure I watch that mean streak in me from now on, and when I feel it coming on, stop it, by, like, you know, sewing my mouth shut, or slamming my face into something, like the floor, or something less drastic than that ... like just eating the soup in silence: that way my mouth would be full of food and not questions or barbs that only hurt Rosalie, who is hurting enough as it is.

Note to self: just eat the soup next time.

Rosalie laughed very quietly. "Like I said," she said, "you are unlike any person in the world."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"Seeing yourself as mean-spirited?" Rosalie stated with disbelief.

"Well, I am." I said defiantly.

"... And I'm kind?" she continued.

"Yes," I said firmly.

"Hm," Rosalie was being diplomatic, for a change. "This is an amazing thing, but it's not the only thing. You could have asked about my intent to murder you. Most people would be curious as to how or when this would occur ... most people would wonder why me even with it already explained to them. Royce wondered that. Or, you could have asked after your name and how you will earn it. You could have continued your line of inquiry about prayer, like I expected, but no, you ask about how you think you hurt me, and you apologize for it."

Well, of course, but she did bring up some things that I have been wondering, so ...

"Can I ... oh, sorry," I quickly corrected my mistake, "that is, may I ask about those things, too?"

"Yes, you may," she said. It even sounded kindly. "But let us entertain one question at a time, shall we? And the question you asked was about what you thought were my feelings about my age." She paused for a moment, then said, "Your question and apology were spot-on and completely wrong, ... as usual." She added the afterthought ruefully, then she said quietly, "It's not the mention of my age that upset me."

I waited for what did upset her, but the quiet in the darkness was all I got for an answer.

So I prompted her. "Something did, for sure. What was it?"

"You called me Nathan Hale's mother. I'm not. Earlier today, you called me your mother. I am not that, either." Her voice turned wistful. "And that's all I really wanted in my human life, to be a mother. I saw it so clearly, my children-to-be: two bright-eyed boys and a sweet and beautiful girl, and I would love them, and they would be so perfect, in every way."

"But, now, I cannot be anybody's mother." Her wistful tone turned to regret. "Not anymore. Not given what I am. Esmé was a mother to a little baby boy for a few days before he died, and that broke her heart, and she followed him in death that very day ... or would have followed him in death, if Carlisle hadn't see her as she ... well. But she did get to be a mother. She did get to hold her beloved child in her arms, but I ..." she broke off. "Now Esmé can't be a mother, although she pretends Edward and I are her children, and I cannot be a mother, either. Pretending most anything is distasteful for me; pretending that ... ? It would be ... anathema."

I took in her words.

"Wow!" I uttered in awe. How could you say I'm sorry to that? How could you even begin?

Now I understood a little bit better her anger when we were walking along in the snow and at suppertime. So she didn't want to be my mother, but ... But she was always treating me like a little child, taking care of me as if I couldn't, talking down to me. If she didn't see herself as a mother to me, did she ... Did she see herself as a ... father to me? So austere, so strict, so harsh and demanding. Is that how her father was to her? Is that how she saw herself to me? Didn't she compare herself to Pa, too, when I asked her to lie in bed with me just now, too? And she was wearing a trench coat yesterday and today. There was nothing in Rosalie that gave any hint of mannishness. She called me 'beautiful' and 'graceful' but, really, that was her, by definition. But does she wish she were a man? Does she act that out by trying to be a solemn, austere father to me?

"Yes, 'wow!'" she quoted back to me easily, countering the turmoil of my thoughts.

"So it appears I couldn't drop the topic of motherhood," she continued, "like you requested. But it's a hard topic for me, too, and not just because of my dashed hopes."

She had mentioned something about hating her mother earlier. "Was it because of your mother?"

"My mother ..." she started quietly, but then changed topics. "I am related to Nathan Hale; did you know that? I'm some distant cousin or niece."

"I used to know the exact relation," she said distantly. "We had a family tree in our house. It was framed. And in one branch was 'Nathan Hale, June 6, 1755 – September 22, 1776, no issue' and in another branch was our family. My mother made me learn my exact relation to him ... I recall having to recite it over and over again until I stated it correctly, but I don't know what the words are anymore, being as they are lost in human memory. Mother was so proud to be related to him, an American Patriot, even if it was by marriage. She was so fiercely proud of that."

I couldn't see Rosalie, but I could tell she was lost in her reminiscence.

"So when she had me, her first born ..." Here Rosalie paused. "I imagine her look when she saw me and my little slit. 'Oh, hm, well, there it is,' I can just imagine the sound of disgust in her voice."

"Why?" I asked, shocked. I could imagine everybody having very strong feelings about Rosalie, like awe or admiration, but I couldn't believe those feelings would be of disgust.

"Isn't it obvious?" Rosalie asked. "It's because any children I would have would not carry the Hale name forward. She had that name and inherited that ancestry by marriage, but she cared about it so much more than her own family's that I never heard one word other than what it is to be a Hale." Rosalie paused thoughtfully in the darkness. "And there I was, her firstborn, and from the moment of my birth, I failed her in her greatest hopes. She didn't want a girl for a child. She wanted a boy who could carry the Hale name forward," and then she added ruefully, "like I could not. I am my mother's greatest disappointment."

That last sentence she said so gravely; so quietly, but so resolutely, as if she knew, in her heart of hearts, the truth of that statement.

We were both quiet for a while after she confessed this to me; both lost in our thoughts, but then Rosalie asked, "Are you crying?" with a slight edge.

I couldn't trust my voice to answer the question she seemed to know the answer to.

After she waited for my answer, and after an answer didn't come — because I couldn't speak past the lump in my throat — she asked, in a confused voice that sounded lost, too: "Why?"

I wondered why she didn't read my mind for the answer.

"Because," I sniffled, "I feel terrible now, just terrible, for what I said to you."

"What did you say that you regret?" asked Rosalie quietly.

What did I say that I don't regret? That really was the question, but I guess I had better explain myself to her. I owed her that much.

"I said," I whispered, swallowing past the lump, "I said that you always tell everybody what to do; that you always get your way."

"But that's true," Rosalie replied evenly. "There's no need to regret speaking the truth."

Except when it hurts somebody, I corrected her mentally, and you say the truth always hurts.

"No, it's not, Rosalie," I corrected her. "It's not true for the most important thing for you."

"Hm. That's true, also," she acknowledged. "But why dwell on things that can no longer be? Why live with regrets?"

And she added an easy and dismissive, "La!" as if that made everything go away. As if it made it all okay.

"Do you?" I challenged.

"Do I what?" she asked, as if she didn't know what my question meant, but it was asked too lightly. I knew she was pretending.

"Do you live with regrets?" I wouldn't let it go.

"Li-..." she started, and then she sighed. "My dear girl," she began again, "one must be alive to be able to live with regrets."

"You know what I mean!" I retorted fiercely.

"Yes, I know what you mean," she replied solemnly.

After a moment, I didn't think she would answer. I guess the silence was my answer. I guess I knew the answer, but then she whispered so quietly I could barely hear her one word.

"Always," she said.

The way she said it ... now I felt it. In that one word, I felt the hopelessness in her. It felt like forever, and that forever was bleak. I felt it touch my soul, and I mourned for her and her lost humanity.

"I'm sorry," I said finally, fresh tears wetting my cheeks and my pillow.

I felt the cover right next to my arm tighten a bit under weight, and I felt Rosalie's fingertips, cool, even with a separating blanket, just barely touch my arm.

"Thank you," she whispered sincerely.

And weight of her hand went away, but the feel of the touch of her fingertips lingered on my arm — cool and electric, but at the same time warm and tingling.

We seemed, both of us, to be lost in her own thoughts. But it wasn't an uncomfortable silence ... not as if I could tell what was going through Rosalie's mind now.

Not as if I ever could.