A/N: Please don't forget to feed the author! Drop a review for each chapter posted this weekend if you're so inclined. In an earlier chapter, I wrote that Charlie played for the White Sox. Then I realized the Dodgers would make more sense in the context of Renée-Charlie.
July 2011
Twenty-One / Twenty-Four
Isabella woke up covered by a thin summer sheet, naked, with Edward's hand on her hip. Edward had covered them up, in that space right before dawn when the temperatures dropped. Usually, Edward woke up before Isabella did, but that day, her eyes fluttered open before his. The bright first rays of sunlight poured in through the sliver in the curtains.
It waa going to be a perfect day. For Isabella, it would be exhausting and eventful. It would change her life.
Isabella woke up because she wanted to pee. Desperately. Gingerly, she removed the sheet first, revealing both their naked bodies. Next to hers, his thighs were bulging and burly – at least three times as big as hers. Well-built and muscular, Edward was also taller: he had reached nearly six feet, an inch taller than his father.
Surprisingly, she felt more protected than inadequate.
Isabella angled her wheelchair and pulled it towards the bed, grabbing it by the frame. Her stomach was squeezing. Sitting naked in her wheelchair felt even more intimate and vulnerable than letting Edward touch and feel her. She wheeled into the bathroom, hyper-conscious of the noise her wheelchair made against the hardwood floor.
When she emerged from the bathroom, with her teeth brushed, Edward's eyes were already open.
"Morning, angel," Edward said groggily. "My Dad has a surprise for you. We need to get up now."
"Really?"
"Really, really, darling," Edward said, smiling sweetly.
Abruptly, irritation washed over his face. "He's going to use your surprise as an excuse to lecture us to death. But there's nothing we can do about it."
"Oh."
Grumbling, Edward stood and stretched, lithe like a cat, without a hint of shame at his nakedness. In the morning light, she caught every inch of his body: taut and solid butt cheeks, well-defined abdomen, muscular thighs, arms that made her salivate. Isabella's eyes zeroed in on his privates, and a blush spread across her cheeks.
It was just hanging there, with the balls. Rose was right. There was nothing ball-like about the testicles, Bella thought. Isabella had never seen a man's privates before, and it still struck her as strange that it just hung there.
Completely unashamed, Edward smirked arrogantly and caught her eye.
Isabella looked away bashfully.
"You're so fucking adorable," he said under his breath, picking up his discarded boxers. He put them on and bent at the waist, kissing the crown of her head. He stroked her bare arms.
"I'll be back in two secs. To head down to breakfast with you."
He unlocked the doorknob. "Everybody's gonna be up," he added moodily. "Old people like to wake up before seven."
"They're not that old," Bella said.
"Bee, baby, they're all over 55," Edward commented, and it struck her as a funny observation.
The older she became, the more it struck her as unusual that her mother was almost 60. When Bella was in grade school, Esme had been so much older than the other moms - to the point that she almost mothered them herself. Someone had mistaken Esme, in her late forties, as eight-year-old Bella's grandmother.
Elizabeth was six years younger than her sister, and she'd had Edward in her early thirties. "They had trouble conceiving Edward," Esme had once explained.
When Edward came back, Isabella had made quick work of putting on one of the knee-length summer dresses Esme had bought. Now that Edward had seen her completely naked, and loved her anyway, she gave half a pickle about anyone's opinion of her legs.
The dress was lovely, like everything Bella's mother ever bought. With flutter sleeves, the white cotton dress had a large blue stripe at the hem. Its problem was it was little girl's outfit. How her mother found these things, Isabella would never know.
Edward barged in through the door again, wearing a black t-shirt and black shorts.
He knelt in front of her, and he kissed her, soft and sweet. In broad daylight, he kissed her lips. Reverently, he kissed the tip of her nose. Each of her cheekbones. The center of her forehead. He loved her. There was not a shred of doubt in her head anymore.
His breath was minty, and Isabella had the distinct impression that – just like her – he wasn't ready for crude realities like morning breath.
"You ready?"
"Meh," she mumbled, shrugging her shoulders, and Edward snorted.
In comfortable silence, they descended – he waited patiently on the landing while she rolled onto the wheelchair lift platform. Her place on it was secured by a metal square that wrapped around her.
Edward was entirely right. The silence in the kitchen was stiflingly awkward, even though it was already occupied. It was 8:00 AM. Carlisle was already dressed and showered, reading the Sunday Times in an evident attempt to survive the awkward silence.
In greeting, Edward made a popping sound with his lips. "Mornin'," he said.
"Hey, son," Carlisle said casually. "Morning."
"Where's Pop?"
"Your grandfather went golfing with …" Carlisle sighed, pursing his lips. "Former president Bosch."
"Oh," Isabella said, wincing. How she had ended up entangled with this family would always be one of her life's greatest mysteries.
Esme was silent and ice-cold. She wore her dark blue, silk robe. Her hair, a light caramel brown lined with gray, was perfectly pulled into a stern bun. She was standing by the kitchen island, minding the stove.
Something was sizzling in a pan.
Esme's eyes flashed dangerously when she spotted them both, but they zeroed in on Edward with particularly virulent dislike. Isabella could see the outraged expression of betrayal on her mother's face. When Esme's gaze fell on Isabella, it shifted slightly. The hurt in her eyes, the disappointment, made Isabella's heart squeeze so painfully that she felt the hurt physically.
"Morning, Mama," Isabella said softly, pleadingly. She tried to make contact with her mother, but Esme averted her gaze coldly.
That very second, Isabella felt Edward's anger shoot upward, like a rocket launching.
"Didn't sleep well?" Edward sneered insolently. "Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?"
"Edward," Carlisle cautioned.
Esme ignored him completely. Crestfallen, Isabella rolled into the spot left open for her wheelchair. "Morning," she piped at Carlisle, attempting to sound upbeat. Wordlessly, Carlisle offered his cheek and tapped it twice with his finger. Even after all this time, he still wore his wedding ring. It made Bella smile. She leaned over and pecked his cheek sweetly.
That moment was not to last.
On the warpath, Edward was glaring at Esme – willing to take shots. Esme was returning the glare just as hatefully.
Pointedly, gently and sensually, Edward kissed the sharpest point on Bella's cheekbone and then her temple. "Coffee, love?"
Everything about what Edward had just done would spite Esme, and Edward knew it. The offer of coffee – a beverage that Isabella chose to take, even though the caffeine worsened her symptoms. The term of endearment. The kisses.
Esme's breath hitched, and the sound reminded Isabella of a striking viper. "I'll serve her juice," she sniffed, and it was the first four words Isabella had heard from her mother in days.
Carlisle looked uncomfortable, too, but he wasn't seething.
"You sure? You'd have to acknowledge she exists," Edward snapped back, and Isabella winced. Forcefully, she locked her hand around his wrist, in a plea and warning. Gently, Edward shook her off.
"Don't you dare disrespect me," Esme hissed. "You've done me enough harm."
"Edward," Carlisle snapped, but mutedly, because he sounded exhausted.
The scolding was as effective as an ice cube cooling a fire: Edward looked ready to fight back. He laughed coldly, mockingly. It was one of those facets of Edward that terrified her – one of those facets that she saw little and understood even less.
Tugging at his shirt, Isabella echoed Edward's father. She peeked at him through her eyelashes imploringly. "Please."
Breathing heavily, Edward listened. He sat next to her, arms folded across his chest, glaring at Isabella. She could imagine how he was berating her mentally. Don't be such a pushover. She's blackmailing you.
The silence that fell was even thicker and more uncomfortable than before. In her wheelchair, Bella shifted uncomfortably, feeling compelled to fill the silence.
"The fruit looks so fresh," Bella said brightly, and she would have felt dumb but for the fact that Esme had raised her into a master of mindless pleasantries.
There was a fruit platter in the middle of the table. There was also an elegant crystal serving dish of yogurt, topped with berries. Isabella had left for college laboring under the delusion that one couldn't eat fruit unless it was cut up into slices, and that one couldn't eat yogurt straight from the tub.
Isabella speared a slice of peach and placed it on one of the plates. Her arm trembled as she served herself yogurt. Edward steadied the plate for her.
Carlisle sighed exhaustedly, then managed to smile at Isabella kindly. "I have a little surprise, Bee," he said, all fatherly. "Did Edward tell you already?"
Edward scoffed. "Don't call her Bee," he said petulantly, possessively. "I call her Bee. Only me." He sounded so much like the absurdly spoiled only child – only grandson – he had been that Isabella almost smiled.
Carlisle rolled his eyes. "Good to be reminded," he chuckled. "Anyway. Isabella. Did Edward tell you what we're doing, already?"
Bella lit up and beamed at her favorite uncle. "He didn't," she confirmed, sparkling. "And thank you so much. You didn't have to."
"I was thinking it would be nice for the three of us to spend the day together before I leave," he said, and he eyed them both with a touch of severity. "To talk. And then I thought…"
With the flourish with which he had once pulled quarters out of Isabella's nose, Carlisle lifted out three tickets.
Isabella gasped brightly. "Oh! Oh. That's awesome. Thank you! Are those – I've never been!"
"You're very welcome, sweetheart."
"But I can't go into Fenway Park," she added playfully, mostly in jest. "I'm a Dodgers girl. I'll be struck by lightning."
Carlisle chuckled.
"It's not like they're the Giants, babe," Edward said, smiling, mood lightening.
"I think they're playing the Nationals today," Carlisle said congenially. "The game starts at 1.40. We're on time, but it never hurts to rush with these things."
Carlisle stood. "Esme, do you want any help with the frittata?"
"It's ready," Esme sniffed acidly. "Nobody helps around here. I'm taken for granted."
Isabella would have bet all her money that Carlisle had offered to help earlier. He always did.
"Mom."
The mood had iced again. Esme set a platter on the table and sat down. She cut up the fritatta with the precision of a surgeon weilding a scapel.
"Speaking of baseball," Esme said frostily, placing a disgusted emphasis on the word. Isabella was struck again by how tragically mismatched her parents had been all along. The only "sport" Esme watched, and had ever practiced, was equestrianism. "Have you spoken to your father recently, Isabella?"
The words stung Bella like a slap. Not once, in her twenty-one years, had Bella given her mom any cause to be angry. Consequently, Esme had never used her full name in anger. In the face of her hurt and her fear, Isabella's anger was small and muted. She was scared, and deeply hurt – because her mother was lashing out, plainly and vindictively.
"Why are you asking her this?" Edward demanded irritably, angering quickly. Bella put a calming hand on his forearm, giving him a meaningful, sharp look.
"No, I haven't," Bella said evenly.
"I'm asking, Edward," Esme snarled, "because she deserves to know who her father is. Charles should face her. I have proof now, from a PI. I got it yesterday. Isabella's father has been an adulterer for the entire marriage, and I'm not going to let him get away with it."
There was an accusation in Esme's eyes, like Bella had encouraged, aided or abetted the infidelity. "Ask him, Isabella. Ask him. He's been fucking that whore at his office for over ten years, behind my back."
Isabella felt like she had been punched, repeatedly - like each of her mother's words would leave her bruised. Crestfallen, she curled into herself. Her eyes started to sting, her stomach churning. She was completely unprepared for this, in every way.
"Why the hell are you telling her this? You're just hurting her," Edward growled, standing to curl around Bella protectively.
"Because Isabella is being just as ungrateful! That man owes me everything! I raised his daughter! I did a wonderful job. I raised a princess! I was completely devoted. I helped him climb the ladder. Do you think he would've made it as far as he has without my connections? He has the charm of a soup can. I pulled him out of the mud – "
"Esme. That's enough," Carlisle cautioned, growing angry.
Isabella's next breath came out in a hitched, pitiful, wet breath. Her limbs started to tremble.
Edward took two steps away from Bella, and he towered over Esme. In a panic, Isabella feared Edward would do something rash. Carlisle, afraid of the same, stood. He walked around the table and wrapped his hand arouns Edward's arm.
"You've been mediocre at best," Edward snarled, cold and dangerous. "You're controlling as shit. And you manipulated her into being too innocent, too sweet, too much of a people pleaser. That'll only hurt her."
"That's rich. You've always hurt her," Esme sneered back, standing, face flaming with red. Carlisle was forcefully holding Edward back – whether from striking or yelling, she was not sure - and Isabella was frightened. Her breathing was becoming hysterical, coming out in desperate gasps and shuddering exhales.
"I let you be in her life because you're my sister's son, but nobody has ever hurt her more than you have. I think you'remaking a terrible mistake. Whatever you're doing now is a mistake. You'll make each other miserable."
"That's enough!" Carlisle roared. "Esme, I'll talk to Edward later. But I won't let you go explode like this at someone in my home. Ever again."
Esme was having a hard time cooling down, and Isabella was shivering with a mixture of panic and terror.
Esme looked pointedly at Isabella, whose vision was going blurry. Esme was articulating – out loud – everything she had ever feared. The tears wouldn't stop – her breathing was still shallow and forced, and she felt like she was going to choke.
"If that's your opinion, Carlisle," Esme snarled. "Then I'll be sure to make myself scarce. Thank you for your hospitality."
Carlisle clapped his hand against his face and tugged at his skin, frustrated, and exasperated. Esme flitted away, vibrating with rage, her dark blue robe glimmering under the sunlight. Carlisle groaned and huffed in her wake.
Edward took deep, heaving breaths, turning his attention to Isabella.
"Bee, baby. Bee? Talk to me. Baby, talk to me. Everything is going to be fine, love."
"I think she's having a panic attack," Edward yelped at his father, sounding agitated and falling to his knees.
Tears were falling freely, and she was making a strange noise in the back of her throat. Her every desperate gasp for air was followed by a shuddering breath. She felt Carlisle's hand on hers, and it was cold and comforting.
"Dad?" Edward asked, frightened. "Help her, Dad."
"Bella, sweetheart, you are having a panic attack," Carlisle said, evidently going into doctor mode. "But we are going to get through it together. Can you feel my hand?"
How either of them could tell she nodded through the trembling of her CP acting up, Isabella would never know.
"Now we're going to breathe, sweetheart. Counts of three. Inhale, two three. Hold, two three. Exhale, two three," he explained, collected but kind. Isabella, dazed and breathless, couldn't understand the instruction. Carlisle illustrated it with his own breathing. One. Twice. Thrice. Edward watched, frozen with panic.
On the fourth attempt, Isabella was able to follow, and Carlisle started to count as if chanting. Inhale, two, three.
"I'm so sorry," Bella managed to say, in between shuddering breaths.
Relieved, Carlisle sat back on his haunches and stroked her hair.
"It's not your fault at all, sweetheart," Carlisle said in a low and furious voice, angrier than Isabella had seen him in her entire life. "She used to do this to Lizzie as well. These attacks. Same bullshit. It would escalate randomly, for no reason. And Lizzie would just let her. Until she didn't."
Edward looked at his father, askance and curious.
Isabella was no less surprised.
Gently, still terrified, Edward wiped the tears from her cheek.
"Are you kids still in the mood to go?" Carlisle asked, unable to hide his disappointment.
"We don't have to go if you don't want to," Edward offered immediately, sweetly.
Isabella shook her head furiously. "I want to go," she insisted stuffily. "I really do. I was – I am – super excited." She smiled weakly at Carlisle.
Not ten minutes had passed, much to Edward's fury, and Isabella had knocked on her mother's door.
Esme had taken the room that Jane had vacated. It overlooked the forest, and not the ocean, but it was one of the few rooms with an ensuite bathroom. "What – what are you doing?" Edward barked incredulously, as she wheeled towards it. Edward looked at her incredulously, then furiously. Once Bella pushed the door open, Edward stomped away.
"Mom?" Bella asked softly. "Are you feeling better?" Bella would be in her mid-twenties by the time she caught the irony of the statement and the situation. Her face was streaked with the trail tears had left, and the tremors the sobbing had caused lingered.
"I'm glad you came in here," Esme said, cold and stiff.
"I'm sorry," she blurted immediately, out of habit. "I'm so sorry, Mom."
As a little girl – Edward was right – she had learned to avoid any of her mother's triggers. Isabella had been an especially intelligent little girl, and sorry had always been the magic word. Whenever Esme was upset, Isabella learned to swallow her disagreement – as early as eight or nine – and apologize. An instinct in her had always told her mother was too carefully controlled, and Isabella had learned her triggers in the same way she had learned to read and write.
Esme smiled thinly, hazel eyes warming.
"I'm glad you apologized," Esme said sniffily. "You've always been my lovely little pea."
"I don't want to hurt you," Isabella pleaded. Her mother was one of the people she loved most in the world.
"You've been keeping secrets from me," Esme said quietly, voice icy and punitive.
Bella's eyes burned. "I promise I won't keep secrets anymore," she implored, and she meant it. "Can you just help me get ready? Can you do my hair, mom?"
On a therapist's couch, aged almost thirty, Isabella would come to grips with that pattern -- a game of cat and mouse. She would discover how her fear of her mother held her captive for most of her adolescence and well into her early twenties.
Appeasing her mother would cost her dearly. Esme would hijack – and contribute to ruining – something that would have saved her years of heartache.
That day, and that psychological breakthrough, was far away for twenty-one-year-old Isabella.
"Always, my baby," Esme cooed, and both mother and daughter sighed with relief. Esme half-escorted Bella back to her room, gave instructions for how to wash her face, and then began to part her hair. Cringing internally, Bella realized quickly that her mother was going for braided pigtails.
"How long has this thing with Edward been going on?" Esme asked, her voice even. The severity and the tightness in her eyes, growing cold, frightened Bella.
How the hell was she supposed to answer? If she was honest, the relationship had been budding between them for almost ten years. The answer her mother was fishing for, however, was plain and quick. "Not very long," she admitted quietly, with the same guilt of someone confessing a crime. "Less than a month."
"Has he been good to you?"
"We love each other. I love him so much," she said fervently, with surefire certainty. "He's been perfect."
"I know he loves you," Esme said, voice flat and emotionless. "I know he adores you, and I know he'll try his best not to hurt you. In fact, I can only imagine it ending in marriage. And that will be a pity because I think you can both do better than each other."
Bella's stomach flipped.
"I hope you'll remember I warned you, Isabella. I think you're making a mistake. You two make a gorgeous couple – truly. But you're mismatched. Edward will always be far more worldly and experienced. I don't think you're mature enough to keep up. There's darkness in him that you will never understand, let alone love. He'll marry you eventually, and you will be deeply unhappy because it's a terrible match. His world will eat you alive."
Isabella was so shocked she couldn't speak.
"I'm not a romantic," Esme continued, stern and deathly serious. "If my marriages have taught me anything, it is that couples need to come from the same ilk. As much as Carlisle tries to escape it – as much as Elizabeth wanted to run away and play pretend – Edward comes from this world. From this house, from this fortune, from this family. This world has expectations, and it always pulls them back. Elizabeth was miserable, and you'll be miserable trying to keep up. Just like your father and I were miserable."
She tugged on the last strand of Bella's luscious thick hair so roughly that Bella winced.
For the first time in her life, Bella said exactly what she wanted to say.
"I didn't think you had it in you to be this horrible," Isabella whispered, amazed at how sincerity could make her this angry. "You sound like Mrs. Cullen. Superficial, and silly, and cruel."
Esme's mouth fell open in shock, eyes swirling with hurt and outrage. "You're so ungrateful," Esme hissed. "All I have ever done is love you and care for you. Devotedly. I'm the reason you're here. And if you're going to be an awful little brat, then I have no reason to spend any more time with you. If being a realistic makes me cruel, then I'll be cruel."
It was the last time she and her mother would speak, for nearly a year.
Isabella emerged dressed for a ball game, stiff with pain and shock. There were no tears left for her to cry at that moment, though Edward would hold her as she cried hysterically that night. Why had her relationship with her mother deteriorated so badly? Had she never known her mother? What would she do now?
If she thought about it too much, she would fall to pieces.
Underneath a summery red flannel, she wore a white tank top and jeans. Bravely, she fished out her Dodgers' white-and-blue baseball cap. The braids Esme had threaded hung below the delicate shell of her ear, loose and nearly at the nape of her neck. Despite the adjustments to the hairstyle that had been made, it was still too little girl.
Edward was waiting for her by the first-floor landing, leaning against the first post in the banister. He looked enraged. His arms were folded across his chest, his ankles were crossed, and he was glowering at her coldly. It had been a while since he had looked at her that angrily.
Wordlessly, tensely, they walked out of the foyer and into the front garden.
"You're caving," Edward fumed angrily as soon as they were outside, foaming at the mouth, in an impassioned speech. "You're in this fucking psychotic relationship with her, and she's manipulating you. Don't you see how she's acting like a lunatic? She's only nice to you if you let her pretend that you're ten again."
"She gets angry at you, you crawl back because she never taught you to grow a backbone," Edward snapped. "I'm done defending you."
"Fuck you," Bella grumbled. It was the first time Bella ever said it.
"Wo-ho-ho," Edward whooped, laughing coldly. "Now you decide to fight back."
"We fought," Bella growled, low and pained. "It was awful. I said some things to her that I never imagined I would. I… She's … I don't know why it's been so hard. I went off to college and boom. My family and my relationship collapsed."
Of all the things that had been difficult and brutal in her life, the sham that was her parents' marriage would be the most painful, far outstripping the CP. Tears were pooling in her eyes, and that doused Edward's anger faster than fire extinguisher to a flame.
"Bee, baby," Edward cringed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."
"Shut up, Edward," Bella sniffed, wiping at her eye with the heel of her hand.
Carlisle walked up to them, whistling Take Me Out to the Ball Game, despite the tiredness in his eyes.
A lot had happened, and it wasn't even 10:00 AM.
"You're feeling better, Bell? Good." Carlisle said breezily. "That's brave, wearing the Dodgers hat."
"Nobody's going to heckle a girl in a wheelchair," Bella giggled, chirpy but sardonic. Carlisle, perhaps used to gallows humor as an oncologist, grinned.
Carlisle made Edward go in the back and refused to let him drive. Gallantly, Edward agreed so that Isabella would have more legroom.
The car ride was quiet. Carlisle was driving so fast that Bella was certain it bordered on speeding. Not unlike Edward, Carlisle was particular about his taste in music – in fact, Bella knew, they liked the same bands – Men at Work, the Dire Straits, the Rolling Stones, John Lennon during his Yoko era, and a handful of songs that Bella associated with the sixties, like Janis Joplin's Me and Bobby McGee.
The music calmed her, dulled the pain.
"Edward likes the same music as you," Isabella commented casually, trying to sound upbeat. Behind her, Edward placed his hand on her shoulder. Trembling, she lifted hers, and they intertwined their fingers.
"Lizzie liked Madonna and Wham and that kind of thing," Carlisle told them, surprising Bella. "I was more alternative. I thought it was funny that her taste in pop was so bad. Given that she was so brilliant at classical music. Romantic Era, she'd say."
Isabella was surprised. Lizzie Masen had passed nearly nine years earlier, and Carlisle had mentioned her more in the past two months than in the previous eight years.
"Mom had god-awful taste, though," Edward snickered fondly, and his tone warmed Bella's heart. They could finally talk about Lizzie, remember her, because the pain had dimmed. "All her life. She used to dress me in overalls and striped sweaters in the 1990s, and I looked like lily white Urkel."
Just like that, Carlisle and Isabella laughed, and some of her pain dulled.
The energy of Fenway Park made the pain fade.
It was enough that she could enjoy being with the man she loved – and his father. By some twist of fate, Edward's father was the only parental figure left in her life that she still trusted blindly with child-like love. Carlisle was the only one who survived Isabella's more critical adult-like scrutiny – that only adult that grown in her esteem under it.
The three of them went in through Gate E. The concourse unfolded before her, and she stared at everything with the wonderment. A thousand conversations, the rhythmic chant of "Let's Go Sox!" punctuated by car horns, all coalesced into a vibrant, pulsating roar. Concession stands, adorned with vintage Red Sox memorabilia, and old-timey signs lined the walls – Fenway Frank's, Wally's World, Fenwaywurst.
"Babe, do you want a hoodie? A baseball cap?" Edward asked in front of Wally's. Blushingly, Isabella shook her head. With a glint in his eye, Edward hung back.
"Come on. I got tickets for the Aura Pavilion," Carlisle explained through the noise of the concourse. Noticing Isabella, an usher led them forward.
Edward caught up with them closer to the elevator, holding a stuffed Green Monster plushie, and Bella reacted as if he had bought her a diamond he had mined himself.
The elevator for the Aura Pavilion gleamed beside a stand overflowing with souvenir baseballs. Wheeling out of the elevator, they found themselves in a hallway lined with framed old photographs. "This is so cool," she gasped at her Uncle Carlisle, feeling silly with puppylike excitement.
The Aura Pavilion itself was more like a nice restaurant, and far removed from the bleachers. Past floor-to-glass windows, the field shone bright green. The Green Monster stood tall over left field. They were exactly above home plate, and Bella could see the players practicing.
Past glass sliding doors, people could sit on high stools with backrests. While Carlisle got beers, Edward lifted her by the waist to help her climb on them. "You look hot," he whispered in her ear, and she giggled like a girly idiot.
During the ride on the freeway, she had pulled up her sleeves and tied the hem of the flannel into a knot above her midriff. "Call me a pervert, but this schoolgirl shit Esme does with your hair is fuckhot."
"Pervert," Bella said, pressing her forehead against his and smiling. He looked hot, too – but then again, he always did. He'd been wearing dark sunglasses and a baseball shirt.
"Thank you for my Green Monster," she added glowingly, pecking Edward on the lips.
Carlisle cleared his throat, and Bella squealed her embarrassment. Close-mouthed and innocent, the kiss was the first they shared in front of Carlisle, but it would not be the last. He eyed them curiously but did not look upset – maybe hesitant, even worried, but not disappointed.
Awkwardly, Bella tried to pretend that had not happened.
"Thank you. This must have been really expensive. You shouldn't have bothered," Bella said to Carlisle. Whatever her mother's faults, Esme had raised her impeccably.
"Two million dollars a seat," Edward deadpanned, irritated. "Dad had to mortgage the house to get them."
Bella shot Edward a mock glare - mostly playfully - and stuck out her tongue.
"Enjoy it, sweetheart," Carlisle said kindly.
Relaxing, Edward moved so that he was hugging her from behind. He placed his chin on her shoulder and kissed her cheek.
Despite that, Isabella had a blast - like a kid at a ball game. Edward had once admitted he hated baseball and found it slow. Edward cringed and rolled his eyes at Sweet Caroline and every single stadium organ song. Edward also didn't understand Bella's joke about liking Tequilla better than Sweet Caroline, which made Carlisle laugh.
Despite that, Edward smiled tenderly every time she gasped – delightedly – with every hit, and cringed every time the pitcher swung, invariably.
After the game, Carlisle took them to pizza for dinner at the North End.
"I thought I was going to die of secondhand embarrassment with Sweet Caroline. And the Chicken Dance. Baby, I can't believe you clapped," Edward was complaining vigorously, with a mock-long suffering sigh.
"You looked like an ass," Bella retorted dryly, mumbling through a bite of cheese pizza. "There were 30,000 people in that stadium, and you were the only person that wasn't clapping."
Carlisle laughed, and Bella turned to him, glowing and earnest. "Thank you, Uncle Carlisle," she said. "I loved it. I loved it so much."
"I'm glad you had fun, Bella. Really," he said warmly. "All I wanted was one nice Sunday with my kids."
Hearing that – kids, plural - made Isabella's entire year. She smiled softly, trying to convey with her doe eyes how much gratitude she felt.
"It was torture," Edward whined, but Isabella could tell he was kidding because his eyes were sparkling playfully. Isabella was back to being freshly in love, giggling at everything. "Baseball is so fucking repetitive."
"Oh, yeah, because football isn't repetitive at all," Bella said sardonically. She swiped at his Dr. Pepper and took a sip from the straw.
"54 fuckers in tights, one after the other, hitting a ball," Edward continued, with a mock long-suffering sigh, and Isabella couldn't stop laughing. "The only highlight was watching my father the oncologist clap at the Jewish stadium song."
"Edward," Bella hissed. "It's called the Hava Naguila. It's for weddings and mitzvahs."
Carlisle laughed again, and the sound warmed her up.
"Anyway," Carlisle interrupted, trying hard not to smile. "I also wanted to talk." Uncharacteristically, he cleared his throat with embarrassment.
"Oh, Christ," Edward groaned. "I knew this would happen."
Bella turned studious and solemn, her doe eyes wide, her stomach coiling.
Years later, she would look back at those moments, that Fenway Park day – at Carlisle's talk – as a pivotal point. It would be the blessing they both needed – the talk that gave her the happiest years of her life.
"I'm happy for both of you. God knows you both deserve being happy and in love," Carlisle said seriously but kindly. "One of the best things that can happen in life is to fall in love with your best friend."
At that, Carlisle sounded wistful, and Isabella wanted to hug him. The older she became, the more she understood all the dimensions of the tragedy that was Lizzie Cullen's death. Now that the worst of Carlisle's grief had passed, Bella understood – with more clarity and sympathy – that Carlisle had fallen into a deep and severe depression after he lost his wife. Lizzie's death had destroyed him.
"Bella, I think you're wonderful, and a beauty, and Edward couldn't do any better," Carlisle continued earnestly, ribbing Edward. Isabella's mouth popped open in shock. The incredulity would never really leave her – not until maturity made her grow into her own self-confidence, years later.
At that moment though, she was stupefied into speechlessness. She half-expected Carlisle to take it back.
"However," Carlisle said pointedly, and Edward grumbled under his breath. "I want to make sure you're both mature enough to develop a… contingency plan, if you will. Mature enough to assume the consequences, should this relationship not to turn out well. I would hate to find myself in the middle, just as much as I would hate for my son to lose his best friend, or for Isabella to feel like she has to lose this family. I'm sure your mom would feel the same way, Bella."
"Why are you assuming it's going to go to shit?" Edward barked aggressively at his father, and Isabella rolled her eyes. "It's not going to go to shit, because I refuse to – "
"Edward," Bella hissed. "Shut up."
Grumbling and glaring, Edward obeyed. Carlisle bit his lip to keep from smirking.
"Thank you," Bella said earnestly, to overcome with emotion to elaborate. She tried to convey the extent of her gratitude with her eyes.
"I do think we need to talk," she said gravely but evenly, looking both Carlisle and Edward in the eye.
Edward scoffed angrily. "Why?" he demanded petulantly, lashing out, and Isabella could see the pain in his eyes.
Gently, she cupped his cheek, and Edward put his hand on hers. "Because your father's right," she said.
"On that note," Carlisle said lightly. "Who wants some gelato?"
Bella cried out "I do!" the way she might have at age eleven, and Edward laughed, then bent to kiss her nose.
As the sun began to set, the three of them sat on an iron-wrought bench enjoying scrumptious creamy gelatos, and Isabella felt content and happy. It was almost like she had not survived vicious, draining – shattering – fighting with the only mother she had ever known.
"Uncle Carlisle?" Bella asked seriously, over a spoonful of burnt caramel icecream. After a long day, her tremors were acting up – she was exhausted – and Edward supported her wrist gently. Her arm wouldn't stop trembling, and Edward seemed more concerned than Bella herself.
"Did my dad ever cheat?"
Edward made a strange sound of protest, somewhere between a grunt and a whimper.
Carlisle exhaled slowly, measuring his words with great care. "I wouldn't know, sweetheart. I really wouldn't," he said.
Isabella intuitively figured Carlisle was lying. With a pang of pain, she supposed was confirmation enough. Her anger flared. Did Carlisle think she was too stupid? Why was he infantilizing her?
Carlisle seemed to know where her thoughts had gone.
"Speaking from experience," Carlisle continued evenly, kindly but sternly. "It's not your business, my darling. It'll only hurt you to take sides, or to wonder, or even to know. It's one of those things where the healthiest thing is to forgive and forget. Genuine forgiveness takes a lot of work, so it's better not to create situations where you need to forgive or be forgiven."
Again, she was stupefied by gratitude, by admiration, for the one parental figure left in her life that had yet to hurt her. Her gratitude made a knot in her throat.
"My father cheated on my mother all his life," Carlisle continued, with a tone Bella found absurdly casual.
Edward's ice cream fell to the floor with a thud, and for once, he was stunned into silence.
"You don't have to explain," Isabella jumped in immediately, sweetly squeezing Carlisle's hand. "Thank you, though. That was great advice. I needed to hear it."
"It's been years," Carlisle said with a shrug. "It's kind of important, even. For Edward to understand my mother. All his life, my father. Three women in total. It made me furious, and I took sides – even when my mother took the cheating gracefully. It worsened my relationship with my father, to no avail. It didn't change a thing."
"I resented the last lady deeply – horrible woman. Her name was Celeste. My father left her money in his will, and I – well. To this day, I think she was cheap and awful. No woman deserves to be cheated on, even my mother, and to be an accessory to it is disgusting. I wasn't certain that Celeste genuinely loved my father. I still think she was in it for the money. Despite all of that, she made him happy. Very happy, towards the end. And I wasted a lot of time embittered and angry over something I couldn't change."
Carlisle sighed. "There are situations in life that make you appreciate the wisdom in the Serenity Prayer. You know which one I'm talking about?"
"—It's beautiful."
"—No," Edward said flatly, with the delicacy of an elephant, and Isabella glared.
Unperturbed, Carlisle rolled his eyes. "It's commonly associated with Alcoholics Anonymous, but I came across it through Mom," he told Edward. "She gave it to me in a bookmark."
Isabella treasured the wisdom and the elegance in Carlisle's advice. It's not your business, my darling.
Throughout the entire divorce, Carlisle would be the only adult who would speak out in Isabella's best interests. That was as poignant as it was moving. More than anything, Isabella felt impossibly lucky. She'd had three deficient parents, and life had compensated her with a Carlisle, and Edward - with her Cullen men.
Less importantly, but quite curiously, Carlisle was genuinely elegant. Carlisle was the one with the claim to the English dukedom, the owner of the fortune and the assets. Victoria's Oyster Bay in Nassau County had been mortgaged, and Carlisle was paying it off. That tidbit of gossip had reached Bella through Edward. Despite all the wealth, Carlisle was the least snobbish person in Edward's entire family, and there was something satisfyingly beautiful about that irony.
Carlisle thought Isabella was enough.
For more than three years, that sustained her.