chapter seven: apples and trees

It had been downcast and raining off and on throughout the past few days, but the next morning the sun rose on a bright sky with only a few clouds. That cheered Esme, although she hadn't disliked the rain. It was peaceful. Sometimes during summer in Ohio the sun felt merciless and scorching, as though it would seek you out no matter where you went.

No one was in the kitchen for breakfast when she came in, and the reason was immediately apparent upon finding the woodbox empty and the stove cold. She heard a sharp chopping noise outside, and looked out the kitchen door to find Carlisle and Edward in their shirtsleeves, splitting logs. They were situated facing away from her and evidently didn't hear the door when it closed behind her, and she took advantage of their lack of notice to watch them for a moment.

"Certainly there is, but it's a structure of understanding and language, not a real actuality unless combined with matter." Carlisle said, before decisively bringing down his axe.

"So you're rejecting the Platonic ideal, too?" Edward said, his voice light and challenging, and then split another log, tossing it into the wheelbarrow resting beside them. It was not very full; they must have only just started their task.

"I don't see how it can be a property of an object." When Carlisle did the same, he turned enough to catch sight of her, watching with her arms folded from the kitchen step, and he smiled. "Esme, good morning. I should have done this yesterday, but I didn't realize the situation in the woodbox was so dire. And I was afraid if you discovered it first you'd come out here and start chopping wood yourself."

"And what would the neighbors think?" Edward asked, glancing with a smile at their isolated surroundings as he threw down his axe.

"If anyone saw me trying to split logs they'd think I was a very foolish woman," said Esme as she reached them. "What in the world are the two of you talking about?"

"Logical positivism," said Edward. "The newest wave of German philosophical nonsense."

"Nonsense?" Carlisle asked, clearly in jest, and Edward shrugged one shoulder. She was thrilled to see their animation and lightheartedness. "Edward's been led astray by some Greco-Roman at his school, no doubt."

Edward actually smiled, shaking his head.

"I'm glad you've been having such a stimulating conversation," she said, looking up at Carlisle with a smile. "And thank you for refilling the woodbox. Perhaps I can take some now to start the stove and put on some coffee." Saying that, taking in the whole scene, she was nearly overwhelmed by the rush of affection she felt for both of them.

"I'll take them in for you," said Carlisle, putting aside his axe, and he picked up an armful of logs and walked with her back towards the house.

"You looked as though you and Edward were having a nice time," she said brightly once they were out of earshot. "You both like philosophy?"

"He's very bright." She opened the door for him and he tossed the wood into the woodbox, glancing at Edward out the window above the stove. He had resumed his task. "He was already outside when I got there, just sitting on the veranda. I hope he slept."

Esme nodded. She hadn't slept particularly well the night before either, so she wasn't sure what to say. She was sure she had dreamt about her son, but she didn't have any memory of what had happened, only a deep sense of melancholy and loss when she woke up in the night. It wasn't the first time this had happened, but it distressed her very much as she lay in the dark, the tears sliding out of the corners of her eyes and down the hollows of her cheeks to her neck.

Ridiculously, she had considered getting up and going to the kitchen for a glass of water because she wondered if perhaps Carlisle would hear her and emerge from his room. She didn't want to be alone. She wanted to talk to him.

She hadn't, of course. It smacked of the girls who would drop hankies on the ground at town dances hoping to catch the attention of a man to pick it up for them. And that wasn't her situation at all. She had just lay there in the dark and probably drifted back to fitful sleep before the sun rose. She wasn't sure what had woken Edward so early, but it could have been any number of his own troubles.

"Well, thank you for the kindling," she said, even more determined to be cheerful today and keep everyone's spirits high. "I'll try to repay your efforts when you come inside."

Evidently she was doing a good job projecting cheer, because Carlisle seemed extremely pleased. As he turned to leave outside, he lingered in the doorway for a moment as if to say something more, and then just smiled at her and went out. She was glad he was doing so well with Edward, glad he was so pleased. There was always something tentative in his smile, as though he disbelieved any pleasure or happiness that came to him. Maybe he did. Esme could understand that very well.

When he was gone, she looked in the icebox and was pleased to see milk was left. She was going to make pancakes. She hadn't made pancakes for years—Charles hadn't liked them, and his parents always wanted hot cereal for breakfast when she kept house for them.

She burnt the first one slightly, and then worried that she had forgotten how to do it right since before she had married Charles. But then the next one turned out better, and the one after that was nearly perfect, and her worried were assuaged and she just made a mental note to put the burnt ones aside for herself.

It was nearly an hour later that Edward and Carlisle came inside, taking armfuls of wood from the wheelbarrow in the doorway to fill up the woodbox, looking flushed and accomplished and still in high spirits. Esme had coffee ready by then, and had set plates around the table in the kitchen.

She watched as they washed their hands with the water pump next to the sink basin. Illogically, somehow next to Edward, Carlisle looked younger, or perhaps just less weighed down by guilt—and next to his brother, Edward's youth was even more apparent and pronounced, at least to Esme. He was a tall, good-looking boy, but not much more than a child, really.

"Did you resolve your differences on German philosophy?" She asked, and Edward shrugged one shoulder.

"Perhaps you'll be our tiebreaker, Esme. Where do you stand on the thing-ness of things?"

"I'm afraid I don't know much about it," she said, and tried not to feel a pang of awkwardness. She had always known that Carlisle was highly educated, not just in the medical field but in all sorts of other subjects as well. It was obvious that Edward had similarly received an expansive education, despite being too young for university yet. She felt very conscious of the fact that she had a high school education from a tiny public school outside of Columbus, supplemented only by voracious reading. If her mother had had her way she wouldn't even have had the diploma—she had wanted her daughter married by eighteen.

"Well, it's very simple," said Edward, paying no mind to any hesitation in her voice. "You're eating a burnt pancake."

She nodded.

"This one," he gestured to his own plate, "isn't burnt. But they're both pancakes. If you burn a pancake, it doesn't become something else, it's still a pancake. Why do they belong to the same class of thing? Because they both have pancake-ness."

"Pancake-ness," Esme repeated with a short laugh. "That's the thing that makes them pancakes."

"It's the essential element of a thing. Without that element, the thing would be a different thing. In that case, pancake batter, being flat—things that if they were removed, it wouldn't be a pancake. Chairs have chair-ness. Bowls have bowl-ness. And so on."

Esme nodded, actually intrigued by the idea. She had thought Edward was joking with her at first, but she could grasp the concept he spoke of. "And what about people? Do you have Edward-ness?"

"Everyone does have an essential quality of self," Carlisle broke in. "Some people think of it as the human soul."

The way he said it made Esme sure that he was one such person.

"What qualities make up the soul, then?" She asked. "Personality, or appearance, or…" she trailed off. That idea didn't sound right.

"It's more intangible than that," said Carlisle. "That is—if you dyed your hair black tomorrow, you wouldn't not be Esme anymore. Your appearance doesn't change who you are, it's simply an accidental quality."

Esme smiled. "That's where you're wrong—when women dye their hair they proclaim themselves new women entirely." Carlisle chuckled. She went on. "But I think I understand it, then. Personality wouldn't be the soul either, at least not in the sense that I can change my behavior. If I am a gossip I can stop gossiping and I still will be me. But perhaps in a deeper sense it is personhood at its most innate, beyond the traits we adopt and develop over the years in response to our experiences."

"Exactly," Carlisle said with a grin. He seemed genuinely pleased by her grasp of the idea. She couldn't help but smile back.

"Will you dye your hair and become a new woman, Esme? Or cut it? In the cities women are cutting their hair off in droves to look more like men," Edward said, mock-seriously.

"I don't think that is why they are doing it, Edward," Esme replied. "But I have never felt so inclined."

"That's good," said Carlisle, quietly. "That is—you should do what you like. But you have very lovely hair."

She felt herself smile again, and hoped she wasn't blushing. Breakfast continued, friendly and surprisingly lively, but she found herself constantly falling behind in contributions because she kept sitting there and taking in the scene before her. An unusually pleasant moment in this house, to be sure, but even the bad ones were a thousand times better than what she had left behind in Ohio.

The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of Carlisle's souls. That meant that there was something in her unshaped by everything that had happened, when sometimes it felt as though everything lingered on brokenly inside her, malfunctioning even now because of the past. She liked the idea of there being a part of her that Charles had never been able to touch.

When breakfast had drawn to its close, Esme stood as though to clear the table, and Carlisle hurried to disabuse her of the notion. "I'll clear the dishes. I'm sure you have things to do."

She frowned at him. "What an odd thing to be sure of. Clearing the dishes is the only thing I have to do."

"I'm sure that's not true, and furthermore, I insist." He thought, for the thousandth time, that he needed to obtain a maid sooner rather than later. Every time Esme cooked or set the table he had to wonder if she thought he had brought her here to cook and clean. He hated feeling as though he had misled her somehow.

"You'll do the dishes?" Edward asked, eyebrows raised.

"If you're wondering whether I'm capable—of course I am. I lived as a bachelor—" he had been about to remark on the years he had been caring for himself and suddenly thought better of it, remembering that they were lying to Edward, or at least deceiving him. "For all my life, until I was married."

"Fine, then. I yield to you. Thank you." She gave a small smile, but looked less happy than she had before when they had been joking about philosophy over breakfast. He wondered if she also felt guilty that Edward did not know the truth. And yet telling him was not something Carlisle would consider. Everything was still so fragile, despite the unexpected pleasantness of this morning. The situation with the Cullen siblings was like a brutally injured patient—the bleeding had to be stopped before any more delicate work could get started.

"I think I'll go into town today, even though the offices are closed. You're welcome to come with me, Esme—you too, Edward, of course, but this would be Esme's first visit."

"I'd like that," said Esme, and Carlisle had not expected her to look so pleased about the idea. He hoped she didn't feel he had been keeping her captive here. "I'll go get ready to go out."

Esme had already washed everything she had used before setting the table, so it was an easy task to set about finishing what remained.

Edward lingered in the kitchen, watching Esme leave as he leaned against a row of cabinets. Carlisle could see he wished to speak to him, but when the door closed behind Esme he said nothing, and Carlisle decided to stay silent, too. He didn't want to push the boy too far.

"I didn't think men were supposed to wash dishes for their wives," Edward said at last, speaking in a decidedly offhand tone.

"I suppose not," Carlisle said evenly. "But I am the one responsible for obtaining a maid, and so the delay is my fault."

Edward didn't say anything for a long while. Carlisle finished the short task without hearing another word from him.

"I think I'll be in the study until Esme is ready to leave," he said.

"Why did you marry Esme?" The lightness from this morning was gone, and Edward looked at him intently. Edward was very fond of his new sister-in-law, it seemed, ready to champion her from any harm, including himself. Carlisle supposed he couldn't blame him. He was a stranger to his younger brother still. "I mean. Aren't you afraid to…bring someone close enough to…be in your life that way?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"I mean—do you think you'll end up just like him?" Edward asked in a low voice, looking straight forward. "Isn't there even a part of you that thinks that there isn't anything you can do to prevent it?"

He supposed he shouldn't be surprised that Edward feared that, too. "He was our father, not our fate."

"You know that they say about apples and trees."

"That's a choice. That's not inevitable. I decided long ago, watching him, that I would never make people in my power feel the way that he had. I wouldn't let myself be ruled by my anger and use it as an excuse to be brutal."

Edward swallowed hard, and glanced away. "How."

"It takes practice." Of course he had been choleric and malformed when he was Edward's age, raised the way he had been. He was still malformed now, but in a different, less obvious way, and he supposed that was the best that could be done. "When I was here I always felt under fire, and even when I was away that was all I knew. Approaching the world like a caged animal will make you forget yourself, lash out because everything feels desperate and risky. But I knew that I did not want to be that way. I can control myself."

He reached out and put a hand on Edward's shoulder. He stiffened but didn't shrug it away, though his eyes remained resolutely forward, staring at the opposite wall. "Edward, I haven't seen you in years and I can still tell you're already not like him."

"You don't know that," Edward said quietly, and there was something pained and resigned in his voice that made Carlisle feel cold.

He turned away before Carlisle could respond.

Carlisle watched him leave the kitchen and heard him on the back stairs. Was it possible Edward was referring to the death of his mother? Esme had told him he blamed himself, but he had to know that her illness wasn't his fault—and had nothing to do with the nature of their father.

He walked into the front hall for his gloves and his hat. Esme descended the staircase just then. To go out, she had changed from the skirt and blouse she had worn to breakfast; her dress was sky blue linen, with a white collar and a wide sash that tied at the waist. She had tied a blue ribbon around her head and through her hair, gathered into a knot at the nape of her neck. The blue brought out the hint of copper red in her hair.

He realized his gaze was lingering too long when she smiled at him inquiringly and he hurried to say something. "I don't think Edward will be joining us, but we can leave whenever you're ready."

"We can leave now, then," Esme said. "Unless you think I should bring a raincoat."

"You should be fine. The weather here tends towards clouds but it doesn't turn quickly," Carlisle said, glancing out the high windows at the sun filtering dimly through the clouds. "This is considered quite cheerful weather here."

She waited on the front doorstep while Carlisle brought the car out of the carriagehouse, and he helped her in. "The steering takes a bit of strength to get used to, but when the car is in motion it becomes smoother," he said, as he started the engine and they began to drive down the road that led out of the woods and into town. "If you'd like, you can drive back home."

Esme shook her head. "I couldn't do that."

"Just to get the feel for it, before you have a car of your own." He could tell she was going to protest again. "If you have no way of leaving the estate I'll feel as though I've marooned you there. I already regret it's taken me so long to bring you to town. You lived in the city before and things here are so isolated."

"I lived in the city for a few years, and before that on a farm with no neighbors for miles in either direction," she replied. "And I haven't at all felt marooned. There's been so much to do."

He knew how to make her agree. "But I think you should know how to drive when I am in town at the offices more frequently, or traveling, at least. Edward may not always be available and if you or one of the girls needed assistance or just to go to town, you should have your own car."

She pressed her lips together and he knew that she was in agreement. She was very averse to, and almost suspicious of, anything meant for her enjoyment. He wanted the car so she could go where she pleased, even if her options were limited in Forks. It was selfish, too. He did not want the feeling of keeping her captive in the dark house against her will, one prison in Ohio exchanged for another in Washington, and even more than that he wanted to know every day that she could leave, and yet she did not. If that was true then he could almost let himself believe that she wanted to be here, and not just because anything was better than where she had been before.

He was quiet after that, because Esme was looking at their surroundings as they emerged from the forest and into town. Forks was more populous and more developed than it had been before his departure, nearly a decade before, but its remoteness kept it sparser than the small towns that had surrounded Columbus, or anywhere in New York Carlisle had lived before arriving in Ohio. Nothing was paved, and the Main Street contained nearly everything there was to the town—two boarding houses, a church and a barbershop, the police station, and a general store that appeared to have expanded into the next-door building in the years he had been away. The office was the tallest building in town, with a brick spire, built at the end of the street, and past that were rows of small, straight-framed houses.

He could see the people milling about the road and in front of the buildings all noticing them. The fact that he had returned after his father's death certainly was common knowledge now, and surely the fact that he was married had to be, but no one had yet seen his wife except Chief Swan. Carlisle doubted the man was much of a gossip.

"The offices are closed," Carlisle said, resisting as he always did calling them his father's offices. That wasn't true anymore, as much as he did not feel any part of this was his, either. "But I thought you might like to stop at the store."

"Yes, please," Esme said, turning from where she had been looking out the open side of the car where she sat. Carlisle had left the roof down given the relatively good weather today. "I've got to talk to them about where I can have clothes made. If Mary Alice is coming from Florida I doubt she's going to have anything warm."

He had not even thought of that, when in mere weeks he would be driving to Port Angeles to retrieve her. He stopped the car in front of the store.

Before he could say anything or exit to help her out of the automobile, she caught his eye again, raising her eyebrows at him. "Everyone is looking."

He could see that was true out of the corner of his eye. The men smoking by the hitching posts across the street; the group of women chatting on the porch of the general store; and the girl beating a carpet on the second floor veranda of one of the boarding houses had all fallen silent to surreptitiously glance their way.

"Are you all right?" He knew she would say yes, but he searched her expression for discomfort. "I'm sorry about this. I don't think it will continue once everyone has seen you and us and satisfied their curiosity."

When she smiled at him, though, she seemed genuinely unworried. "I have lived in town before, you know."

"I know," he said quickly, before realizing she was teasing him. Her smile widened and he exited the car to get her door and help her down.

When he opened the door he heard the jangle of a bell and the sibilant whispers of everyone in the store, who had been silently watching them through the panes of glass, pretending to return to their own business. His eyes met Esme's, and she was biting back a smile.

"Dr. Cullen," greeted Mr. Newton. He was standing behind the long counter which ran nearly the whole length of one wall. Behind him there were shelves of jars and cans and boxes and tools; in the glass cases underneath the counter there were boots and hats and gloves. There was a jar of penny candy sitting on the counter. The store had been much smaller when Carlisle had last left, selling only the basic essentials of daily life for a working man alone; now there were items for women and children. "It's a pleasure to see you here. My wife and I were very sorry to hear about the elder Mr. Cullen."

"Thank you," Carlisle said. Everyone had said that to him at least once. He wondered if there was even one person in the town for whom it was true. "Mr. Newton, this is my wife." The fact that he had been practicing medicine while he was away had gotten around, evidently, he reflected.

"How do you do," said Esme with a smile. Everyone in the store had given up the pretense of browsing for their own wares and was openly watching.

"An honor to meet you, Mrs. Cullen. I hope you've received a warm welcome from the town."

"This is a very charming place," Esme said. "I was hoping to enquire about ordering some clothes for my sisters-in-law."

Mr. Newton's eyes widened in understanding. Carlisle had been fairly certain that few in Forks knew there was more than one Cullen daughter, and he had been hearing whispered speculations since he arrived about whether or not they would all be returning here now that their father was dead. But he remained polite. "Of course, Mrs. Cullen—my wife can help you with that—" he gestured, and Mrs. Newton approached from the end of the counter where she had been standing with a few ladies, by the large window at the front of the store. Esme thanked him and met Mrs. Newton where she was so that all the ladies were now standing together, and Carlisle felt slightly apprehensive to see her go off on her own.

Maybe it was for his own sake more than hers. When she left his side he felt oddly exposed.

"Don't worry, Doctor, my wife will make sure she has everything they need," Mr. Newton said jovially, glancing over at the women with a smile. Carlisle realized he had been staring after her. "Have you got any children of your own, Doctor?"

"No, we haven't," said Carlisle. As he spoke, he restrained himself from glancing back over at Esme. She was fine, and he didn't want to look as though he didn't trust her to carry on a simple interaction at a store—and he did trust her. He just hoped the women didn't ask her too many prying questions under the guise of pleasantries, which was what he knew was about to happen to him.

A young shop clerk who had been working on the far side of the store now came closer, leaning his elbows on the counter, and two men who had been discussing something in the glass case turned towards them as well, all interested in the conversation. "Now we know what Mr. Carlisle was doing all these years away," one of them laughed. "Finding himself a pretty wife. And he did very well."

Carlisle smiled pleasantly but said nothing, not wanting to encourage that kind of talk.

"He would have had to go away to do it. Aren't enough girls for that in Forks." Said the other man at the glass case. "Mike, how many girls are in your school?"

His was directed at the young clerk, who considered for a moment. "Who will be in the junior class? Nine, I think. Maybe eight, because Lauren Mallory's engaged and she won't go back if she's married."

"Most men here go to Port Angeles to find wives," said Mr. Newton, nodding. "Or else Seattle."

"Most of the women there aren't worth finding," said the first man at the glass case, dismissively.

"Why are there so few women here? There are families here now," Carlisle asked. It was something that had been easier to understand when he had lived in Forks as a child, where the town was mainly populated by bachelor working men.

"The daughters go to the cities to find work. There's nothing at the lumberyards or the mines for them." Mr. Newton said with a shrug.

"Some of the girls become domestics, but most families don't have need of any, and they could never keep them long at—" the first man at the glass case was cut off by his companion, who nudged him sharply. Carlisle knew he was speaking of his father. He knew, too, that these men, even trying to be friendly, would always see him and his family as set apart from the rest of the town. That was a power his father had wielded irresponsibly.

Carlisle was about to reply, but he saw Esme was returning to him. "Did you find everything you need?"

"Oh, yes, everything is worked out." She was holding a small paper parcel, but he could see through the open top of it that she had just bought some chocolate. Carlisle took it from her and said their goodbyes.

"I thought I had better not order any gloves or shoes for the girls until they're here, since those can't be refitted," said Esme when they were back in the car. "I ordered a girl's coat for Mary Alice—they're going to charge it to the grocery account, it was eight dollars—but for nightgowns and things like that she said we'd do better to go to Port Angeles, where they have a clothing shop."

"I know the place she's speaking about. My father had his suits made there."

"Perhaps we could go there after the girls are both here, so they could choose some things themselves? I don't know what young girls like nowadays and I'm sure they'd be very pleased to make their own choices. Mary Alice can borrow some of my things until then."

Carlisle nodded. "Certainly. There's always some reason for me to go to Port Angeles for business. I hope you weren't questioned too much in there."

"Oh, no," Esme said. "They were just curious. And I needed to buy some chocolate because I'm going to make a cake tomorrow for Rosalie coming." She looked at him with a frown. "Edward seems so unhappy about her arrival."

"They don't seem to get along well. I suppose that's natural with some brothers and sisters. And they have more reason to than most, I suppose. Edward's mother wouldn't have her in the house while she lived, so Rosalie was kept at boarding school year around, until Mrs. Cullen died and my father brought her to Forks. So perhaps she blames him for being kept away."

"And perhaps he resents her because she was brought to live in Forks so soon after his mother died." Esme pressed her lips together. "But that was long ago. How long has it been since you saw her last?"

"Ten or eleven years ago now. After my first semester of college, when I was home for the winter holiday. I was near her boarding school in Seattle and took her out for a day, to a tea room. My father didn't bring her to Forks to live until after Edward's mother died, so she spent all her early holidays at school."

Rosalie was the only one of his siblings who had ever seemed attached to their father—Carlisle avoided him and his violent rages, and Edward clung to his mother for protection. It was probably because he kept Rosalie at arms length, and she didn't have to see how he was at home. She had been a bright little girl with a wide smile, but her feelings of loneliness and rejection had been obvious on the few occasions Carlisle had seen her. She was constantly waiting for their father to visit her for a few hours when he was in Seattle on business, but that was rare. Most times he was in the city he did not come to call, and this time, when she had bounded into her school's sitting room for visitors to see only Carlisle, her face had fallen with disappointment. Carlisle had felt sorry for her on that visit and bought her drinking chocolate at the tea room and two fistfuls of peppermint sticks for her to share with the other girls whose families left them at school over Christmas.

"How sad," Esme said. "Maybe for the best, though, since your father..." she let the sentence taper off, but they both knew what she meant. Carlisle nodded.

"She wasn't being kept from anything particularly festive. Christmas was quite grim at the house. Mrs. Cullen made a bit of an effort in her first few years after being married, but she very quickly gave up the enterprise. And," he added, in a slightly lighter tone, "that was the year I told my father I would not be returning to Princeton, and that I had already enrolled in medical school, and he told me not to return until I could be sensible."

They were coming up on the house now. It loomed darkly over them.

"You were kind to her. I'm sure she'll be glad to see you again," Esme said, but they both knew she was being optimistic. Guilt crawled up the back of his neck. He could already anticipate tomorrow going badly, and that reminded him anew that she had wanted a family and instead he had brought her to all of this.

a/n: sorry for the extreme wait. it feels like the month has just flown by but i didn't really do anything lol. i am waiting for the results of a super important test to come out and they keep getting delayed and i feel like i can't do anything with my life until i know. bleh. also i find it hard to write chapters where not too much happens but hopefully there won't be many more of those in the future because rosalie is coming next time, and she'll be bringing the drama.

thanks for all the reviews and follows and faves! im so glad you guys are enjoying and i hope you continue to enjoy. :) hopefully now that my writer's block has gone i'll go back to mostly weekly chapter uploads.