Chapter 2: Alice
I had only been gone for just over a month but Esme had been busy. When I left Ithaca to travel down south, the house had been a dilapidated structure that had been long-abandoned to the elements. Now the house positively shone. The new windows, while not as large as the ones in Forks, still replaced much of the former front of the house and the siding was freshly painted. There was also a brand new porch, and on it waited Jasper. He got to his feet with a wistful smile on his face and when I stepped out of the car, he was at my side in an instant.
"Alice," he whispered reverently and bent down to kiss me. The piece of my heart that had gone missing the last time I left was there again, and I exalted in the newfound completeness. And from the movement of Jasper's lips against mine, he was feeling the same. I was done missing him. I was home to stay.
"Thank you for being here for me, Jazz," I said softly. I know he had wanted to come with me, especially given how far south my search had taken me, but I was grateful he agreed to stay behind. This search was something I had needed to do by myself.
"I knew you'd be back darlin'. It was just your turn to keep me waiting." We both chuckled. "Besides," he continued. "Esme needed at least one of her kids at home." His rough thumb smoothed out the crease that had appeared in my forehead. I was desperate to ask him what he meant by that, but we could both hear Esme puttering inside the house.
"Speaking of which," Jasper said, in a louder voice. "Esme has been giving us some space but she's been missing you too." As if on cue, Esme appeared in the doorway and I ran into her arms. Her eyes were anxious, but she smiled warmly and squeezed me tightly.
"I've missed you so much dear," she said, pulling away and winding her arms through mine. "Come in and tell me everything."
So I did. As the three of us settled on the couch in the living room I told them about my search for all the asylums that were active during the period of time I thought I had been changed. How I narrowed them down by visiting the sites of each one, looking for something that was familiar. How I finally found the spot where I had awoken as a newborn and a photograph of me as a young girl in a box of records nearby. I shared with them how the gravestone in the local cemetery listed my death as the same date as the admission paperwork. And finally, I told them the most important piece.
"My name was Mary Alice Brandon. And I have a niece! She still lives in Biloxi." Esme's arms tightened around me. I knew she had tried to keep track of her own nephews but decades of moving around the country had made that nearly impossible.
"Did you speak to her?"
"I tried, but she's pretty old and has dementia I think. She didn't have much she could tell me"
"Do you know if she has any other family?"
"I don't know," I said after a brief pause. "Although I also didn't try too hard to find them." I flashed a grin at the woman I considered my mother. "I guess once I started thinking about family, I started missing my own family too much." Esme's smile was enough to melt the hardest of hearts.
"Well, my turn to share some good news now. Rose and Emmett are coming back!" She clapped her hands happily and I squealed.
"Really? It's been months!" She nodded happily. I didn't tell her that I'd seen their decision to return the day before. Even though I often ruined my sibling's surprises for my own amusement, I rarely did it to Esme. She experienced such joy from good news like this that it seemed like a crime to take it away from her.
"It will still be a few days but I can't wait," she confessed. "To have four children under my roof again. It's been far too quiet around here." She sighed softly.
"He'll come around." Jasper said, guessing where Esme's thoughts had turned. "He won't stay away forever." Esme shot him a grateful smile.
"He's already lasted longer than I thought he would," she sighed. "But he's not the only one I'm talking about." She twisted around to look at the gallery wall behind us. I glanced over at the impressive wall of pictures that Esme included some version of in every house we lived in. There were pictures from all the couple's weddings, pictures of each of us doing what we loved best. Edward playing the piano. Rosalie standing beside a car she had just finished. Emmett and Jasper playing chess, Carlisle at a hospital, Esme in her garden. Dozens of memories of our long lives. And finally near the bottom right corner, a picture of Edward and myself on the front steps of our Forks house, with Bella sandwiched between us. A lump rose in my throat. All three of us looked so happy in that picture. It had been one of the hottest days of the summer, and Bella was tucked as close to Edward and me as she could be with a bright orange Popsicle held in her hand. She was laughing at something I had said, while Edward gazed at her fondly. None of us had any idea that, just a few weeks later, we would be ripped apart from each other.
"The picture is what Rosalie and I fought about right before she and Emmett left," Esme said softly. "She thought that since Edward wanted us out of her life, we should keep her out of ours." The picture wasn't why Rosalie left though. Ever since we left, Rosalie wanted to pretend that our time in Forks was just a bad dream that we got to wake up from. So she planned another wedding around Christmas and got upset when no one else was as joyously happy as she wanted them to be. I suspected this was also the reason for their extended honeymoon in Europe.
"I know Rosalie wants to put Bella out of our lives completely, but no one else wants that. We'll stay away from her like Edward asked, but we don't have to to pretend like she's not our family." I said. A frown tugged at Esme's face.
"But family doesn't just leave," she said sadly. Like every other time she made that point, I had no response. The night Edward decided it was time for us to move on, she and I had yelled at him for hours. Surprisingly Emmett had been on our side at the beginning, but by the time that horrible night had ended, he, Rosalie, Jasper, and Carlisle all voted to leave Bella the way Edward wanted us to. To make matters even worse, Edward had returned from speaking to her to tell us that she was so angry she didn't want to see us again. That she didn't even want to say goodbye. She had every right to be mad, I knew that, but it still hurt.
"Alice, maybe you could…just this once…" Esme started painfully. I wanted to. Oh how badly I wanted to. And sometimes the visions came without me asking for them. But at this point, I knew that looking for her would be more painful all around. I shook my head and Esme sighed.
"I'm sorry Alice, I shouldn't have asked."
"It's fine," I twisted my face into a grin. "I still sometimes see things accidentally anyways. Apparently Bella decided to buy a van a few days ago."
"A van?" Jasper snorted. "Why?"
"I don't know. You know my visions don't give me that information." I chuckled. "But it was really, really hideous. Rosalie would be mortified just to park next to it."
"That's good," Esme said suddenly.
"That Bella somehow managed to acquire an even uglier vehicle?" Jasper questioned, raising an eyebrow. I giggled.
"No, more that she's doing things. Making plans. It's better than - before." I winced. I knew what she had been talking about. The very first accidental vision the week after we left was one of the most heartbreaking things I had ever seen. Not thinking, I shared it with Esme and she had been absolutely frantic with worry. It took Jasper and Carlisle several hours to talk her out of driving to Forks immediately. After coming out of her room the next morning, we didn't speak about it again, but the picture of Bella, Edward, and I appeared on the wall later that day.
"So where is Carlisle, anyway?" I asked, trying to break off that train of thought. Jasper raised an eyebrow and I smiled at him. "I know he's at the hospital right now," I amended. "What I meant was why is he there? I thought he was working nights."
"Oh you know Carlisle," Esme said with forced lightness. "The hospital finds itself short-staffed and he's asked to stay if he doesn't need to be at the university." I glanced at Jasper and he gave me the tiniest shake of his head.
That wasn't all to it then.
"Jasper, I could use a hunt." I said, suddenly desperate to get to a place where we could talk freely. "Will you come with me?"
"Always," he said, taking my hand. "You'll be alright, mom?" I raised my eyebrow. As much as Jasper loved Esme as a mother figure, usually he left it to Edward and I to call her mom whenever we were feeling particularly sentimental. Esme smiled in return and kissed him on the cheek.
"Of course. Have fun!" She called as we sailed out of the house together.
Jasper and I ran for nearly 10 minutes before we slowed down to a walk. I kept my hand in his as I wandered towards the glint of water I sighted through the trees. The melting snow made the river move quickly over the rocks and I pictured how beautiful the spot would be once the wildflowers came out. I resolved to come back in a few minutes to see if I was right.
There was something about my homecoming that didn't feel right. I didn't doubt for a moment that Jasper and Esme were happy to see me and I was sure Carlisle would be as well when he returned from the hospital. I also hadn't come expecting them to be fully recovered from the losses we had suffered over the last few months. But still, when I arrived, there was an emptiness in the air that was more than just a lack of a few people.
"How bad is it, Jazz?" He didn't answer right away and when I turned to look at him, there was a crease between his eyebrows. I rubbed my finger over it, watching it smooth away as he glanced at me.
"Pretty bad," he finally admitted. "Carlisle has been working longer and longer hours and whenever he's home, he's...listless. It feels too empty in this house and he can't stand it." That I could understand. The absence of Rosalie, Emmett, Edward, and Bella must be weighing heavily on him. "I think he's still not sure if he made the correct decision letting Edward drag us all out of Forks," Jasper added.
"Of course he didn't," I muttered. "What about Esme?" Jasper sighed.
"She's hurting. She misses everyone and is doing her best to make this house a home like the previous ones, but her heart isn't in it this time. She keeps up with the gardens and she wipes up the dust and I try to distract her when I can, but most of the time she's just staring out the window. And with Carlisle distancing himself now…" he trailed off. "I'm glad I stayed behind. I can't tell you how much I wanted to come with you, but I see now that Esme needed me here." I nodded slowly.
Listening to Jasper describe what had happened in the last month, I suddenly realized what the emptiness was. Esme always kept the house fairly tidy, but there were always hints. Little proofs of life scattered through the house. Carlisle was in the habit of leaving the books he was reading sitting on the coffee tables. Jasper and Emmett almost always had video game controllers sitting out. In Forks, there was almost always a blanket draped across the back of the couch so Bella could reach it easily. In this house, there was nothing. It was a perfectly staged house that showed no signs of actually being lived in.
"Is Esme afraid to move on without her?" I asked softly.
"I don't think afraid is the right word. But she feels so guilty. She described it once as feeling like she was betraying one child for another, only to end up with neither of them." Jasper squeezed my hand. "Hopefully now that you're home, there will be a little bit more to keep her mind off things.
"And Rosalie and Emmett are coming too." I reminded him. Soon there would be video game controllers lying around and Jasper and I would work on getting Carlisle home more often. The piano would remain closed and the blankets would stay tucked away, but the rest of the pieces of our family would come out from hiding. For the first time since the disaster in September, I let myself hope that everything would be okay.
A/N: While I was writing this chapter, my 5 year old was watching me. He doesn't read well enough to understand what I'm writing, but can read well enough to see that I was writing his brother's name over and over and over. Finally, after much pleading, I added his name in place of Carlisle's once, telling myself I would edit it out later.
Not only did that not happen, but then this site DIED for three days. My friend can tell you just how stressed I was that I couldn't fix this mistake. So apologies to those who have already read this chapter and will be notified twice about it, but it had to happen this time.
