Esme Anne Cullen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sheisourheart) wrote2009-08-29 11:20 pm
sheisourheart) wrote2009-08-29 11:20 pm
1927, Philadelphia
It's impossible to say the first night is the worse. Or the week following.
Carlisle had all but literally shut down when the door closed, that first night.
Then he'd demolished the piano bench on the second day, when she hadn't been sure he'd move at all. She hadn't been in the room, but she'd come back to him staring at the mess on the floor and in his hands. The only words he'd spoken that whole day, being a retort 'Did you want to sit there?' when she commented on it.
Whatever she'd said after that was lost on deaf ears, but she'd cleaned it up and sat by him.
Day three and four and five were remarkably alike. She didn't leave the house because there was nowhere else she would go while he wasn't leaving. He let himself be led, but didn't do anything specifically. Even when he'd rise as though with intention it seemed to get lost before anything ever made it.
She spent much of her time on those day reading to him from a book. Any book nearby that she hadn't seen Edward reading recently or heard them talk about (and how rare that was). Never once saying she felt like her mistake had helped lead to this, not giving voice to her own inner world of emotions that rocked both the leaving and the left. The house, even full of her voice, was not the expression of her sorrow or anger, both of which turned over each other daily.
When Monday came and she found him again in that chair looking out the window, blank of any receptive thought toward it, she'd bit her lip and walked in quietly. A hand curved gently around the crook of his neck and shoulder when she kissed his temple, saying softly, "It's a lovely sunrise."
Carlisle had all but literally shut down when the door closed, that first night.
Then he'd demolished the piano bench on the second day, when she hadn't been sure he'd move at all. She hadn't been in the room, but she'd come back to him staring at the mess on the floor and in his hands. The only words he'd spoken that whole day, being a retort 'Did you want to sit there?' when she commented on it.
Whatever she'd said after that was lost on deaf ears, but she'd cleaned it up and sat by him.
Day three and four and five were remarkably alike. She didn't leave the house because there was nowhere else she would go while he wasn't leaving. He let himself be led, but didn't do anything specifically. Even when he'd rise as though with intention it seemed to get lost before anything ever made it.
She spent much of her time on those day reading to him from a book. Any book nearby that she hadn't seen Edward reading recently or heard them talk about (and how rare that was). Never once saying she felt like her mistake had helped lead to this, not giving voice to her own inner world of emotions that rocked both the leaving and the left. The house, even full of her voice, was not the expression of her sorrow or anger, both of which turned over each other daily.
When Monday came and she found him again in that chair looking out the window, blank of any receptive thought toward it, she'd bit her lip and walked in quietly. A hand curved gently around the crook of his neck and shoulder when she kissed his temple, saying softly, "It's a lovely sunrise."
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"Why am I having such a hard time believing you?"
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The most of it at least. She was still here. And as much as it was both of them, Edward had been with Carlisle longer. He'd been the first one. There were depths she couldn't even fathom to understand in those two.
"Because," there's a almost-sigh here, hands slightly tighter, trying to make her voice firm. (It mostly succeeds.) "You loved someone, gave them everything, and they wanted something more."
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It's the truth -- he could have left in the very beginning, before Europe. When he explained how he lived his life, Edward could have looked at Carlisle and ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
Maybe that's what it is.
Edward always made Carlisle feel as though he were still with them of his own accord.
Carlisle doesn't deal with lying very well.
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It's futile, even as the only thing that stays.
"I don't think he could have." The pattern on the chair is horrible this close, or maybe it's just looking back. There had been irrefutable loyalty in the boy when she'd first woken up into their lives.
She pulled back, shaking her head.
"I don't think he knows what he's getting into with his choice, either." He was so peculiar and particular in his beliefs about life already. Taking life -- she couldn't imagine anything that could make her do that again once she had.
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"But you're life is still here. I'm here." There's a force in those words, a reminder, turning his face so he looked at her when she'd said it.
"Your job is still here. Your life is still here." And with more challenge than she thought could touch it. "Unless you're letting Edward have walked out the door with both my family and my husband."
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Carlisle can't quite figure out how to meet Esme's gaze without his whole expression tensing up as though he could shed tears about anything.
He hurt her too, Carlisle's brain tells him -- and no one else overhearing, now, which makes his pained expression stick.
"I know you're here. You've been reading to me."
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But his expression kept those words locked inside, and she leaned her forehead against his. "Then you should listen to me now, dear. You need to go to work. I would keep you here for all the hours of everyday forever, if that was what would make you happiest, would make any of this, now, the minutes easier. You need to go to work."
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"I know."
It's hard to care about it all. What if --
Wearily, "Do you know where my labcoat is?"
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"I can get it for you. I washed it."
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She squeeze her eyes tight, whispering with some roughness to it.
"I'll still be here. I promise."
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-- well, not useless, anymore, but certainly uncomfortable. Apparently redundant.
Carlisle lets go eventually, letting his wife work him. Pretend to be normal.