Emmett was the most collected of all the Cullen children but he wasn’t calm or collected right now.
Carlisle pressed the phone against his face and stepped out of the Emergency ward, into the hallway. His ears pricked as he listened to her screams in the background. “Is Esme hurt? Emmett, what’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know,” Emmett spoke through his teeth. “That’s why I called you. Is today special or something?” Emmett could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen her break down. Usually it had something to do with her baby, but Emmett couldn’t think of anything that would have upset her like this.
Carlisle ran through the family calendar in his head, it wasn’t an important day that would set her off like this, it was just a normal Friday. “Where is she?”
“We’re at home, I didn’t want to leave her alone.”
“Stay where you are.” Carlisle demanded, already heading for the locker room, he’d hang up his coat, pass off his patients and be out the door. “I’ll see you in ten-minutes.”
Exactly eight-point-five minutes later, Carlisle’s Mercedes screeched to a halt in the driveway, and 2 seconds after that, he was inside the house.
Something was wrong. The unnatural, suffocating silence emitting from the house, set him on edge.
Of the entire family, Emmett was the least likely to need him for anything, ever.
“I can’t get her to come out and I can’t get in without breaking the house.” Emmett pointed towards the staircase. “She got quiet and in this house, that’s never been a good sign. She slowed down as soon as I called you.”
There was always sound coming from Esme’s art room. She played soft classical music on the stereo system while she painted and when she was throwing pottery, 1960s love songs floated through the house. She was never loud, but there was always some level of sound coming from the room.
Then suddenly, there was nothing. No music, No gentle humming. Just silence, deafening and uncomfortable silence. The largest part of her breakdown was over.
Carlisle darted up the three flights of stairs, sliding on his heels when he reached the door to his wife’s art studio. He listened closely, waiting for some indication that she was in there.
“Esme,” Carlisle called her name softly through the antique door and knocked twice before trying the handle. As expected, the glass knob wouldn’t budge. “May I come in?”
He waited for a beat and heard the quiet snick of the lock and the door swung open.
Newspaper clippings were scattered across the hardwood floor, Carlisle had to step around them. He stooped onto the floor and grabbed one, but every headline said the same thing. Small Cemetery on the outskirts of Milwaukee: Land Reallocated’
She’d moved to the floor for the extra space to spread out her research. Esme subscribed to all of the newspapers from the various towns the family moved to. It padded the recycling, helping them blend in with the rest of the community.
What she’d found in Wisconsin, broke her. She wanted the floor to open underneath her so she could drop into the hole, allowing the uncertain aching darkness to swallow her whole and she would disappear. She would never have to feel this kind of pain again.
When she finally spoke, “He’s gone.” The hoarse whisper came from the corner of the room. Esme had wedged herself between the corner of her drafting table and the wall. She was hiding and still so afraid to take up too much physical space. Carlisle suddenly remembered the last time he saw her like this. Though it had been nearly 8 decades, the memory burned bright.
A year after her change, on the exact one year anniversary of her son's death Carlisle found her in the small coat closet, knees bent to her chest, dry-sobbing into a pillow so she wouldn’t be heard. Somehow, this was worse. Esme worked to keep the memories of her baby, they were so tightly intertwined with her vile first husband that she couldn’t think of one without the other.
The angular window cast a pathetic ray of sunlight over her head. A broken halo, over his angel.
“Emmett called.” If Carlisle’s heart could still move, it would have lurched into his throat when he saw her like that.
He cut off her argument and dropped down on the wood floor beside her. “You’re not alright.”
Though there were no tears, dark makeup smeared on her face and her hands. The collar of her shirt was torn and shallow pale lines marred her chest where she so clearly aimed to claw out her own heart. Folding himself into the small space with her, he pulled her into his lap and slid his hands over hers, holding them in place so she couldn’t reach for her chest again. With vampire strength, and Esme’s pristine manicure there was a real danger of her hurting herself.
“The city.” She choked out into the side of his neck. Chest heaving, hands shaking against him.
“Shh…” He stroked her back. “I got it, now.” The evidence on the floor was all the information he needed.
“They turned my baby’s grave into a parking lot!” The words tore out of her mouth in an angry hiss. Saying it aloud cemented the fact that her child’s final resting place was gone. She’d outlived her son, twice.
The desecrated grave stood as a tangible reminder that in this semblance of a life, there was no place for fairness. Their never ending existence meant that they would always be the last people standing, while everyone around them died. It was the curse that came with immortality.
Carlisle pressed his wife against his chest, helpless as she convulsed in his arms. Her hands clawed at her chest, screeching like steel on granite.
“Stop trying to hurt yourself.” Carlisle locked her hands in his keeping them still. “Hold me,” he guided her hands to his shoulders and curled her fingers around either end of his scarf.
He held her tight as apologizes and pleas for forgiveness slipped through her sobs as she gasped for air and trembled.
Carlisle knew there was no sense in reasoning with her, she didn’t need to be told that staying in Milwaukee would not have helped her son. Esme’s anguish couldn’t be reasoned away, it bubbled up like a pus infected boil needing to be lanced.
“You’re forgiven.” He whispered into her hair, “I promise he forgives you.”
Sitting up slightly he grabbed the handmade quilt from the desk chair and covered her with it. “Jasper.” Carlisle depended on Jasper’s enhanced hearing. “Help me.”
Carlisle kissed her hair, bereft of anything useful to do. All he could do was try to offer comfort. “I’m very sorry,” his words were not hollow, but she couldn’t hear him. Not really. “Both of you deserve better than this.”
After nearly 80 years of marriage, he’d learned that sometimes all he had to do was shut up and hold her. Today was one of those days. The long-buried pain ran bone deep and he had no hope of ever truly alleviating her suffering.
Her voice was frail when she could finally speak again. “My poor baby. I’m sorry.”
Carlisle, for the first time in a century, wished he could drug his wife. As a doctor he would’ve given her a xanax and put her to bed. But she needed this release and drugging her because it broke his heart seeing her so upset, would be selfish.
A minute later, Jasper was in the doorway. “You rang?”
“Can you make it easier on her?” She needed the release, he didn’t want to take it from her completely. “Calm her down gradually?”
“I’ll try.” Jasper sat on the floor in the doorway, concentrating on Esme. A few seconds later, her breathing slowed and she’d stopped shaking.
“Breathe,” Carlisle pressed his palm against her chest, his fingers smoothed over her sternum as her eyes fluttered open. “Nice and slow.”
“He’s gone.” She blew out a breath, the hollow feeling in her chest weighing her down. “For real. He’s completely gone. What am I supposed to do, Carlisle? Leave flowers at a truck stop!”
“We’ll find another way. I promise, we will find a way to remember him.”
“That grave site was supposed to be permanent–suddenly–it’s not. He’s not here anymore and I don’t know how to do this.”
“We’ll just have to find another way…” he insisted, but he couldn’t come up with a solution at the moment. The Cullens rarely stayed anywhere longer than a few years. Who could have foreseen that the little gravesite with the stone placard and concrete angel wouldn’t be around for the next hundred years?
He lifted Esme into his arms, letting her head rest on his shoulder, her breath tickled the side of his neck.“Mind your head, My Dearest,” he gently extracted her from the small space and held her against him, his long legs eating the short distance to their bedroom.
“My poor boy,” the whispered words faded into the low light of the bedroom. The plush mattress dipped when Carlisle sat beside her, moving her hair out of her face. One finger ran back and forth against her cheek.
“His poor mother, too.” He kissed her forehead, letting his lips linger there.“I’ll be right back.”
Before she could ask where he was going, Carlisle was at her side with a warm, wet washcloth in hand. Carlisle was no stranger to washing wounds and all he could do was hope that Esme’s would start to heal.
“You have makeup all over your face,” he explained, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear where it had slipped from her ponytail.
Carlisle washed the makeup from her eyes, he moved down the bridge of her nose and droplets of water drifted down her chin were the closest she would get to real tears.
“Does it even count?” A shy, timid question that Esme didn’t want to hear the answer to.
“Of course he counts.” He moved the cloth down her cheek, ever so gently; slowly chasing the dark streaks of makeup that melted off her face. “You held him in your body, kept him warm, safe and well fed. You loved him because that’s what a mother does.”
“Not well enough.” She choked, still teetering on the verge of emotion. “Not long enough.”
“It’s not your fault.” He didn’t know what happened to her son, but he knew Esme to be certain that she’d had nothing to do with his death.
“It was only three days.” There wasn’t enough time, she didn’t kiss her boy’s face enough times or watch his feet draw up when he slept. She didn’t get to read to him or even take him outside and let him feel the sunlight on his face. It wasn’t enough time, enough life to count herself as his mother.
“Joseph is your little boy. You nurtured him and loved him for as long as you had him, that doesn’t change.” He’d moved to her hands now, tenderly washing between each of her fingers and across her palms.
His hands slipped down her neck, barely grazing the nearly invisible self-inflicted wounds across her chest.
“It’s fine,” she tried to pull away but his hand on her shoulder held her in place.
“No, Esme.” He turned on the bedside lamp and retrieved his doctor’s bag from beside the bed. “It’s not fine.” He insisted, angling a penlight so the light shone across her chest.
“Answer the question, please. Does it hurt whilst I touch it?”
“N–” She sucked in a breath when his fingers prodded against her collarbone and down her chest.
“That would be a ‘yes’” He answered his own question, continuing to palpate the area. “Please stop trying to hurt yourself.” There was no question she’d cut herself. A long jagged line stretched across her breastbone, over her unbeating heart.
She didn’t deserve the pain and trauma of her human life. Now, her only tie left to that life was gone.
When he was finished and the ruined makeup had been washed away, Carlisle laid down beside Esme, holding her close. Her tangled curls falling across his chest. It was his fault for not keeping up with the gravesite. Carlisle knew he should have made it a priority to take Esme back to Milwaukee. The harrowing arrival of their grandchild and subsequent need to gather every vampire they’d ever had contact with; to confront the Volturi, took priority. Still, he should have made more of an effort to preserve the cemetery. Esme and Joseph did not deserve Carlisle’s negligence.
Mere words of apology couldn’t fix this, she would tell him that it wasn’t his fault. Without another comment, she’d kiss him, comfort him while she was the one in dire need of tenderness, and drop the subject completely. Esme wouldn’t hold a grudge, she didn’t have a mental rolodex of his mistakes filed away for ammunition to use later. She would just forgive him.
Carlisle didn’t want to be forgiven.
“Lay back,” he pressed one hand behind her head, angling her face away from his, giving him a clear look at her chest.
The venom washed up his throat, coating his tongue and he bent forward, sealing her wounds with his kiss.
