Fathers

Charlie

Part Nine

By Simon

The Cullen’s…dammit. The Cullen’s. Edward Cullen, in particular.

I started out liking Carlisle, was happy he was here and grateful he’d decided to head the local hospital. I didn’t have any problems with those kids he and Esme are raising, either. Five of them, five teenagers, though a few of them look a little long in the tooth to be in high school. I thought I might get some clue about that when I stopped over to see Bella, but if anything is lying around to give more information, it’s been put away.

And Bella, Christ, to hear her talk they’re all the Second Coming and deserve canonization and a free ‘get out of jail’ pass. I think she’s been drinking the Kool-aid or something over there.

First she decided to dump Edward, the vaunted Edward, he follows her, seemingly convinced her to come back but she falls down a double flight of stairs, crashed through a window, breaks her leg and gashed a major artery and they’re still blind in love.

Yeah, teenagers, I know.

And now she insists that she wants to stay there until the damn cast is changed for a walking one; well, at least that will be happening this afternoon and I can bring her home. ‘Not a minute too soon, if you ask me.

There’s still something off about the whole thing and I’m going to find out what’s really going on beyond true love. Carlisle and Esme; I don’t get that, either. They have these kids, all their kids and it’s obvious that four of them have paired up into couples right under their noses. Okay, okay, sure—they aren’t actually related but that’s just skirting the bounds of incest if you ask me.

And Carlisle clearly has no problem with his son and my daughter shacking up there, either. Yeah, I know, he denies it’s happening. Everyone denies it’s happening but I’m not an idiot. You’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to see the way those two—Bella and Edward—look at each other; you can feel the heat across the room.

I just don’t like the kid. He’s too self-assured, too damn polite, too old for his age, if that makes any sense. He’s just…he’s not…hell, there’s just something off about him. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I flat out don’t like him and I especially don’t like him with my daughter.

Oh yeah, I went out to the Res and spoke to Billy for a while. It started out slow, but by the second six-pack he was more willing to talk turkey, even if that turkey came wrapped up in a bunch of old Quileute legends.

So, it seemed to me that he was itching to talk, tell me what was on his mind. His son, Jacob was there and tried to get him to quiet down but Billy wasn’t having any of it and sent him packing down to the beach to ‘go play with the rest of the pack’. Jake slunk out, but it wasn’t too hard to see how PO’d the kid was.

Anyway, Billy goes on and on about how back around the turn of the last century, or thereabouts, his grandfather ad a few of the other men were out hunting and happened upon the Cullen’s trespassing on their land. Evidently words were exchanged and finally Carlisle and Grandfather came up with some kind of agreement, some kind of treaty which spelled out just where some boundary lines were. And then it gets weird; Billy swore up and down that it was the same Cullen’s—not Carlisle’s ancestors or anything like that…Doctor Carlisle Cullen and his kids, Edward, Emmett and Rosalie, the exact same people.

He swore that they were ‘cold ones’, whatever the hell that means and that they can’t be trusted. He insisted, begged me to make Bella not see any of them anymore, not let her throw in with them or ‘she’d be lost’.

I asked a lot of questions but he wouldn’t answer most of them, just said it was Tribal legend and I shouldn’t believe any of but I should make sure that my daughter transferred to any place other than where she is. And his reaction when I told him that she’s been staying with them at that big, fancy house they have? Jesus, he practically bolted out of his wheelchair to call out the troops to stage a hit and run rescue right then and there until I said that I was going to pick her up and take her back to my place. He was all for getting in his truck and making a beeline over to Cullen’s then and there but finally, simply passed out.

Curiouser and curiouser.

So, anyway, I get over to the Cullen’s and they couldn’t be nicer, couldn’t be more helpful. They did everything they could think of to make the move easy for us both, up to and including having their boys move all her stuff back and take it up to her room for us.

Later that evening I ordered pizza, figuring that she wouldn’t be up to cooking. She thanked me, seemed to find that funny, ate a couple of slices and then, around nine or so, said she was tired and wanted to turn in early. Okay, that made sense and she had to get up early for school the next day so I didn’t think a lot about it.

I turned in myself around ten-thirty and was just about asleep when I hear something coming through the wall. I didn’t want to make a deal out of nothing so I just listened for a few minutes. Nothing but low talking, too low for me to make out the words and I didn’t think Bells talked in her sleep so it didn’t take an Einstein to figure this one out. She on the phone to Edward till all hours. Well, kay, I’m not thrilled but better that then him sneaking into her room—something he’d have to scale the house and go through the window to do, thank God.

‘Better she’s a little tired in school than that she goes there pregnant.

So then a few weeks later I saw her come down the stairs to go to the prom with Cullen and—damn—she looked just like a young lady is supposed to look like, all excited and dressed up and happy. And the look on her face when she saw the way he was looking at her? Damn—it was the same look Renee had on her face in the church when she was walking towards me in her white dress.

That’s another thing; there’s been a rumor that Carlisle was talking to the head of Forks Hospital and was trying to tender his resignation; something about Esme not liking living here in the boonies and how he’s thinking about taking a job in some big hospital for tons of money. Maybe that would solve things. High school romances don’t tend to have a long shelf life long distance. I know that the town would miss him, he’s a damn good doctor but it would make my life easier.

Oh, and damn—that’s another thing, talking about making my life easier. A few weeks later, after her leg was finally getting a little better and all she was left with was a limp and a cane, I was trying to help Bella with some of her chores. I emptied the garbage can up in her room and found—I mean, ‘f’the love of god—I found a few used condoms. Okay, sure, I know it’s good that at least they were being ‘safe’ and all of that but in the house? In my house? In her room? When did this happen? I swear, I’m going to kill the Cullen kid if I see him lay one hand on her, I swear—I’ll press statutory rape charges against his butt so fast he won’t know what hit him. Bell’s seventeen, she’s underage. Period.

I catch them so much as holding hands and I promise…

So I went to talk to Carlisle, parked and was going to confront him but then just sat in the squad car. What was I going to say to him? That his son and my daughter were doing the deed? That he should have a talk with his boy? That I was upset and she was underage?

Get serious. This is the man who’s allowing four of his foster children to shack up in his home. This is the man who lets his kids do whatever they want, lets them skip school so they can go hiking, lets them come and go at all hours so long as they get straight A’s. He won’t care. He’d probably just be happy his son is using rubbers.

I didn’t go in. I didn’t talk to Carlisle and I never said anything to Bella but I couldn’t get the sight of those things out of my mind.

And y’know what was weird about them? They were melted.
 

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