Newborn

Part Five - Conclusion

I did enter Harvard in the fall of 1919 but we ended up staying in the Boston area only a few months so I opted to take a leave of absence from the school, an unlimited leave of absence. I informed the registrar of my parents deaths and the need for my brother (Carlisle and I were pretending to be siblings at this point) to return home to attend family business. The Dean wished me well and assured me that my place would be waiting when I was ready to continue my studies.

It would be over two decades and only under a different name that I would finally get that particular degree. No matter.

In fact we left Boston and the East Coast simply because Carlisle was worried I was still too young a vampire to be completely trusted in a large city and so thought it best that we head for a quieter area. “Besides”, he’d said, “I want to introduce you to the idea of a non-human diet and there will be much less temptation for you in a small town.”

“But I like human blood.”

“So do we all, but you have a problem killing innocents; you have a conscience. This is a fair compromise.”

“If it was such a good idea, why are you practically the only one who’s thought of it?”

He restrained his eyes from rolling but took a deep breath, allowing himself a moment to regain his patience. “You agreed to at least try and I would appreciate your keeping your word.”

“Fine.”

“Thank you.”

In fact, of course, he still didn’t trust me not to murder everyone I chanced upon on the street. He reminded me of the more annoying parts of my real father when he was like this. I suspect he thought of me as an annoying adolescent and I know there were days he had second thoughts about changing me, thinking more than once that a dog would have been an easier companion. He was probably right.

So we left Boston and headed, rather randomly, for the Midwest. Having grown up in Chicago, I had almost a feeling of going home, though we avoided Illinois. “But why not just go back there? You know the hospital would welcome you back and…”

He put his hand on my shoulder, making a point. “Edward, you have to understand that your life isn’t what it was and never will be again. Chicago is no longer your home, you need to avoid your old friends and your relatives, your cousins and grandparents. They attended your funeral and are still mourning the loss of you and your parents. You’re dead to them and must remain so. In a few years—and you’ll be surprised how quickly the years will pass—you might be able to go back but it will never be the same and you have to accept this.” He paused a moment to allow his words sink in. “There’s no other choice.”

“But…” I stopped, knowing he was right. There was a new stone in the family plot now, probably one shared stone for me and my parents, united in death and forever. As far as everyone I knew was concerned, I had died tragically a seventeen, never fulfilling whatever promise I might have had, never falling in love, never growing old. I was just another statistic from the Spanish Influenza, one of millions, and so I would have to remain. Edward Masen was dead; Edward Cullen had replaced him.

I trace that moment to the beginning of my acceptance of my new reality. I never used my birth name again. I’m tempted to say that a part of me died that day but the truth is that there was little left to die. I was a child, despite being considered a man—a young man, but a man when I took ill. I had the vaguest of ideas what I would do with my life or how I would do anything. I had only sketchy thoughts of returning from the trenches in France covered in medals and glory, meeting then marrying a beautiful paragon and leading a perfect life, surrounded by fine things, enough money, adoring children and friends.

I was a child. Now I needed to grow up.

It was early 1920 when Carlisle found yet another job as doctor in a small Wisconsin farming town called New Richmond. It was an easy run to St. Paul for whatever we might need but was deep enough in the hinterlands to have enough animals for us to kill. I loathed the place from the moment we arrived and further detested the fact that he insisted I enroll in the local high school as a cover story.

“What will you do if you’re not in school? The neighbors will talk and then we’ll have to leave again within months.”

“Why can’t you just tell them I’m still recovering from the flu and the deaths of our parents?”

“So that all the young farm widows and their daughters insist on taking care of you with dinner invitations and bring us endless casseroles? Thank you, no. Besides, you might learn something.”

“How to make cheese, perhaps?”

“Edward…”

“Fine, I’ll go.”

I was enrolled as a junior at the local school, easily earning a perfect academic record, something I’d do too many times in the ensuing decades. It would be a pattern repeated over and over; I was the new boy in the third row, the girls would all want me and try to get me to notice them. The boys would all resent me; the teachers would praise me, compliment me to Carlisle when he played the doting older brother and then insist that my abilities and talents were wasted in a place like New Richmond. I should go to a good college; surely there would be a scholarship I could win to the University of Minnesota or maybe even one of the schools back east. They would be happy to write the letters of recommendation and the school would be so proud.

I demurred, saying I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and Carlisle insisted that I was still too shattered by the loss we’d suffered to think about college yet, besides, I had a year till graduation. Maybe in a year or two I’d go but in the meantime I was a great help to him in his practice and we both tended to be solitary creatures, enjoying the quiet of our new home after the bustle and noise of the big city.

It didn’t matter that we told people we preferred keeping to ourselves to let our grief heal, we were still obligated to attend the local church socials now and then and Carlisle was too often forced into squiring a local spinster to some musicale or other. To my astonishment, he didn’t seem to really mind and it was beyond me how he did it.

“Because it’s fascinating, Edward. Open yourself to what’s around you instead of hiding behind your books. This is a vanishing way if life, don’t you see that? It’s disappearing right before us and will never return.”

I didn’t see the attraction, but if he was happy, then fine for now. This would pass soon enough like every place we lived would. I didn’t care. I did begin to seriously wonder what eternity would hold for us, though. “Are we really going to spend endless years drifting from place to place, Carlisle? Life, no matter how long or short, needs a purpose. Is there any in what we’re doing? We accomplish nothing here.”

He gave me a long look, frustrated by my denseness. “I’m a doctor, Edward. I have a purpose. You need to find your own interests.” I started to say something but he went on. “You have talents that you were born with; your music, for one, You have an unlimited ability to develop whatever you wish. You can study any subject, travel anywhere in the world, and meet virtually anyone. You’re limited by your own parochial thinking, you’re what’s limiting yourself.” He paused, disappointed by my lack of motivation. “Think of what you can accomplish if you choose to apply yourself to whatever it is you want, Edward.” He took his jacket from the coat-rack, leaving for his office. “I must tell you that I understand you’re still something of a newborn but I have no tolerance for boredom. You have access to any and everything on the planet. I really must insist that you make some use of your options.”

He was gone and left me feeling even worse than I had before, if that’s possible, He was entirely correct, of course. Whether I’d wanted it or not, I’d been given an unparalleled opportunity. I resolved then and there to make a decision. I would. I gave myself one week to decide what I’d do next—I would make a plan and follow through with it.

But that night everything changed.

She’d been brought in as a suicide victim who’d threw herself off a cliff when her infant died. It was her good luck—I suppose—that Carlisle was near the morgue when she was brought in and only he had the ability in the dark ages of 1921 to hear the slight flow of blood still moving through her veins. He was asked to make the official pronouncement of death and to sign the certificate, both of which he did and then waited until the nurse left the room. He bit the woman, brought her to our home and waited through three days while she was changed. I spelled him now and then or when he had to go to his patients but it was mostly him who stayed with her.

Esme. It was Esme, of course.

Knowing what she would be like in a few days, Carlisle announced a sudden offer from a large hospital in Arizona and we left, taking Esme to a remote hunting cabin Carlisle had purchased several hundred miles from New Richmond for just this purpose. We would be undisturbed.

I watched with Carlisle as she went through the burning and saw him suffer along with her. I wondered if he’d felt my pain the same way three years earlier when he’d changed me and belatedly realized that was why he felt so connected to me. I’ve heard that giving birth is one of the most painful things on earth; I think Carlisle understands that; he’s been through it with the ones he’s changed. My belated realization made me understand him that much better and love him that much more.

At the end, when Esme woke we guided her through the long newborn period together, teaching her, protecting her and one another when she became violent and knowing it was temporary. Finally, slowly and over eight or nine months, she began to calm. From then it was a very short time, at least for a vampire, before she settled into a contentment of gentleness and quiet joy that turned our small cabin into a home, welcoming and warm.

And there was more; I spoke to Carlisle’s mind for the sake of privacy. “You’re in love with her.” Carlisle and I were sitting on the small front porch of the cabin, watching the sun set, Esme half a mile away gathering flowers to decorate the small front room.

“Yes, I believe that I am.”

Of course he was, a blind man could have seen it. “I’m sure she feels the same about you.”

He would have blushed if he could. “I hope so.”

There was only one thing for me to do; give him what I knew he wanted. “I may go back to Harvard for a while, if you don’t mind. I was thinking about possibly majoring in music this time around; I can always go back for pre-med.”

He hesitated, his thoughts guarded and a little confused. “If that’s what you truly want then of course that’s what you must do, but I was afraid that you’d feel obligated to leave. In fact, I’d really rather that you stayed, so long as you’re not uncomfortable with Esme and myself. I was going to ask her to marry me and, if she’ll have me, I thought we would be a family; it seems so natural. I’d so greatly enjoy that and, we could move somewhere with a few more diversions, set up a real home together.”

“No, absolutely not. I’d be intruding; you’ll be a newly wed. Esme would want you to herself, Carlisle. Neither of you needs me hanging about. And I’ve been here long enough. You didn’t sign on to adopt me; that was hardly part of the deal.”

“Edward, no. You know I was looking for a companion and you’ve become a good one. I would…miss you” He hesitated slightly at that admission, not wanting to embarrass me or put more pressure on me to stay if I really did want to go.

“I’ll be perfectly fine on my own, I assure you.” Part of me did very much want to stay with them both but a larger part of me wanted to go. I suspect it was a natural desire on my part to leave the family home when I believed myself ready, just like any son reaches a point of wanting to be on their own.

“You misunderstand me…”

Just then Esme joined us, her arms full of spring wildflowers. “What are you two doing here, am I interrupting?” Both of us loved her, the difference was that Carlisle was in love, I merely loved her as a welcomed companion.

“I was thinking of going back to school in time for the fall semester, maybe to study music.”

“That would be wonderful for you, but…you’d be leaving us. Oh, Edward!” Her face reflected her conflicting emotions. “I just wish that…but you have to do what’s best for you.” She put her hand on my cheek in a maternal caress. “Carlisle, maybe we could all move to wherever he decides to study, could we do that?”

They both looked at me, waiting for an answer. “I…ah…”

Carlisle saved me. “We don’t need to decide right this moment and Edward knows that we’ll support whatever he chooses to so. He knows that he’s loved here and that his home is with us as long as he wants.” He stood up, always tactful, as he changed the subject. “Now, shall we hunt?”

Hours later, near dawn, Esme found me sitting on a rock outcropping overlooking a small lake on the property. “He’s upset, Edward. You two must clear this up between you soon before it grows and festers.”

“He said I should do what’s best for me.”

“I know what he said but you know as well as I do that you’ll break his heart if you abandon him.”

I turned to look at her, annoyed; she was serious. “Then he should say what he really means, Esme. Besides, I’m not ‘abandoning’ him; I’m going to school. It’s hardly the same thing.”

She sat beside me and held my hand. “You know better than that, Edward. You know better than I do what our being here means to him. He’s been alone for almost three hundred years and now he has a family in every sense of the word and it would break his heart to lose that.”

Yes, I knew that. “But you two want to get married; you won’t want me around.”

Esme laughed, a wonderful sound. “Don’t be silly; you’ve been with him since I arrived—since before I arrived and I can’t think of a single secret we could keep from you even if we cared to. Need I remind you that you read our minds constantly?” She squeezed my fingers. “Do what you need to but don’t use Carlisle and my being together as an excuse. If you truly want to go study then do so but know that we’re still your family and always will be…and that we expect you come back when you’re ready.” She shifted on the rock and tossed a small stone into the lake, smiling at the ripples and lightening the mood. “This being a vampire isn’t anything like I thought it would be.”

That made me smile as well. “How so?”

“I feel so normal. Well, aside from not having to cook anymore.” Her arm slipped around my shoulders; Esme was always tactile. “And even though I lost my son, I’ve gained one with you. I know you still mourn your parents and you’re right to do so, but I hope you’ll let me be another mother for you, Edward. I don’t mean to replace Elizabeth Masen any more than you replace my own son, I know no one could, but you’re not alone, sweetheart, not as long as I’m here.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek. I watched her stand up and start back to the cabin.

I’d lost a family and gained one, she was right and I was beginning to understand that. My life had, for all purposes, ended and begun again. I’d been directionless before and now I had unlimited options to choose from. I was one of the undead, a monster in every real sense of the word, but I also had eternity to make whatever amends were possible.

Oh, don’t misunderstand me; given a choice I’d still be Edward Masen in a heartbeat—if I still had a heartbeat. I’d still live in a big house in Chicago and be sorting through my possibilities. I’d likely marry and raise a family much as I’d been raised and follow the path that had been laid out for me before I’d even been born.

None of that would happen now, I knew this. Edward Masen was dead. He died in the Spanish Influenza epidemic along with his parents.

For better or worse, Edward Cullen would finish what he’d left undone.

For now.

2/8/09
 

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