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I was at the end of my third cup of coffee before I realized that someone was standing over me, waiting patiently for me to notice them. Shoving the half-finished crossword away, I looked up, reading glasses slipping down my nose. It was Edward – always Edward – and I couldn't help but smile, eyes crinkling around the corners as the wrinkle lines on my face creased even deeper. For a long moment, he stared at me, golden eyes frank and solemn as they appraised me.
'Looking for new wrinkles,' I thought but not as desperately as I once had, not as despondently. I was an old woman now, cragged and crinkled, soft skinned and aging. I even had liver spots, the kind that my mother had had when she was my age, though she had made the effort to hide them with creams and lotions, makeup and powders.
She was gone now, of course. Had been for more years than I cared to think about. Charlie, too; slipped away in his sleep, content with life as a retired sheriff.
They'd gone a few years apart from one another, distant enough that it hadn't felt like I was losing everything all at once. Both times, first Renee then Charlie had been just another part of life to grieve over, though my heart still ached to think of being no one's little girl anymore.
"Number four down is egalitarian," Edward said eventually, his solemn seventeen year old face lightening into a small smile. I smiled back wider, not even bothering to turn back and fill in the puzzle. I'd remember later, just as I remember everything he said to me these days.
"Thanks," I replied, easing my glasses from my nose. They hung from a beaded chain around my neck, the ends clipped with two plastic prongs. It'd been a gift from my grandson and his friends, a group of rowdy young boys that reminded me so much of the old pack from the Res that it made me smile every time I thought of it. They were good boys, lighting up my world every time they visited.
"What brings you here?" I asked eventually, used to the easy quiet that sprang up between us. It was a comfortable sort of quiet; the kind that came from years of familiarity. I'd had it with my husband, too, and couldn't help but revel in the intimacy of it.
Ever since Jacob had passed, nearly a year ago now, I'd started to feel the unbearable press of loneliness and isolation; something I hadn't felt since I was teenager and struggling with my love for the man that stood before me. Seeing him now, however, in my home, where I'd been happiest, it did my heart good and helped ease some of the arthritic ache in my bones the way Jake's furnace-like warmth had once upon a time.
"No, nothing's wrong; I just came to check-up on you," Edward supplied, stepping with a familiar flowing grace to slide into the chair across from me. It was the only other chair in my kitchen and the one that I had, more often than not, occupied when Jake was alive. I had taken to sitting in what I considered 'his' place since his passing, taking what little bit of comfort I could from occupying the same space my husband once had.
I nodded understandingly. I was used to Edward's surprise check-ups, despite the fact that they were happening less and less as the years went by. That too, I understood. I wasn't the girl that he'd fallen in love with all those years ago; not in mind, body, or spirit. She was gone, long gone, and my aging was harder on him than it was on me.
The fear I'd once had about growing older, fading with age, wasn't as sharp as it once had been. Living a full and happy life would do that to you, and my children and grandchildren were proof enough of how good my life had been over the years. In spite of Jake being gone (he'd been happy to go first; "told you I was older than you, Bells", he'd joked with his last breath), watching my children's faces begin to show signs of age and my grandchildren sprout up like weeds, death had very little power over me. I was passed that and knew with a kind of certainty that only comes with age and long life that Jacob would be waiting on me in whatever afterwards there was for us.
"You didn't have to," I murmured, same as I always did, and enjoyed the flash of irritation I saw in his eyes. Even after all these years, I was the only one whose mind he couldn't read and it still nettled him when he tried, which he always did. Not that I minded; it was amusing to see him try to hide his annoyance.
"No, I didn't," he replied, just as he always did, and I chuckled, pushing my chair away from the table.
Picking up my empty coffee cup, I moved to the sink, weathered hands briskly washing it out and placing it in the drain wrack. Jacob's mug still sat in it, a chipped royal blue cup that he'd used for everything from coffee and soda to ice cream and soup. He'd loved that mug, mostly because it had been given to him on our wedding day by a smiling Charlie, who had called him 'son' and told him to take care of 'his Bells'. It'd been a shabby gift, one that my father had clearly picked up last minute, but Jake had treated it like gold and wouldn't get rid of it. Not even when our oldest had accidentally dropped it down the stairs and chipped it.
"What are you really doing here?" I asked, though not unkindly. I'd never minded visits from Edward. They'd always left me feeling warm and grateful, if not a little tired. "You just came to visit a few months ago." I flashed a smile over my shoulder, "not that I'm complaining."
An almost inaudible exhalation ruffled the stray wisps of gray hair around my nape and I turned slightly, looking up into golden eyes. Edward had always moved soundlessly, a talent that was part and parcel to his nature and one that I loved as dearly as I loved the sight of his face, even if I didn't love him the way I once had. I sighed, closing my eyes and leaning into him. He was cold to the touch, almost glacial, and I shivered, chest aching.
"It's okay, Bella," Edward murmured, breath cool against my skin. "I just wanted to see you."
'One last time,' I finished mentally, the words hanging unspoken between us. 'One last time for you and for me. For the both of us.'
"I love you, Edward," I whispered impulsively, pressing a simple kiss against the folded collar of his button down. "Don't forget that. Please."
'Don't forget me,' I wanted to say but didn't. 'Even when you find your true mate, even when time fades my face from everyone else's memory, don't forget me.'
"Never, Bella," he promised softly, gently, and I held those words close to me, savoring them the way I savored the coolness of his body and the smell of his skin. "I'll never forget. How could I?"
Breathing deeply, I stuttered a sigh, pressing my face harder against him, wishing for one painful moment that I was young again, that I had made a different choice, before I pulled away and forced a smile. "Tell everyone how much I miss them and tell Alice to stop sending my grandkids so many clothes. The boys will grow out of them before they have a chance to wear half of them."
"Bella," Edward started, a hand fluttering indecisively before falling to his side. "Bella, I –"
"Don't," I cut in, feeling something inside me ache with hope and longing and damning rejection. "It'll only make this harder." 'For you more than me,' I refused to admit, because I'd broken his heart once in the life. I wouldn't do it again. "I'll miss you."
"And I you," he said eventually, eyes hued with the blackness of pain. It made my heart ache even worse. "I'll see you again soon, Bella. I'll – I'll tell Alice about the clothes."
"Not that it'll stop her," I said lightly, and turned my back to him, not wanting to see him leave though I knew he was already gone. That too was the way it always had been, the way it needed to be. "Goodbye, Edward."
I'll miss you.
END