In the Twilight of My Life by theladyingrey42

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5853091/1/

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 1:

My Jacob died on a Wednesday.

His feet were sticking out from under the old VW Rabbit he'd been restoring since
the day he retired. When the EMTs pulled him out, there was still grease under
his fingernails.

Even though those fingernails had started to turn blue.

I'd been calling him for what felt like forever, my voice getting ragged, his lunch
getting cold and me tired of waiting for him. Finally I got impatient and wheeled
myself out to the garage to look for him.

Because my Jacob had never left me waiting before.

But this time he'd left me waiting. Waiting for I didn't even know how long.
Waiting for this old and useless body to finally finish its sad shriveling, for the
wrinkled skin of my hands to finally grow too thin across the spiderweb network
of my bones.

He'd left me waiting until I could join him.

#-#-#

On Thursday, our girl Carlie came, all my grandbabies in tow behind her. She
asked me if I would watch them while she and Embry went down to the funeral
home, already having written me off as too catatonic to speak to the funeral
planners.

I never answered.

On Friday, I went to bed.

By Saturday I thought I might never get out.

#-#-#

My daughter's voice, her nagging insistence and the push of a spoon against my
withered lips cut through the darkness. In the fogging haze where my life before
and my life left waiting mingled, I felt my Jacob's presence in our bed. As he had
for almost forty-five years, he wrapped his phantom arms around me, a memory
of a memory. I lived in that place where dreams became reality, knowing full well
that I would never live again.

One day Carlie's voice broke through more brutally, her worry and her love and
her lack of patience meeting my indifference and my haze. And I knew she was
exasperated with me. Again.

All at once the cocoon around me rippled, then broke, darkness peeling away.

And everything was gone.

My life was gone.

I looked around at the four bare walls surrounding me, all the trinkets and
reminders of my life and my Jacob having been stolen away in the long dark
weeks of night, and I huddled closer into a ball. My aching, knobby fingers
reached for the pillow beside my head, for the place where my Jacob had slept.

And I swear I felt a twisting swirling, a rush of air like an exhale. Like something
expiring.

And his presence, the one comfort in my nighttime was gone.

"Mom," Carlie's voice called, the high shrillness of it piercing through the fog
around my brain.

"Mom," she said again, all worry and exhaustion and pain. "Mom, it's time."

#-#-#

My new room smelled like disinfectant and rust, like blood scrubbed off the floor
just moments after it had fallen. My daughter unpacked the things that she had
seen fit for me to carry with me, but the only things I needed were in my heart.

I tried to summon the phantom presence to my bed where I rested, still waiting,
but it refused to come. The bedrails against my spine were cold, my body thin
and giving out, time weakening everything.

And still I was stuck with nothing but time.

#-#-#

The nurse's name was Angela. I remembered that much.

Each day she dragged me out of my bed, made me wash and dress, even though
I was supposed to be living "independently."

"It's not a nursing home, Mom," Carlie's words had echoed through my numbing
brain, knowing full well her eyes were rolling even though I wasn't looking. "It's
assisted living."

Because something as simple as living was something I needed assistance with
now.

Angela made sure I went to my meals on time, wheeling me to a table in the
corner and respecting my wishes to sit alone.

And, most importantly, she wheeled me out to my tree.

#-#-#

My Jacob had proposed to me under a tree. We'd driven out past La Push, away
from rocky beaches and the ocean's roar, making our way through swaths of
green and trees. Beneath that old willow, he'd asked me to spend my life with
him, the arching branches making rainbow patterns against the dark grey sky.

He'd been so young then. So full of fervor and energy and life.

When I'd agreed, crying, he'd pledged his life to me.

And that was one promise he fulfilled in spades.

#-#-#

Each day I sat under my tree in the gardens behind the nursing home, a willow,
drooping branches sweeping almost to the ground. It was like I was pulled there,
half thinking my Jacob might be there, waiting for me like I was left waiting,
always waiting for him.

Sitting there, the brake on my wheelchair secured before Angela left me, I
imagined I could hear him breathing.

But of course that was only me.

#-#-#

I smoked American Spirits because that was what Jake had smoked. I breathed
them in like I breathed his breath, the little filter pack of cigarettes tucked
clandestinely amidst the blankets Angela arranged for me. If she saw them, she
didn't comment on them, and every time Carlie came to visit me, she gave into
that one request.

More cigarettes.

More of Jake's air to breathe.

I sat there for hours on some days, just watching the subtle play of leaves and of
dying things against the dimming sky. Angela would check on me every couple of
hours, but mostly she left me alone.

Without my Jacob there was nothing for me to be but alone.

#-#-#

In my room at night, I tried to summon his presence, finding his smile in the
photos our daughter had packed for me. I regarded them dimly, my own lips
lifting up, dry and cracked as they were, the skin settling hard into the lines they
had known when my Jacob was alive.

And that hint of a smile was too much for me. I took the three or four agonizingly
slow steps from my chair to my bed.

And I didn't get out of it for a week again.

#-#-#

The next time Carlie came, she found me sitting by my tree, staring into the sky,
the cataracts that were starting to form fogging my eyes the way the tears had
done.

I asked her to take me shopping, and she perked up immediately, a smile on the
young woman's face that reminded me so much of how she'd looked as a little
girl.

The smile faded, slowly, as she wheeled me through the store and I selected
nothing but black. I reminded her that I was a widow now, that there was nothing
left for me to live for.

And a sad look came over her eyes as she told me how she hoped that maybe
someday there would be.

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 2:

Angela left me under my tree in the early morning one day, a cool breeze of
autumn turning to winter all around me. As I smoked, I wondered if they would
let me come out here anymore when the fouler weather came in - if I would even
be able to sneak out for long enough to smoke my Jacob's breath back into me.

The air grew cooler as the day wore on, a rare and brilliant blue in the sky
settling back down to a quiet grey. I pulled the knitted afghan I'd made for Jake
around my shoulders, the smell of him still lingering in the fibers.

Afternoon wore into evening, a cool calm steeling over me, feeling forgotten, left
waiting. And something about the whole situation rang so achingly, reassuringly
familiar to me, a stranger of a laugh gathering deep inside my old and tired
lungs. As darkness crept on, I tried to decide whether to let myself sleep in my
chair beneath the tree, half hoping the cold would take me, or if maybe I should
try to wheel myself back to my room.

A whiff of smoke passed over me then, a scent of something new and old and
sad, a different kind of smoke than that of my Jacob. I heard the crunching of
leaves, the motion of another human on this earth, marching inexorably toward
the end.

"A little late for a lady to be out unaccompanied?" The gruff voice came from
behind me, but I couldn't be troubled to turn around. Or to answer. Another curl
of smoke moved around me, Marlboros if I guessed properly, laced with a scent
of old cologne.

And I wondered who bothered to wear cologne in a nursing home.

The owner of the voice entered my vision on my right, and peering out of the
corner of my eye, I took in a proud-looking man, one gnarled hand twisted tightly
around a cigarette while the other clutched casually at the top of a cane. Set
against the gathering darkness of the sky, his jaw stood out prominently over the
folds of old skin across a tired neck, his head held aloft, barely tamed hair
standing out in whispers of red interspersed with grey.

When he looked over at me, it was with a twinkling in his sad green eyes, the
lines around them tight and the skin too thin, thick-framed glasses resting gently
on his nose.

"Lovely night, isn't it?" he commented, standing beside me, and I shrugged.
Deciding I wasn't about to respond, he continued, "I like to come out here at
twilight. Seems fitting for the twilight of our lives, eh?"

And for some reason it made me laugh, an unfamiliar smile settling again into the
lines of my face.

I stole another cigarette out of the pack I clutched beneath the protective layers
of my blankets, letting the scent of our two kinds of smoke mix and linger. We
stayed there silently, comfortably, watching the last edges of the sun sink soft
beneath the horizon, and it felt like something was setting in me.

Angela finally arrived a few minutes later, apologizing profusely. I saw the
concern in her eyes and the mischief on that of my companion, the man who
enjoyed the darkness and our own burning, dirty air with me.

"It's quite alright, dear," I said, patting her hand. "I was just about to head back
anyway."

Too proud, I moved my spindly hands to the wheels of my chair, releasing the
brake and starting ever so slowly to turn myself around. As I did, I caught a
glimmer in the green eyes peering down at me. "Twilight?" I asked, the first word
I had actually spoken to him.

"Twilight," he answered, nodding slightly.

And even though it left me wheezing, my body unaccustomed to so much effort, I
managed to wheel myself far enough up the path to be out of sight before I let
Angela take over for me.

That night, I looked at pictures of my Jacob again, wishing I could feel him with
me, remembering the time he'd held my hand and passed a cigarette to me, the
first time I'd smoked since Carlie was born. We'd smiled, breathing in the same
quiet air, our daughter sleeping silently upstairs.

It was the first time we'd made love as parents. Before we'd found out about
everything that had gone wrong and that there would be no more children. Back
when our family had seemed like it was perfect and growing.

The stranger of a smile on my face flickered and faded, years settling heavily
back down across my face as I moved toward my bed, uncomforted and alone.

The next morning I woke up without a nurse coming in to yell at me for the first
time since Jake had died, streams of sunlight warming my tired bones. When
Angela came to find me, I was washed and dressed and sitting in my chair, ready
to go. She pushed me most of the way, speaking animatedly as I tried to pay
attention.

As soon as we got to the dining room I insisted on pushing myself again, looking
around me for the first time since I'd arrived. Cool green eyes met mine across a
cup of coffee and I nodded, still wheeling myself to the table I'd been sitting at
for months, sitting by myself. But feeling less alone.

That night, he was there, his back against the trunk of the willow tree that for so
many weeks had been calling to me. It had reminded me of my Jacob all along,
but suddenly it made me think of something new, sweeping branches black
against the darkening sky.

Angela put my brake on the way she always had, looking at me and at the man
smoking quietly up against the tree beside me. "I'll have the nurse on the next
shift come looking for you if you don't make it back by nightfall," she said too
quietly for anyone but me to hear, and I blushed, the sensation of blood in the
weathered skin of my cheeks feeling foreign and strange.

"You came back," he observed, puffing on the cigarette, making the end glow and
spark.

"You're here," I answered, digging in the folds of my afghan for my American
Spirits.

He came over to me and held out a lighter, clicking the flame with surprisingly
quick fingers, and I took them in as I breathed his fire, long lines of veins
standing out against age-spotted skin.

Again, he leaned against his cane, watching the last echoes of the sunset with
me, the silence enveloping me like phantom arms used to.

When it had grown too dark to see, the only light coming from the moon and the
glowing orange of our cigarettes, he turned to look at me. His pale and wrinkled
skin was set off by the dim red glow, and I realized fully for the first time that he
was handsome, for a man of a certain age. "Would you like a hand getting back?"

I chose to put my pride away, nodding as I leaned down to put out my cigarette
on my shoe, slipping the stub back into the pack.

When my gaze rose again to meet his, he was looking at me expectantly, his
cane in his hands. As understanding finally dawned, I took it, grasping the warm
wood of the handle, a glancing touch of our hands surprising me. And it struck
me that it was the first time anyone besides a nurse or a member of my family
had touched me since my Jacob's funeral.

It felt nice.

Settling the cane in my lap, the ridged edges of my fingernails worrying the
subtle twists of wood, I felt him settle in behind me, releasing the brake and
beginning to slowly push me.

The nurses at the front desk looked up at us amusedly, a little shock on the faces
of the one or two with whom I had spoken before. I smiled at them all shyly, and
looked up to see the man behind me duck his head in a little bow. Deep lines
formed softly around the edges of his mouth as it lifted into a smirk that would
have charmed anyone, had he only been a few years younger.

I directed him to my room quietly, and he brought me to the doorway, parking
me just inside of it before taking his cane back from me and looking around the
space.

"May I?" he asked, a picture near my bedside catching his eye. I nodded,
nervous. He picked up the little frame, turning it over. When his eyes met mine
they were soft in sunken sockets. "You have a beautiful family."

"Had," I whispered quietly. "My husband passed very recently."

He put down the photograph and touched my shoulder, a single tear making its
way down my face.

"I'm so sorry."

"Me, too," I agreed, something strange in me making me place my hand over his,
the skin dry and papery but warm.

"Will you join me again tomorrow…" His eyes lifted up, his lined mouth waiting for
my name.

"Bella," I told him, my gaze still trained on his face. And his smile was charming
in spite of his age.

"Bella," he repeated, and my name sounded beautiful on his tongue as he held
our joined hands out between us. "Will you?"

I smiled in spite of myself. "I will …"

"Edward."

I said his name back to him, liking the feel of it in my mouth, "Edward."

He squeezed my hand one more time, doffing an imaginary hat as he leaned
slightly on his cane, before slipping out the door.

Edward and I passed quiet weeks, marking the day's passage into twilight with
shared breaths and a certain appreciation for the nighttime air. Eventually we
migrated a little farther down the path, past the willow tree to a spot with a
bench where he could rest his tired, aching knees.

Eventually, he started coming to my room to get me.

"Do you have any children?" I asked him one evening, smoke hanging thickly on
the air.

He blew out a single ring of it, a sheer white plume, and then gritted his teeth.
"No," he said slowly.

"Did you want any?" I tried to ask so softly, feeling his walls closing silently.

"Yes. Desperately." He turned to look at me, something so sad and so regretful in
his eyes.

"With your - " the word stuck in the back of my throat, " - with your wife?"

He nodded grimly, breathing in once more. I looked at his aging hands, at the
lines that told his story on them, and I saw no metal band.

Looking off into the distance, he spoke quickly and quietly. "It's part of why our
marriage didn't last. When we found out we couldn't, she was destroyed. I was,
too, of course," he said contemplatively. "But she … she never recovered."

His eyes met mine again. "And then she left me."

"I'm sorry," I apologized, my hand twitching, wanting to touch him. To comfort
him.

Edward smiled weakly. "And I've more or less been alone ever since."

I finally reached my hand across the distance between my chair and the bench,
placing it gently over his. My thumb rubbed its way back and forth over the
raised tendons, the bones and the veins.

I felt the chill in the air and wondered absently if he would still want to come here
with me once the weather really turned. And if he did if we would need to wear
gloves. If I would lose this only contact I had with another human being's skin.

He looked down at the motion of my thumb against his hand and closed his other
palm over the bony knobs of my fingers. And there was something in his eyes,
then. A certain loneliness and the hint of something left unsaid.

"My husband and I only had the one," I said, tentatively, thinking back to that
darker time. "After - after Carlie was born, we found out we couldn't have any
more." The silhouette of the willow tree against the dimming grey of the sky
pulled me back to that time. "Jake always wanted a big family."

"But you pulled through it," Edward said.

"We did," I sighed. "It was a bad couple of years, though."

We lapsed back into silence, and I wondered if I should move my hand away. As
if in answer to a silent question, he turned the palm of his one hand up, gathering
my fingers in his own, the wrinkled lines of them intertwined.

And then we sat there, holding onto the past and to each other, watching the
nighttime sky drift by.

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 3:

"I barely recognize you, Mom," Carlie said, my grandbabies making crazy circles
on the rug in my room. She lifted a cup of tea to her lips, faintly smiling.

But she still looked tired.

I smiled at her, slightly glazed, realizing exactly how true that was. I'd caught
sight of myself in the mirror the day before, bothering to put on some powder
and lipstick for the first time since Jacob died. The dark circles under my eyes
had been fading, and there had been a little glow to the papery, weathered skin
of my cheeks.

She stared at me leveling, gauging something as I sipped at my tea.

"You know Dad'll have been gone for a year come Sunday, right?"

The teacup slipped in my hands, hot liquid spilling everywhere and the porcelain
in shattered pieces on the ground.

"Mom!" Carlie shrieked, jumping up and reaching for the tiny white shards,
cautioning the babies to stay far and clear.

"I'm so sorry," I mumbled, pulling the soaked afghan off my lap and dabbing
distractedly.

Once the mess had been cleaned up, Carlie stayed just a little bit longer, clearly
shaken, talking about anything except the one thing we were both thinking
about.

When she finally left, she didn't meet my lonely eyes. Instead, she watched the
ground, whispering quietly that she'd see me on Sunday.

When Edward came to my room that night, he sensed my mood, walking me
down to our tree in silence. We smoked together contemplatively, and he
refrained from touching me.

By the time the darkness settled in, I felt my loneliness and my loss closing
tightly in. I imagined in the distance, by the tree, I could see my Jacob.

And I couldn't tell if he was calling to me or waving goodbye.

The tears were streaming down my face before I realized it, my awareness only
gathering when I felt a softness in my hand. When I looked up, Edward was
pressing a linen handkerchief between my fingers, gesturing softly, his hand for
the first time that evening squeezing mine.

I took the little fabric square gratefully, dabbing again at my eyes, trying to reign
all the pressing emotion in. But it was like a dam had broken, and the harder I
fought, the more desperately the sadness clawed at me.

I breathed in deeply one more time, one shuddering breath, and then I lost
myself to sobbing. My body wracked with spasms until it felt like my spine and
ribs might break from the painful, violent gasping, something heaving so deep
and hard inside of me.

But it was only when Edward perched himself at the edge of the bench, his cane
discarded on the ground and his arms closing around me, holding me tightly
inside the confines of my chair, that I finally let everything go.

The loneliness and the longing. The waiting and the living.

When the tears finally eased, I looked up to see his green eyes clouded, too.
Gently, he wiped my cheeks with his thumbs.

And he didn't say anything. Didn't ask anything. So I placed my head on his
shoulder and let him hold me, crying out the final tears I still had left for my dead
husband.

Crying out the last tears I still had for me.

He was silent as he walked me back to my room, something having passed
between us. Handing him his cane again, I saw a look of regret and uncertainty
on his face, and he wavered, hesitating.

"Twilight?" I asked, my voice scratchy and hoarse from so much crying.

My heart soared to see him smile again.

"Twilight," he agreed.

On Sunday, Carlie came, but without the grandbabies this time. She climbed up
onto my bed like she was five, her head heavy on my shoulder and her sobs more
deep and ragged than mine.

I pet her hair, soothing her, wondering how my girl had managed to keep it
together when her Daddy had died. How she had managed to be so strong for
me.

Wondering if I could be that strong for her.

Opening my mouth, finally, with only the faintest of tears falling silently from my
eyes, I began to tell my daughter all about her father. About what he was like
with her. How he courted me. How we spent our quiet years, two old birds, still in
love.

About the years we'd planned for, but which he hadn't been able to spend with
me.

At the end of it all, I just held her, my sweet baby girl. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here
for you, baby," I whispered. "I'm so sorry that - that when your Daddy died I left
you all alone."

"It's OK, Mom," she cried. "I mean, you'd lost the love of your life."

And I had.

But sitting there, holding my daughter and thinking about love, I wondered if it
was really true that people only ever got to have one.

The next day I rolled my chair to the very back of my closet, to the recesses that
held colors. Red and khaki and blue.

I pulled on a blouse that Jake had always told me made my skin look pretty,
fabric draping over the sagging lines of my body.

When I looked back at myself in the mirror, I didn't look like a widow anymore.

I looked like me.

At breakfast, I let my eyes wander the dining room, alighting quickly on a table in
the middle of the room, on a flash of graying copper and green. He was sitting in
the same place where he always sat, four other people around him, speaking
animatedly. I wheeled myself over, coming up behind him.

When I tapped his shoulder, he started, looking back at me with surprise fading
to a low and easy smile.

"Good morning, Bella," he greeted me, standing, and I blushed.

"I wondered - I thought maybe I might join you? If you don't mind?"

His smile redoubled, before he said too quietly, "Of course."

I pivoted in my chair, wheeling it around to the empty spot by his side.

"Bella, this is everybody," Edward said, still beaming and gesturing widely.
"Everybody," he began, looking back at me while something hopeful passed over
his eyes, "this is my Bella."

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 4:

Winter settled on our little corner of Washington the same way it always did, and
right on time. Before long, we were making our treks to a now barren tree,
dressed in coats and scarves and hats, gloves keeping the flesh of Edward's
hands from mine.

He walked me home one night, leaving a few minutes before dusk could even fall,
his gait heavier and the push of his hands against my chair more strained.

When we got back to my room, he removed his hat with a sigh, something
hesitant and pained in the way he said my name.

"Bella, by any chance is this a smoking room?" Edward asked, releasing his grip
on the bars of my chair and gratefully taking his cane.

I nodded, knowing Carlie had arranged that for me, even though I had rarely
taken advantage of it. I preferred to smoke out in the garden with my Edward.
With my friend.

"It's supposed to snow tomorrow night," he said, and I felt my old, slow heart fill
with dread.

"I'm not afraid of the cold," I muttered weakly.

He looked at me, something like admiration passing over his eyes. "You're a
stronger woman than I, dear Bella. The cold does terrible things to my knees." At
that he gestured with his eyes to the little couch in the corner of my room and I
nodded, watching him settle down into the upholstery.

It was the first time he'd ever decided to stay.

"Perhaps," he said, looking at me penetratingly. "Perhaps you would consent to
spend the evening with me here?"

Something in my chest fluttered, and for a moment I thought it was an
arrhythmia, clutching my cold hand to my chest and breathing deeply. The
fluttering passed, but the unbearable feeling of lightness didn't, the blood rushing
through my veins in a way that it hadn't in years.

"Perhaps I would," I whispered, our eyes lingering long, and for the first time I
wondered if Carlie was right. If maybe I should have cataract surgery. Because I
wondered what it might be like to see Edward clearly.

He gathered his hat in his hands, gripping his cane tightly, and stood.

But instead of leaving, he came up to me, bending stiffly at the waist until his
eyes were just in front of me. "Dear Bella," he whispered, "I would enjoy that."

His lips pressed so gently to my cheek then, so softly. As he moved to pull away,
I caught his arm, shocking myself as my hand drifted up to the side of his face.

"Edward, so would I."

I recognized the knock at my door instinctively, the soft rapping and the polite
tap of wood on wood.

My hands moved through my thinning hair, tied up as always into a knot at the
back of my neck, my body breathing too quickly, not knowing what to do to calm
my nerves.

Not knowing what on earth I was even nervous for.

"Come in," I said finally, projecting my voice and hearing it in my own ears.
Reedy. Tinny. Old.

I knew the sound of Edward's gait anywhere by then, the firm impact of his one
footfall and the softer one of the other, accompanied always by the muted tap of
his cane. And yet my heart was still spasming, still rattling around in my cold and
empty chest until I saw his face, saw the long, slightly hunched line of him
entering my space.

I turned myself, my aching hands clasping around the wheels of my chair,
tugging at the rubber and metal until I faced him. His green eyes sparkled,
something freer about him than there was most nights, as he closed the door
behind him. My breathing hitched for just a moment, an irrational panic from my
youth at the idea of being alone with a man. A man who could do strange things
to parts of me that I'd thought had died with my husband.

If he sensed my trepidation, he soothed it with an uneven, knowing smile, pulling
his pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his blazer and gripping it gently in his
palm.

Slowly, still nervous, I approached him, waiting as he closed the distance with
steady, unrushed steps, leaning in again until his dry lips brushed my cheek, and

I blushed, blood rising up in my face that hadn't known that bloom of life in so
long.

"Good evening, dearest Bella," he whispered, those lips still so close to my ear as
he breathed in deeply, my breathing faltering as I imagined he might be smelling
my hair. Standing up slowly, he glanced again at the little couch. "May I?"

"Of course, Edward."

I followed behind him, turning my chair with some difficulty until the wheels
rested at an angle to the couch, allowing me to see him without directly facing
him.

His knees groaned as he lowered himself, his cane resting on his thigh, a
comfortable silence creeping over us as we failed to quite meet each other's eyes.

It was only as he sat that I realized we had nothing to do. No setting sun to
admire, no diversion of nature to keep us from the natural state of a man and a
woman, withered and crippled as we were, enjoying each other's company.

When I looked up from my hands, embarrassed at their idle, nervous fiddling, it
was to find soft eyes staring at me.

"Will you join me?" he asked quietly, his age-spotted hand making the most timid
of pats at the seat by his side.

My heart hammered. In our months of talking and breathing and sitting together
I had never left the confines of my chair.

I had never been me in my own failing body without metal and wheels to support
me.

"Yes," I breathed.

Pushing hard at my own confines, self-imposed and necessary, I placed my feet
tentatively on the ground, shifting uncomfortably and maddeningly slowly. It was
still with a panting effort, with so much strain in arms gone slack from disuse that
I lifted my body, grasping hard for the arm of the couch before releasing my
deathgrip on the chair.

But then it was easy. So easy, as the warmth of Edward's hand at the base of my
spine eased all the pressure, my feet pivoting until I was on the couch beside
him.

And again, it was just me and him.

There were moments of silence, his hand gone from my spine as I settled back
into the cushion stiffly, moving only to settle again on my own hand, little
pinpricks of touch, such pleasant warmth in my thin skin.

"Thank you," he breathed.

I didn't answer, digging in my pocket for my cigarettes, holding the filter end
between my parched lips. He leaned in then with his lighter, but his warmth
touched more than just my cigarette.

With his hands, he lit the flame that set fire to my breathing memory and my
heart and my body.

I woke up warm and stiff, surrounded by a smell of smoke and the faintest wisps
of cologne. An awareness passed over me by degrees, a sense of corduroy
pressing grooves into my face, a lightly caressing motion at my side making me
feel comfortable.

Making me feel loved.

My heart panged at the thought, a deep tightness anticipating the withdrawal of
the ghost, of the phantom flicker of my husband that had watched over me from
afar for so long.

But these arms didn't smell like my Jake.

They smelled like my Edward. My friend.

I breathed out long and deep and felt the echoing sigh in my ribs and in the
tightening of welcome fingers on my arm.

"Bella?" The voice was so close, smooth and husky and weathered like a stone.

I blinked repeatedly, trying to rise but feeling myself sucked down into the
comfort of an embrace born not of tears but of closeness. Resting with my body
tucked up against his side, my head on his shoulder, surrounded by warmth, I
felt more comfort than I had in a long and lonely year.

And I was suddenly sad that I had missed it. That I had missed the moment
when he had placed his arms around me, choosing to hold me only in my sleep.

"It's late, love," he whispered, rough fingertips tracing the side of my face. I
looked up at him to find so much warmth in tired eyes, his whole countenance all
the more handsome for the wrinkles and lines his years had earned him.

"I'm sorry." My voice was a croak, sleep and the sweetness of his touch robbing
me of my breath.

His answer was a warm chuckling sound, the soft motion of his chest rocking me.

"Not at all." He leaned in even closer then and I thought I felt the fluttering of lips
against my forehead, something hurting and clenching in me because I didn't
even know if my friend was kissing me.

Or if I should want him to.

"Can you walk to your bed if I help you? Or would you like me to push you?"

"I, um, I need to get dressed, still."

His face alit and fell in an instant, his breath catching before he exhaled long and
low. "OK," he whispered. "Let me get you into your chair and I'll go?"

There was something lost and hurt in his eyes and I almost wished I hadn't
woken up. That I'd slept in strong arms the whole night long.

I eased myself over into my chair, his hand warm and steadying on my side, a
flicker of a sad smile on his face as he turned to go.

My hand reached out without my say so, curling around his wrist as he reached
for his cane.

At our age, there was no such thing as asking him to stay. There would be nurses
in the early morning, an empty bed attracting notice. And even if I only wanted
him to hold me, I wasn't sure if even that was something my body still knew how
to do.

But I didn't want him to go.

"Not yet, Edward. Stay a little longer?"

His grin was warm and wide.

"OK."

I dressed in my bathroom, the old nightgown I'd been wearing for years looking
more than worn. It was a deep blue in soft cotton. An open neckline and a skirt
opening onto wrinkled, wasted legs. And I felt shame for the first time since I'd
resigned myself to a life in a chair.

The door gave beneath my fingertips, opening inward as I wheeled myself into a
room that smelled like Edward.

He sat on the edge of my bed, his legs crossed at the ankles in front of him. He
was old and pale and tired.

And when he smiled at me he was so, so handsome.

I wheeled myself to the side of the bed, beginning that long process again,
gripping the rails and my chair. But Edward's arms were soft around my waist,
more than just a hand now, my whole body held close to his side as he lifted me.
And I was weightless. A girl with long brown hair twirling in a young man's arms
in the sun.

An old woman, grey and white hair tied up and away, being helped into bed
because I was too weak to stand.

"Are you quite comfortable?" he asked, releasing me into pillows and a cold
softness that was nothing like his arms. I nodded mutely, knowing that there was
no comfort like what I had just known.

He sat there still though, retreating only to take my withered hands in his,
reaching up to rub my cheek so softly. His fingertips brushed to my hair, tucking
a long grey strand to the side.

"I'd love to see your hair," he whispered. "May I?"

My hands joined his, pulling wordlessly at the ties until it fell into soft curls
around my shoulders.

Again, I blushed, wanting to hide myself behind those curls, but his palm against
my cheek wouldn't let me.

"You're so lovely, Bella, dearest," he said, and there was something shaking in
me and in him. "Goodnight, my dear." As he spoke he leaned in close, so close,
smoke and old cologne and Edward, and there was that warmth on my cheek as
he held my face in his hands and I felt something in me falling as it broke.

"Edward?" I whispered before he could turn to go. He hovered, a question on that
proud face as my fingertips traced his cheek, descending to his lips, my thumb
pressing softly against the bottom one.

And then, so gently, so tentatively, I reached forward.

It wasn't a kiss from my youth. It wasn't passion, no crashing of bodies and teeth
and mouths.

It was comfort. It was lips on lips in soft, gently parting caresses.

And it wasn't the first time, as our breaths and mouths were shared, that Edward
breathed new life into me with his touch.

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 5:

Falling in love with Jacob was easy. Like breathing.

By the time we finally decided to become lovers, we had known each other for so
long that it had been nothing, really, to come to know each other that way, too.

Falling in love with Jacob was so easy I scarcely even noticed it was happening.

That wasn't how it happened with Edward.

With Edward, I felt every single inch of the fall.

I felt the way my heart that had been nothing but a pulse to me began to quicken
whenever he would approach me, his scent in my lungs and his warmth behind
my chest. I felt the pride and saw the twinkle in his eyes every time he shifted a
chair out of the way so I could roll up to sit by his side. I felt his smile and I felt
mine.

I felt happy.

But more than anything else, I felt his absence whenever he was gone.

It began with small things. Nights that felt lonelier for having been spent alone.
Every time he would take his leave, I would burrow down into pillows and covers,
with my hand near my mouth, trying to taste whatever there was left of him in
the air, my lips and shoulders still tingling with contact and life where for so long
there had been so little of either.

Then, at some point in the dead of winter, he left for a week to visit his brother
and his niece and her babies. Before getting into his car, he knelt on the cold
sidewalk before my chair, grunting roughly with the motion of his knees, his cane
helping him keep his balance when he seemed like he might fall.

"Be well, my Bella," he whispered, and I smiled through eyes that were blurrier
than normal.

I pressed my freezing hand to his cheek, pushing red-grey hair behind his ear
and sniffling before leaning forward to kiss him.

His arms around me were shaking, and I didn't think it was from the cold.

"I'll miss you," I whispered, failing to realize until I'd spoken the words exactly
how true they really were.

When he drew back, the folds at the corners of his eyes were as damp as mine
felt.

"As I will you."

I sat there in the bitter cold, pulling layers of blankets around my ears as the tail
lights of his car receded and I was left alone.

For a long, long time I stayed there, listening to the wind as it ruffled my covers
and blew harshly in my ear. I felt like a skeleton, run through with cold, staring
down a long and weary road, waiting once again for the man I had come to
depend on to come home.

That evening I managed to convince Angela to roll me out to Edward's and my
tree, even though she wouldn't let me stay for long.

And for the first time, that night, I smoked Marlboros.

The days without him passed in long hours that seemed so much longer than I
remembered. In the months after Jacob had died, I'd sought no occupation,
staring and floating and wondering why I was still alive.

But now my eyes were open, my synapses buzzing, my tongue plied and my
mind ready to talk. To commune. To connect.

But there was no one to connect with.

Not the way I connected with my Edward.

His friends were gracious. Sympathetic, even. I skipped dinner the night he left,
preferring a box of stale crackers Carlie had left for me at some point to facing
anything beyond my four white walls.

The next morning, though, I emerged, half in mourning again, a black sweater
and grey slacks that betrayed the lack of color in my life without the flash of red
in his hair and the green in his smiling eyes. Uncertain about where to go, I
wheeled myself into the dining room nervously, darting my eyes between the
table where I had come to sit, to the spot beside his empty chair, and to the
lonely corner where for so many months I had taken my meals in solitude.

But then there was a little shout and a wrinkled hand in the air, wide smiles and
an invitation.

And I went.

In all the time I'd been sitting with his friends, I'd felt included and yet held at a
distance, whether by them or by Edward or by me I couldn't say. If anything, that
first morning, they were too animated, too quick to draw me in, but I found
myself smiling in spite of my reservations and in spite of the empty chair I kept
touching with my empty hands.

And so while I was alone, I wasn't as alone as I once had been, mealtimes a
welcome respite from the quiet in my head. Because I had friends.

Because Edward had touched my life with more than just his lips and hands.

It was on the third day that he called. I sat in my room, smoking another
cigarette from the pack I'd lifted from his coat pocket a few nights before. I
stared at the phone for a couple of rings, knowing it was too late for my daughter
to be calling and not wanting to dare to hope.

My hands shook as they grasped the receiver, my hello sounding like more of a
breath than a word, but it was answered with a sigh I knew.

"Bella."

"Edward."

My smile was as wide as the whole night sky, twirling the cord between my bony
finger and my thumb, feeling on my own sunken cheeks the same expression I
had mocked so many times on my daughter's when she had been young and in
love, staying up all night talking on the phone.

For almost two hours, we revisited everything that had happened in the time he'd
been away. We spoke of everything and nothing, and his voice was the greatest
comfort to me that I had ever imagined.

It was well past my usual bed time when I began to yawn, my eyes closing there
on the couch, missing the feel of his arm on my shoulder and the warmth of his
thigh by my own, missing the click of his cane as he would help me across the
room and the dip in the bed as he would sit by side to tuck me in.

"I wish I could kiss you goodnight," he said quietly into the receiver, and I felt the
words like his lips.

"I wish you could, too," I admitted.

"It's only a few more nights."

"I know."

"I'll see you then, my dear."

"Good night, Edward."

"Good night, my Bella."

I only realized after I'd replaced that handset on its cradle that it felt like
something had been left unsaid.

We didn't speak again the entire time he was away. He'd given me his number,
but there was this part of me that was entirely too insecure, too reluctant to
intrude on his time with his family.

On his time with the people he loved.

I tried to keep my loneliness and my longing under wraps, but on the night
before he was due to return, I found it all sitting too heavily on my hunched
shoulders, his breath gone from my lungs and his scent having evaporated from
my room.

And I realized, irrationally, improbably, that I was afraid. I was afraid he would
come home and that he wouldn't come home. That maybe he would think our
little world here wasn't his home anymore at all. I worried he might come back
and find me lacking, that his many years of solitude would look all the more
attractive to him after a week surrounded by others. I worried that he would so
enjoy the time with his family that he might decide to stay away.

I was worried I'd end up alone again and that my heart, which had been broken
beyond all repair before, and which he had pieced together again with his hands,
might never survive.

Surrounded by my own fear, my clouded vision tracing over and over again past
words that did not register on a page I couldn't read anymore, I hoped for the
phone to ring.

But it didn't.

Lonely tears were just beginning to gather, almost ready to fall, when I heard a
rapping on my door. There was the warm sound of knuckles on wood, but then
there was also a sharper sound.

A sound like a cane.

The doorknob turned, the crack between the wood and the doorjamb growing
until I could take in the sight for sore, sad eyes that I'd only been seeing in my
dreams.

It took me as much time to bring myself to standing as it took for him to slam the
door shut and cross the room, and within moments I was in his arms, shivering
and warm and weeping without even being able to explain why.

"Edward! How? Why?"

His shaking fingers were under my chin, tilting my head, his worried lips pressed
firmly to mine, parting frantically, before he could answer. Even when he pulled
away, leaving me clutching at his body for support when my legs seemed like
they might give out, it was only to kiss at all the reaches of my face, soft presses
of lips to my temples and cheeks and brow and nose.

And my body, withered and hollow as it sometimes felt, was full and vital and
wanting, sparked to life with the touch of his hands and mouth and with the
vibrations of my stirring heart.

Finally after long moments of silent communication and the sweet caresses of
reunion, he pressed his forehead to mine, my face in his hands.

And all we could do was smile.

"What on earth are you doing here?" I asked finally, breathlessly.

His nose rubbed over mine, his thumbs tracing awed circles around the hinges of
my jaw as he whispered, "I didn't want to stay away another day." There was the
tiniest hint of insecurity in those eyes I had been longing to gaze into, then, a
crease of worry and of doubt on his brow. "I hope that's OK...?"

Holding his shoulders for support, I chanced a move I hadn't made in years,
rising up on my tiptoes to press my mouth to his, nodding and glowing and
smiling as I did. "I missed you, Edward. I can't even tell you how much."

He crushed me to him, clasping my body to his chest as he rocked us back and
forth.

"If it's a tenth as much as I missed you then I am flattered."

For minutes that felt like hours, we stayed that way, my wasted legs telling me to
let go and sit down even as my arms couldn't bear to pull themselves away.

And it was then that I knew.

I knew why I had missed him.

And I knew that I had fallen.

In the Twilight of My Life,Chapter 6:

"Tell me about her?"

Edward and I were sitting on my couch, smoking and holding hands, our sides
pressed together, though there was more than enough space for us both.

No matter how close we got, though, it never seemed close enough.

Not for me.

After he'd come home to me, we'd resumed our normal rhythm, the exuberance
of our reunion left behind in favor of quieter moments. But the emotion
underlying that moment was still with me, pressing in so close against my heart
that I thought it might choke me, the words desperate to come out for all that my
restraint kept them in.

Not that I hadn't thought about giving voice to them - to the swirling feelings that
made me feel alive and anxious and sad. To the feelings lying deep inside where I
thought I might never feel anything again.

So many times I had started to tell him, felt my dry lips parting with the need to
tell him.

Only something had stopped me each time. Some look of distance in his eyes or
a sense of longing that I didn't know if I fulfilled, for all that I thought I did.

Some lack of knowledge as to what his heart had felt in all the years he'd lived
before me.

Some lack of knowledge about … her.

My question still hung ragged in the air, growing heavier with every passage of
air through our mouths and lungs. Finally, sounding sad and resigned, he sighed
quietly against my side.

"Her?" he asked, and I could feel his uncertainty in his words and in his touch,
even as his fingertips continued running long circuits through the graying ribbons
of my hair.

"Your – your ex-wife."

"Hmm."

His frown was deep, with hard grooves cutting harshly into the skin around his
eyes and mouth. I felt the loss of his hand in my hair as it retreated, burying
itself in his own grey and auburn locks, scratching softly at his scalp.

"It was such a long time ago, Bella," he hedged, uncertainty creeping softly into
his words.

I felt my disappointment gathering, knowing men of a certain age could be closed
in strange ways. Knowing Edward was the kind of man who squirreled his hurt
away.

"If you don't want to tell me …" My voice trailed off as I tried to hide the way I
felt my own face fall, my fingers fidgeting, the swollen knuckles cracking as I
pushed and pulled.

His own hand closed over my nervous ones, so much warmth in such a little
touch, and I lifted my head to meet his eyes.

"My Bella. My darling. I want to tell you everything."

And I couldn't help but believe that the words were true, something deep and
lurking in his eyes. Something that warmed and frightened me, and I wanted to
know him.

I wanted to know everything.

Still studying my face, he lifted his hand to brush the knuckles over the fall of my
cheek, his words sounding measured and careful when they came. "Some things
are just difficult for me to talk about. And my life with her is one of them."

"I understand," I whispered. Because I did.

I rested my head on his shoulder then, trying to be the silent support my Jacob
had told me he'd always loved me for, even as I continued to caress the age-
spotted lines of my Edward's wrists and hands.

"I was late to love, Bella," he whispered. And inexplicably, he chuckled as he
continued, "And I'm finding now that maybe I've been later to it than even I had
known."

For a moment my heart soared, wondering if he was trying to say he loved me.

But then he continued on.

"We met when I was almost thirty. My family had long since decided there was
something … wrong with me. Since I never showed any inclination toward
romantic affection. Or settling down. And maybe there was.

"If you asked me now, I couldn't tell you a good reason why I married her. It was
what people expected of us. And we both wanted a family.

"But we were never much more than friends, really. Or maybe it's just that we
never should have been. You know my rhythms, Bella, and I haven't changed
much in a long, long time. I like my quiet and my silences. She liked … a louder
life. A more vibrant one. And I was never the man who could give it to her."

He paused then, lapsing into the sort of silence he had just spoken about, the
motion of his thumb along my palm the only sign that he was still there in the
room with me and not completely lost to memory.

I let my eyes rest on the graying hair I knew must have once resembled a flame,
on the deep and soulful eyes that I knew would have once been stunningly
brilliant and verdant and green.

"You're more than vibrant to me," I whispered.

His hand squeezed around mine, the tiniest hints of a smile flirting gently with the
edges of his mouth. Raising my hand to kiss it, he replied, "You are too kind to
me."

And all I could do was shake my head.

"I told you about our efforts to try to have a family. Things grew … difficult
between us then." The shadows of pain around his eyes were more haunting and
more prominent than they had ever been then, and I wanted to take them away,
but I knew that it was much too late to erase them completely. "We argued.
Bitterly." He breathed for a moment, his face a mask until he smiled the saddest
smile I had ever seen. "And then she left me."

"Do you miss her?" My question was quieter than a whisper. It was the breath of
a lonely shiver, born of a chill that was seeping back into my bones.

And then he turned to me, his smile growing warm, those lines of worry and of
sadness evaporating.

"My Bella," he said, his voice echoing deeply. For long moments, his eyes studied
me, his fingertips memorizing me. "Please don't misunderstand me, love. I did.
For a long, long time, I did.

"But Bella, please believe me when I tell you I'm not missing for anything now."

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 7:

"Tell me about him?" Edward's voice was quiet near my ear, the gravelly tone so
open and soft and yet laced with vulnerability.

He was sitting in my bed beside me, our bodies so cramped in the tiny space, and
yet I couldn't remember the last time I'd been so comfortable.

With one hand twirling itself gently in my hair, he pressed his lips to my
forehead, his request hanging unanswered in the air. Slowly, I lifted my head
from his shoulder, feeling his back straighten as he sat up a little bit taller against
the pillow. When I looked up, I found his face curious and yet tense, those warm
green eyes trained intently on mine as if I were the most fascinating thing in the
world.

As my silence wore on, my eyes studying him, he reached his other hand out,
picking up the small framed photograph I still kept by my bedside. It was the
same picture he'd examined the first time he'd ever walked me home, telling me
how lovely my family was.

But unlike that time, my throat wasn't dry and silent out of sorrow for the
memory of my husband who had died.

It was stilled, cracking and uncertain, because of my still unspoken, surging
feeling of love for the man beside me, and a growing sense of the magnitude of
his insecurity.

Edward's thumb rubbed gently over the glass, smudging it slightly. It did not
escape my attention that his touch lingered on my own face, on the wide smile I
still wore when I was young and beautiful. My thin lips twisted upward, thinking
distractedly of how much I had been smiling recently.

And how often I had felt beautiful when my Edward was beside me.

Sighing softly, I rested my head again on his shoulder, calmed by the motion of
his breath, his ribcage rising and falling. My own hand reached out, surrounding

his where it was clasped around the photograph, and I let my eyes move to the
other picture on my nightstand.

The one of Edward and me.

I had added it only recently. The daughter of one of Edward's friends had taken it
at lunch one afternoon, and he had passed it on to me shyly, mumbling quietly
that he thought I might like to have it.

It was one of many times I'd wished I could stand more readily so I could throw
my arms around him. His uncertainty when he was around me was still so
staggering, like I was a dream that might disappear or float away.

I'd taken it from him gratefully, smiling too widely at the image of our faces, his
smile lines crackling as he wrapped his arm around my side.

And I didn't know that I'd ever want to put the picture Jake and Carlie and me
away.

But it wasn't hard at all to add a new one to its side.

Letting my hand fall from his, I settled in on his chest, feeling his heart pulsing
steadily if ever so slightly too quickly.

"What would you like to know?" I finally whispered.

When I looked up, he was staring at me intently.

"Everything."

"He was - he was good husband. A good father. We had a good life together," I
began slowly, strangely uncertain how to encapsulate a man who I had known
better than I knew myself.

Especially when I was trying to describe him to a man I wanted to have know me.

Edward rested the photograph on his knee and drew me in closer, letting his hand
entwine with mine. His silence was not uncomfortable so much as inviting. He
wanted me to keep talking.

He rubbed his broad thumb gently across my skin, saying softly, "I know."

My voice faltered again, not knowing where to begin. I glanced around the room
a bit before my eyes settled on the bookshelf a few impassable feet away. Letting
go of his hand and lifting my head, I gestured toward it roughly.

"Do you see that blue album over there?"

He squinted, lifting his glasses higher on his nose, before nodding.

"Could you bring it here?"

My body missed his warmth instantly as he pulled himself away, cracking his back
and knees before he moved smoothly across the room, his cane tapping gently at
the floor with each step. Stopping in front of the bookshelf, he leaned forward
stiffly, placing one finger on the binding and pulling the album free. He lifted
himself back onto the bed then and handed it to me, letting me settle against his
chest again as I raised my hand to flip shakily through the pages.

The days came rushing over me. Days I hadn't allowed myself to consider in so
long.

Leaning into Edward's side, I let the ridged edge of my nail slip over the plastic,
tracing Jacob's laugh and hearing it in my head as my cheeks drew up into a
smile so wide it made my jaw hurt. I relaxed into the warm chest behind me,
recognizing that it was tense even as I was melting in warmth and memory. With
my other hand, I reached over my own shoulder to trace the edge of my
Edward's face, feeling stubble and skin and smelling his own smoky scent.

"He had the most wonderful laugh," I began again. "When he laughed, everyone
laughed with him. And he would laugh over the silliest things. Right here," I
pointed, finding my husband's open, unguarded smile in another photograph. "He
and his friends had hidden his dad's wheelchair."

The memory washed over me, looking different now from my own perennial
perch just a few feet off the floor.

Gulping thickly, I turned the page, finding more that I had hidden away.

"He loved his cars. When we met he was driving this." In the photo Jake was
leaned up against a beat-up Volkswagon. "He rebuilt the engine from scratch. He
died under one that looked just like it." My voice fell off to a whisper as I recalled
the sight of his boots, still and splayed in a puddle of grease, his laugh silenced.

The pressure at my side was the tightening of Edward's arm, his breathing
echoing mine as his lips pressed softly against the side of my face. My fingertips
trailed over the tendons on his neck and the slight gathering of skin there.

After long moments of quiet, the dampness in my clouding eyes spilling over,
Edward's throat cleared itself by my ear.

"How old were you? When you met?"

In spite of my tears, I laughed. "Six, probably. Our fathers were friends. We'd all
go fishing together and Jake would chase me with worms." I flipped to a
photograph of the two of us and our dads, the sun beautiful on his long black
hair. "Then one day he started chasing me and it wasn't funny any more."

Edward asked more questions and I gave more answers, laughing and crying and
touching his hand and his face. I told him about my first kiss, even as Edward
trained his wrinkled green eyes on me, placing his chin on my shoulder and
resting his gaze - but not his lips - on my mouth. I told him how Jacob had
proposed to me, on his knees beneath a willow tree.

I didn't tell him how the tree in the garden behind the nursing home had seemed
to be calling to me.

How I always imagined my Jacob had been there, calling my Edward to me, not
wanting me to be alone in the gathering darkness of the twilight of my life.

When I was all out of tears and out of stories, I found myself curled gently
around Edward's body, my hips aching and stiff and my eyes closing, salt and
happiness and sorrow making my cheeks feel strange.

"Thank you," he whispered, kissing one more time at the place where my hair
met my ear.

Turning within his arms, I took in the look of a lost little boy in a man of so many
wizened years.

"For what?"

"For sharing that part of your life with me." He looked away, into some sort of
distance, pulling me tighter so his face was hidden from me.

With my hand pressed to the place where I knew his heart must be, I let my eyes
close again, taking in the shaking shiver of his chest.

"You love him so much." The words were a breath and a breeze, a motion of air
through my silver hair.

"I do," I said carefully. "And I did."

I pushed myself against his arms, needing to look at him and to let him feel my
words. When the rails at the side of the bed pressed into the knotted curve of my
spine, I took his head in both my hands, his green eyes wide and sad and so
lonely.

"But, Edward. That doesn't mean that I don't love you."

There was a flickering behind the green then, an emotion so deep it eclipsed even
the sadness as he looked at me.

"Bella," he whispered, hope and fear and hurt all mixing endlessly. "You don't
have to - "

"But I do." It was a breath, the quietest of utterances and the deepest truth of
my beating, living heart. "I do have to. Because I do love you."

"Oh, Bella," he sighed, his voice shaking and a dampness appearing in his eyes.

And then with his words and his lips, he told me he loved me, too.

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 8:

When my Jacob died, I was too lost in mourning, too devastated by his absence
to give proper thought to my lingering presence.

To what I might do with my too-long life.

I'd never taken the time, really, to consider the long years that might still be
stretched out before me, alone and old and afraid, with no expectation of anyone
to spend them with me.

For ten years, my address book had begun to grow slimmer and slimmer every
year, names crossed out with a trembling hand when old friends died. New
addresses written in as the friends who were still alive retired and moved to
warmer climates, an extended sunset lending credence to what they referred to
in postcards as "their golden years."

When I finally began to emerge from my stupor, all the friends that I had left
were Jake's friends, really, and I had all but lost my ties to them in my year of
silence, staring into the dark, alone.

And so it was that I'd never thought to imagine a life without my Jacob that
might still have the comfort of companionship.

But that was exactly what I had come to know. With my friend. My companion.

The man I loved.

My Edward.

And with him, I felt more alive than I had in years.

Having emerged from the cocoon of my own making, I spent hours remembering
what I liked to do when my Jake was with me. For a week I did nothing but read,
enthralled with the pleasure of losing myself that way. With aching knuckles that
grew stronger with every stitch, I taught myself to knit again and remembered
the pleasure of making something from nothing. I spent another week curled up
by my window solving crossword puzzles, my mind bending again to find meaning
in clues and patterns in words. The feel of the pencil was strange in my gnarling
hand, the motion of writing so foreign to me.

But it was exhilarating for me, too.

By turns, I even began to reacquaint myself with the stack of cooking magazines
that had accumulated, the product of a subscription I had no use for any more,
but that Carlie hadn't had the heart to stop for me when she'd moved me to a
home that wasn't a home.

To a room without a kitchen.

I missed cooking. I missed the feel of a knife in my hand, the smell of butter
browning and the dust of flour on my skin.

Edward happened upon me that way one day, my ridged nails flicking lightly over
glossy pages as I devoured recipes that my Jacob would have loved. As I circled
ones that I wondered if my Edward might not love.

He still knocked every time, the sound of his hand and his cane on the door
sending ripples of warmth throughout my body when everything else in me was
cold.

But he no longer waited for me to tell him to come in.

I waited for him on the couch now most days, craving the closeness of his body
beside mine as we wiled away long evenings in comfortable companionship,
pushing away the loneliness and weariness of age with hushed laughter and
gentle touches.

His knees popped and his spine cracked as he lowered himself to my side, his
arm moving to wrap itself around my back and his lips warm and soft on my
temple.

"You cook?" he asked, peering over my shoulder.

I nodded gently, blushing slightly and breathing in the scent of him as he warmed
my tired bones. I let the magazine fall closed in front of me, marking my page
with my thumb, as I turned to rest my head against his chest.

"What self-respecting wife of my age doesn't?" I asked casually.

His words were more observation than question when he spoke. "But it wasn't
exactly a duty for you."

"No," I agreed, sighing. "I miss it."

"Hmmm," he mused, his fingertips gentle as they teased through my hair, loose
waves around my shoulders that I left down just for him. When I looked up at
him through the soft curtain of brown and grey, his eyes were glazed with
memory, his voice quiet and cracking. "I think my ex-wife saw not having to cook
any more as the best thing about the divorce. Well, besides not having to put up
with me."

My lungs exhaled heavily, the idea of his lonely life still clutching at me, no
warmth in his hearth or his heart for all these years.

His fingertip was soft against my cheek as he regarded me, my eyes focusing
down on the rise and fall of his chest beneath me. "You don't though, do you,
Bella? You really miss it. Cooking. And taking care of him."

I knew what he meant, and it was true. But incomplete.

"Somtimes. But not as much as I used to."

We sat in silence for a few moments, the gears of his mind almost audibly turning
in time with mine as I thought about what it would be like to take care of Edward
the way I once took care of Jake.

When he spoke again it was tentatively. Almost shyly. "I would never ask - it's
not - but if you ever wanted to, it's not much, but you're always welcome to
make use of my kitchen."

This was a surprise.

"You have a kitchen?"

His hand rubbed gently and yet agitatedly against my arm. "I keep forgetting that
you've never been to my apartment. It's – it's a full apartment, you see. In the
other wing." He paused before resuming, the thick line of his brow furrowing as
his voice grew tight, the words coming out of him nervously. Quickly. "I'm not
sure it would even count as a kitchen by your standards, and it would be tight
quarters for you. And the counters might be too high. But you'd be welcome.
Anytime, Bella. If it would make you happy. Or if you wanted to."

But he was asking if I wanted to do more than cook.

He was asking if I wanted to cook for him.

My eyes felt damp as I stopped his rambling, softly kissing him. "Edward. I do."

#-#-#

The sun was so warm. Too warm, really, the deep brilliance of it moving through
the thick brown plastic of my sunglasses, the heat seeping strangely through my
skin and into my bones.

Edward held the door to his car open, shifting uncomfortably as I tried to decide
exactly how to get in. I hadn't been in a car with anyone except Carlie or Jake in
years.

I hadn't gone outside except to visit our tree in more than a year.

"Could you - can you - would you help me?" I finally stammered, embarrassed
and flushed.

"Of course, my Bella," he breathed, and he was so close to me. Settling his cane
against the edge of the chair, he threw the door open wider, wedging himself into
the too-tight space and placing his arms around me. I placed an arm around the
broadness of his curling shoulders, letting him feel my weight and hoping it
wouldn't be too much for him.

But my Edward was always strong enough for me.

I settled into the seat at last, soft leather and so much of Edward's scent
surrounding me, my fingers fumbling with the seat belt. By the time I was
situated, he'd collapsed the chair already, struggling but managing to fit it in the
back, and before long he was beside me, his palm warm against my knee as he
buckled himself in and turned to smile at me.

"Ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

As trees and houses sped by, I chuckled and gripped my seat, amused to find
that Edward certainly didn't drive like an old man. Looking up at him, I smiled,
recognizing the same enthusiasm I was accustomed to seeing on my Jacob's face.

And for the first time in so long, thinking about my husband didn't make me feel
sad.

"What is it?" he asked, those green eyes flashing mischievously, so full of life and
so different from the look of fatigue that sometimes haunted them.

"You remind me of my husband sometimes."

His face shifted quickly, clouding. And I sensed immediately that he was hiding
some kind of hurt that he couldn't say.

But all I could do was look away.

#-#-#

We moved through the grocery store slowly, all the time in the world at our
disposal and no real sense of each other yet to know how to make this work.
Eventually, we arrived at a strange truce, his cane and a shopping basket
balanced unsteadily on my knees as he pushed me. The dark mood on his face
lifted by degrees as we wandered the aisles, his hands surprisingly nimble as they
grabbed the things I needed, his laughter soft and musical when I chided him for
picking celery with wilted leaves.

"You are a difficult woman to satisfy," he grumbled roughly, but his face was
smiling.

I shrugged, warmed by his presence and his happiness, and in spite of myself I
was beaming. "Just wait until you've had my lasagna. I promise you'll be
satisfied."

The growl in the back of his throat made me shudder, and it wasn't the first time
that Edward made me feel like I was eighteen and still pretty.

When I could barely see over the top of the brimming basket, we pulled into a
checkout line, working together to pile the items on the belt, our hands brushing.

He insisted on paying, saying it was the least he could do since he'd be enjoying
the products of my labor. As he bent to sign the slip, squinting over the tops of

his glasses, the girl at the register caught my eye, whispering, "How long have
you been married?"

I blushed, quieting and fidgeting and glancing at the man by my side. We were
far from husband and wife. But suddenly I didn't know what we were.

I just shook my head gently, and the girl's eyes widened in mortification. "Oh,
I'm so sorry."

"Don't be, dear," I reassured her, smiling as Edward settled the groceries on my
lap.

As he wheeled me forward, I let my mind see how others must see us, old faces
joined in shared smiles, wrinkled hands touching gently.

And it was only as we were driving home that I let myself wonder how he saw
me.

#-#-#

It had been more than a year. But I had lost nothing.

The knife was still comfortable in my grip, celery and onions slicing crisply, my
wrist aching but strong as it stirred sauce made from scratch. I felt the firm
texture of the mozzarella as it slid across the grater's teeth, smelled garlic and
simmering pasta.

And the entire time, I felt Edward's eyes on me.

He offered to help a dozen times, but I shut him down, only allowing him to do
things when I couldn't reach or when the confines of the chair hindered and
limited me. But he wouldn't leave. Unlike Jacob, he hovered, never
uncomfortably, always on the edges of my periphery. With his arms folded in
front of himself, he hummed and watched and occasionally questioned me. I
answered all his queries cheerfully, my mind and body alive in ways they hadn't
been, and the warm glow settling across my chest was from more than the oven
or the activity.

It was life. Life moving through veins I'd abandoned for dead. Life stirring me.

When everything was done, I wheeled myself to a little table he had set up in his
living room. There was only one chair there. One place setting. One coaster. But
it only took a moment for him to find one of everything for me.

And then there were two.

#-#-#

My Edward ate greedily, lustily, and yet still elegantly. I had to remind myself to
take bites, I was so enraptured with the motions of his hands and mouth, the
perfect manners and the glimmer of his teeth.

When he was finished, he turned to me, beaming, his hand warm around my
fingers and his eyes dancing.

"Satisfied?" I asked shyly.

"Inordinately. But not just with the lasagna, superb as it may be."

Feeling shot from my hand to the center of my chest, a warmth and an electricity
and a softness born of the look that was in his eyes.

"Your being here makes me happy, Bella. Happier than I ever imagined I might
be."

My eyes ducked away from his, buried in my lap, but he wasn't having any of it,
his finger warm beneath my chin as he lifted my gaze to meet his.

"I heard the woman at the grocery store, asking if you were my wife."

My heart stopped, everything in me freezing, wondering if he would be upset,
angry that I hadn't corrected her. Wondering if I might pale in comparison with
the woman who had belonged to him that way.

"And?" I whispered almost silently.

"I cannot lie, my Bella. I don't want to frighten you, and I never expect to replace
what your husband was to you." He paused and I gulped, the pain in my heart
soothed by his touch even as my thoughts were racing. "The thought made me
very, very happy."

My throat was dry, something freezing and hot and icy in my veins.

"I'm not ready," I breathed truthfully, his face falling and something falling in me.
In those eyes, there was pain and longing and years of loneliness I could
empathize with but never understand truly. And I wanted to take them all away,
my hand squeezing his and begging for his patience. Begging him to wait for me.

"Edward?" I asked, my mouth still dry, begging his eyes to rise again and look at
me. When they did they were tentative and riddled with want and worry. "You
make me happy, too. Happier than I ever thought I'd be after he - "

And there was softness on his face, but also hurt then as I mentioned the man
who had spent forty-five years as a companion to me.

I continued quietly, "I don't want to replace him."

"I don't - "

"So when I say I want to be with you, it's for you. Not for his memory. And it's
not just to be with somebody. It's for you. And it's for me.

"And it's because I love you," I finally breathed.

"Oh Bella," he sighed, so much relief in the lines around his mouth and his eyes
so soft and loving.

I couldn't look at him again when I spoke the one last thing he needed to know
about me. "I liked it, too. What that girl thought. I liked what she thought about
you and me. And I'm not ready now," I breathed, glancing up fleetingly. "But
someday I will be."

He lifted our joined hands to his lips, kissing them firmly and with something
beautiful and unsaid.

"Dearest Bella. Someday sounds perfect to me."

#-#-#

Before he wheeled me home, we sat on his couch. It was like mine, only newer.
Less worn. Less warmed by years of constant traffic and the abuses of
grandbabies and family.

But we warmed it all the same.

And it was there, that night, safe in Edward's arms and in his embrace, breathing
in the scent of him, that I saw my life as full with the many years before me
instead just those ones behind me.

And for the first time in more than a year, I felt like I was home, sitting quietly,
with my friend, my companion, my Edward beside me.

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 9:

It was late. Too late. But I didn't care.

Edward was warm and comforting at my side, his breathing slowing and
speeding, rhythmic and erratic by turns, and more than once I heard the softest
sounds of snoring beside my ear. Instead of annoying me, it soothed me, making
me snuggle down deeper into the perfect home of his chest and arms.

It was late enough that we both knew that he should go, only neither of us could
seem to bring ourselves to say the words.

Finally, my eyes began to close again, and I shook us both awake with my own
laughter, imagining us as the quintessential elderly couple, sitting on an old and
tattered couch, quietly in love and falling asleep sitting up with our street clothes
still on.

"Shh," he breathed, whispering softly against the wispy tendrils of my hair at the
side of my face. "Let's get you ready for bed, love."

He shifted beside me, shaking me loose of his shoulder, even as I felt my old lips
turning up into the smile of an infinitely younger girl, pouting pathetically as my
voice darted dangerously close to the precipice of whining. "Five more minutes," I
mumbled, smiling sleepily, but he wasn't having any of it.

"That's what you said an hour ago," he chuckled lightly, tugging at my hand.
Finally, I gave in, grumbling and relaxing and letting my head drop to the back of
the couch behind me as Edward extricated himself from my grasp.

With half-open eyes, I watched him move around my room, feeling something
glowing in me to know that he was at home while he was here, even as I was
slightly mortified that he was going through my underwear drawer, effectively.
After a moment's searching, he pulled my nightgown out of the drawer, his
fingers moving gently over the fabric as he turned and stood, grunting gently as
he straightened his knees.

I was about to begin the arduous process of hauling myself into my chair,
planning to go change in the bathroom like I always did, only something stopped
me.

When I looked up, there was a certain hint of something burning in Edward's eyes
- something warm and wanting behind the green as his hand moved distractedly
through his hair.

Standing a couple of feet in front of me, he passed the gently folded ball of my
nightgown to me before pausing, leaning back against the foot of the bed with his
aging hip and settling the warm wood of his cane against his side.

The fabric was soft between my fingertips as I worried it slightly, fidgeting
because I had nothing else to do and because I didn't know how to meet the
subtle edge of hunger in his stare.

It was a new nightgown. Not the old ratty one he'd put me to bed in the first few
times he'd stayed to tuck me in. The next time Carlie had come to visit, I'd shyly
asked her to take me shopping again, and, raising her eyebrow, she'd agreed.

The simple sight of my blush alone, glowing crimson against cheeks that were
once papery and wan, should have given me away as we'd moved through the
store. Mumbling and pointing and ducking my head, I'd directed her to push my
chair past the racier lingerie that I had clearly graduated past on account of my
age, but for the first time in decades I couldn't help but eye it all the same.

Standing there fingering modest but still implicitly intimate garments, I'd felt like
a teenager buying her first bra with her mother, standing there with my daughter
eying silky looking things in ivory and pink and blue.

Fortunately, my Carlie had cut the tension for me, just when I had been about to
cover my eyes and demand she take me home already.

"Thank God, Ma," she'd said flippantly, chewing her gum and rolling her eyes at
me. "I swear you've been wearing the same pajamas since I was fifteen."

With my cheeks blazing hotly, I'd selected a couple pieces that seemed suitably
demure, sticking with the sorts of deep blues and other colors Edward seemed to
prefer on me. And ironically, I'd felt all the more embarrassed for knowing why
I'd chosen the ones I had.

When Carlie had asked if I'd like to try them on, my eyes had widened, my head
shaking no, my mind horrified.

No one besides a doctor and - on only a small handful of occasions - my Jake had
seen me in any sort of light in ages, and the very idea of the hot halogen bulbs of
a fitting room on my wrinkled skin had made me simultaneously freeze and
sweat.

With that same freezing blush sweeping across my body, sitting there on my
couch, I remembered myself suddenly.

I looked up from my lap then, pulling myself from the memory, to still find my
Edward staring at me too silently.

And if I hadn't known better, I'd have said he was staring at me longingly.

He cleared his throat gently, licking his lips in distraction and ruffling the fall of
his hair. "You don't - if you'd like ... It feels wrong of me to be making you go
into another room to change every evening, my Bella."

Shaking my head, I smiled, not quite knowing exactly where he was going with
this, but worrying he might be about to excuse himself, and still feeling a soft
longing for him to stay. "You know I don't mind."

"But I don't either," he breathed.

I could feel my own eyes widen, finally understanding his meaning as my hand
gripped at the fabric all the tighter. My breathing was coming too fast,
insecurities wracking me, my skin inflamed by feeling.

Feelings like how he might not want me if he could see me.

My silence hung heavily on the air, and I could almost feel his face falling,
disappointment and embarrassment as he combed his hands more distractedly
through his hair.

I felt his gaze slipping from me, darting about the room, and I sensed his panic
and his urge to run.

But I couldn't seem to make my eyes rise to meet him. To reassure him.

To tell him I wanted him to see me.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I didn't mean to … It was never my intention to make
you uncomfortable," he rambled agitatedly, pulling up to his full height and
gripping his cane in my periphery.

Only I still wasn't really looking at him.

I couldn't.

Not while I was doing what I was doing.

My shaking, fumbling fingers settled at the juncture of my collarbones, the
ragged tip of a single nail slipping just beneath the edge of the fabric as I pulled
at the button, slipping it from its hole, my entire being blushing, fearing, tensing.

His voice trailed off mid-thought then, and I saw the edges of his jaw tighten, the
tendons beneath the folds of skin at the base of his throat moving as he
swallowed, and there was something hungry about him again.

Each button gave way in turn, cool air moving against the skin that hadn't been
seen in ages. Skin that shouldn't be seen. Tired and sagging, I was a husk of a
woman, the faint whispers of beauty, stretched too taut and let loose to tumble
and spoil.

And now the sad remnants of that springtime spent in bloom were on display, my
sad winter exposed.

And Edward wasn't running.

When I was finished, I sat up a little straighter, letting my shirt fall down my
arms. For a moment I was about to leave my camisole on, but it felt like a lie,
knowing I would never have done so were I changing in the safe confines of my
bathroom. So I pulled it away, too, feeling my hair gather as I blissfully lost my
vision for a moment, my eyes closing, everything fading to darkness amidst the
stilted sounds of my terrified breathing and the hitching of my Edward's as he
watched me across the length of the room.

I was probably exposed for less than a minute, tossing my clothes into a pile on
the seat before me and fumbling for my nightgown, pulling it over my head just
as quickly and clumsily. With my eyes still averted, I wrestled with the rest of my
clothes, baring my legs as I let the long skirt of the nightgown fall, covering all
but a sliver of wasted flesh at my ankles.

And then I sat there in my chair, feeling alone and old and still unable to look at
my Edward. Unable to raise my eyes to see the disappointment in his beautiful
green ones. Unable to bear the way I was sure he must be looking at me.

His cane clattered to the floor then, and before I knew it he was on his knees,
pushing my hair away from me, begging me to look at him. Begging me to see.
Whispering my name and begging me.

"Please, Bella. Please. Please look at me."

I did, finally, almost crying with nerves and with relief, feeling more naked than I
had with all my imperfect flesh exposed. Because my Edward was holding my
head between his hands. And he was smiling.

"Bella, you're beautiful," he whispered, kissing me. "You are so, so beautiful to
me."

#-#-#

There was no fiddling with chairs that night. No shy withdrawals to another room
or tender, sad goodbyes. After he'd kissed me to the point where I could barely
breathe, he stood, his knees groaning, placing his arms around me. With his cane
still discarded at the bedside, we leaned into each other, making slow progress to
the bed he'd always left me in.

But tonight he got into it with me.

For once, he laid down beside me, pulling me into the warmth of his embrace, our
mouths twisting in the dark as I felt the full expanse of his body, mine crackling
to life in its wake. We kissed in a way I hadn't kissed in years, his mouth warm
and soft and inviting and his hands suddenly bold. They moved over me, over the
silky gown I'd picked out just for him, even though I knew it didn't matter now.

Even though I knew now that he would love me in anything.

Each touch, each kiss, thrilled and terrified me, awakening parts of me that I'd
never dreamed would stir again, enveloping me in an intimacy I'd thought was
lost to me. But even though I was scared, I was smiling.

Because I knew that my Edward saw much deeper than most ever would or
could.

Because I knew that my Edward could see me.

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 10

The first time we got caught with Edward sleeping in my bed, we were lucky.

Angela found us early one morning, her little gasp the only sign that there was
something amiss. Edward stirred beside me, his hair all mussed and his clothes a
landscape of wrinkles.

The door closed behind her loudly, a signal in and of itself, providing just enough
of a noise to pull us both out of our slumber. My eyes opened in a panic, taking in
Edward's wide ones in front of me, the corners of them crackling with the signs of
sleep, glancing frantically as he pulled himself to sitting.

It wasn't the first time I'd woken up beside him. Over the course of the past few
weeks, we'd taken to falling asleep entwined, him in his clothes on top of the
covers and me in my nightgown buried beneath them. At our age, though,
sleeping through the night was a rarity, and he'd usually lean forward and kiss
me and sneak away sometime in the still-dark and lonely hours before dawn.

It was, therefore, the first time I'd woken up beside him in the full light of
morning, a beam of sunlight making the silver and the auburn around his face
glow with a brilliance I'd rarely seen.

"Good morning," he whispered, his voice thick with sleep and amusement and
embarrassment as he leaned down to press his lips to mine.

"The best," I agreed before my voice grew darker. "And probably soon to be the
worst if Angela tells anybody."

He winced and nodded.

Slipping from my bed, he gathered himself quickly and made a well-timed exit,
the end of his cane clunking more heavily against the floor than usual. The door
closed behind him with a quiet click, followed immediately by the sound of soft
voices in the hallway. My heart began to pound until I recognized that one of
them was Edward's and that it was more apologetic than anything.

Angela swept in a few minutes later, failing to make eye contact as she insisted
on helping me with the sorts of things I hadn't needed her assistance with in an
age. Not since I'd come out of my cocoon of loneliness and loss.

Not since Edward.

A fact of which I knew she was well aware.

When I was ready for the day, dressed and combed and settled in my chair, she
began to push me toward the door, pausing for only a moment before throwing it
wide.

"I won't cover for you, Bella," she said quietly. "I won't tell anyone about today,
but it's only today."

I buried my eyes in the blanket on my lap, nodding weakly and feeling like a
chastised child.

When Edward shuffled toward our breakfast table, arriving later than me for the
first time in all the months that I had known him, he was looking brighter and
more alert, his gleaming hair still damp from the shower, his clothes neatly
pressed.

"Are we exposed?" he whispered quietly as he folded himself into the chair at my
side.

I shook my head.

"Not this time. But she wasn't happy."

I'd expected a frown, or some sense of misgiving in those generous eyes. But
there was none.

Squeezing my hand, he just smiled, turning to look at his plate before he
admitted, "I was."

I blushed, wondering if the whole table knew what we were speaking of.

Only I didn't care, smiling just as widely as he was as I all but silently spoke the
truth.

"I was happy to wake up with you, too."

#-#-#

The next time, we weren't so lucky. It was one of Angela's days off, and instead
of a gasp and a closing of a door, we woke to the Edward's name being called
loudly and in dismay. Sheets rustled and a very disappointed looking nurse was
staring down at us as Edward and I were blinking, trying to shake away the
sleep.

"Don't. Even. Move."

We scarcely had time to nervously kiss and shift to sitting before the head nurse
was in my room, the look on her face seeming even more disapproving. Words
were said but I didn't really hear any of them, feeling angry and embarrassed and
happy, loving the feel of his hand around mine and the sleepy look that hung
around his beautiful eyes.

"You're dismissed, Mr. Cullen," the head nurse said severely, and he bowed his
head, squeezing my hand and winking at me before staring back at her
impassively.

"I don't think so, Delores. Anything you need to say to Bella you can say to me."

Delores huffed and crossed her arms.

"Fine. Mrs. Black, you are direct violation of the agreement you signed upon
moving here, and this serves as your warning. Should such a thing occur again,
we will terminate your contract and expect you to exit by the end of the month."

I swallowed and nodded, my mind whirling as I tried to process the idea of an
end to our ritual of soft embraces and touching while sleeping, wondering if Carlie
would take me in if we got caught again and I was forced to leave.

But then my heart seized. Because Carlie lived hours away and I couldn't drive.

And I'd never see my Edward again.

I was moving headlong into a panic attack when things got worse.

"And we will be calling your daughter."

I didn't hear another word, my pulse spiking, my body nodding as Delores
continued speaking condescendingly to me, and I was relieved and terrified all at
once when she finally turned to the door to take her leave.

By the time it was just Edward and me in the room again, I was reeling,
breathing too deeply and too quickly. In the back of my mind I knew that Edward
was speaking but I couldn't hear.

"Bella! Bella, darling," he urged again, his hands warm at the tops of my arms,
and I was finally jostled into awareness, drawn into the inescapable orbit of his
eyes.

"It's OK, love," he whispered. "It will all be OK."

"But Carlie – " I started, choking.

He pulled me into his arms, nodding and rocking me.

"Does she know?" he asked quietly, and I shook my head, feeling embarrassed.

I'd never intended to hide my Edward from her, but for all that I had resolved to
tell her about him time after time, it had never seemed like the right time.
Whenever we would talk, she would inevitably dominate the conversation, her
animated voice a counterpoint to my quiet shuffling and my nerves. And that
contrast in and of itself would lead me to thoughts about how much her father's
daughter she was, which invariably spiraled into thoughts of my Jake, my throat
closing and all my intentions slipping silently away.

It didn't help my resolve either that she still loved to speak about her father,
talking about how her babies took after him or how she wished they had a man
like her daddy in their lives.

And each time, as her voice grew more and more reverent, speaking of the man I
had loved and who was dead, I got the feeling that she would follow his memory
with him to the grave.

That she would never accept the man that I now loved.

That she would think that my being with my Edward was betraying our Jacob.

Edward's warm lips pulled me out of my memory and the nervous shaking that
had possessed me. For just a moment, he stared down at me, those eyes I loved
searching me, and I couldn't help but believe that he knew what I meant when I
told him silently that it wasn't him. That my silence on the subject was all on me.

He must have found something in the midst of all his wordless probing, as he let
me go then. With a determined set to his back and a twisting motion of the
swollen knuckles of his hand around the knob at the top of his cane, he rose,
moving across the room to retrieve the phone, stretching the cord to set the
entire thing down in front of me.

"Then now might be a good time," he said quietly.

I nodded miserably, staring at the phone like it was mocking me.

Drawing in a shuddering breath, I opened my mouth and let the first rivulets of
an ocean of fear begin to fall out of me. "What if – what if she – "

A finger under my chin lifted it.

"She's your daughter, Bella. She may be upset, but surely she knows you're a
grown woman. You can make your own choices."

And when I looked at him, his eyes were soft and sad.

Edward hadn't looked so insecure in so long. Over the months during which our
love and our quiet companionship had unfurled, he had seemed to grow more
and more sure. His confidence had grown with every move I had made to show
him that while Jake's memory still lived with me, it was he who possessed my
thoughts and my days.

And I needed to remind him of that now.

"Yes, I can," I replied, placing my hand on the line of silvery stubble across his
face. "And you know that I choose you."

#-#-#

The conversation with Carlie did not go well.

When I brought up the fact that I'd been trying to move on, she cried. When I
told her about Edward, she screamed.

And when I mumbled something about the phone call she was soon to receive,
she hung up on me.

The entire time we were talking, Edward stayed. He sat silently on the bed,
passing his palms over the curves of my cheek and the line of my hair, his lips
gently pressing to my temple again and again. After I returned the hand piece to
the cradle, I stared at it for a long and lonely time, feeling lost and disappointed,
knowing my baby girl disapproved of me. Knowing that all I had been trying to do
was be happy.

But that in so doing, I had undermined my daughter's trust in me.

And that thought shook me deeply.

Edward closed his arms around me then, pulling me in so close to his chest and
kissing the back of my head.

"What if she's right?" I sniffled. "I love you so much, but what if she's right? What
if I am betraying – what if – "

"Shhh, Bella," he whispered, but I could hear the doubt that was creeping into his
voice. "You deserve to be happy."

"I know, and you make me happy," I sobbed. "But Jake – "

He rocked me in silence, unknown thoughts passing through his head as he held
me.

When he finally stopped, he looked at me levelly, his expression devoid of the
fear or insecurity I'd been expecting to find there.

Instead there was only compassion and understanding.

And love.

"Bella, darling. Don't you think he would have wanted you to be happy, too?"

#-#-#

I spent the day in a ball of nerves, my knuckles twisting distractedly, trying to
read or to do anything really. But nothing could hold me.

When the phone rang too late in the evening, I all but jumped, pulling too quickly
from Edward's embrace to take the hand piece shakily to my ear. I recognized
the cadence and the quality of the breathing, the sound of my daughter, the
sweet girl I'd spent the second half of my life bending all of my will toward. The
woman whose love I needed more than I could say now that I worried it might be
taken away.

"Mom," she whimpered, and I sobbed, breathing her name with all the air I had
left in my tired lungs.

For long moments, there were no words, until finally I heard her ask me tearfully,
"He's why you've been so happy, isn't he?"

I knew immediately her meaning and I laughed through my own bitter, fearful
tears. The only words I could force out were simply, "He is."

Edward squeezed my hand then, sitting up with a question in his eyes as if asking
me if he should go. I shook my head vehemently, clutching at him and sinking
into him like he held in his hands all the strength I could ever need.

"I'm so glad, Mom." Carlie cried, her words almost inaudible they were pouring
out so quickly and through so many sighing sobs. "I was so worried about you.
I'm glad he's good to you. And I'm sorry I hung up on you. I'm so sorry."

"It's OK," I tried to reassure her, but the shakiness of my words betrayed me, the
warmth of Edward's hand on my shoulder the only thing that could steady me.

"I just - Mom - I just... I miss Daddy," she whispered, and my whole chest hurt
from the ragged sob that was tearing through me.

I closed my eyes then, seeing his face and his gravestone and my daughter, so
strong and so lovely, dressed in black and crying in the rain.

"I do, too, baby," I breathed. And it was true. I missed him always. Every
moment of every day.

But absence wasn't the only thing I felt.

Before I could do anything else, before I could surrender myself to another
emotion or another memory, I opened my eyes, taking in the uncertain look in
the beautiful green eyes before me.

I was possessed enough, if only barely, to cover the speaker before I caught his
eye and his hand, mouthing silently, "I love you."

And then I closed my eyes again, opening my heart and the new truth of my life
to the little girl who still needed her Daddy.

#-#-#

When I finally hung up, it was late, the circles of fatigue ringing heavily around
my Edward's eyes. He looked more tired than ever in that moment, brushing
tears from my cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, and it almost set me off again
to think of my selfishness, asking him to sit idly by while I cried for my daughter.

And while I cried for another man.

"I'm sorry," I croaked, but his mouth silenced me.

"Bella, love. Don't be."

My fingertips rested gently on his cheek, tracing those lines that framed his face
and that only made him look more kind and handsome and real.

We sat and held each other and rocked until finally we couldn't ignore the fatigue
in our old and tired bones and we knew it was time to sleep.

Our ritual began much the same as usual, Edward limping off to retrieve my
nightgown as I undressed, less self-consciously now, but still keeping my head
down. With a few shaking steps, he led me to bed, lying me down and then lying
his own long body at my side.

"But - " I protested, his arm reaching to turn off the light before drawing me up
against his chest.

"I'll leave in time," he whispered, seeming assured. "Would it make you feel
better if we set an alarm?"

I hesitated in the darkness, wanting nothing more than to feel his arms around
me and to sink into the warm comfort of his chest. But I was afraid.

Finally, I nodded, choosing to trust in his belief that this would be safe. Turning,
he fumbled with the clock by his bedside, pressing the buttons somewhat clumsily
as our eyes adjusted to the lack of light.

"Relax, Bella," he urged when I was back in his arms, his lips brushing my
forehead with every word.

I shook my head slightly, fear battling with exhaustion as my heart stuttered and
I yawned.

"But if - if we get caught..." I whispered sleepily, and even I could barely make
out the words. "If I had to leave, I'd have to go live with Carlie and I'd never see
you."

His dim chuckle just barely pierced the veil of sleep, warm and soothing in my ear
as his chest rocked the length of the tiny bed.

I may have been dreaming then, sleep overtaking me. But in my head, I thought
I heard him whisper, so softly, "Oh Bella. If they made you leave, don't you think
I would find some way to convince you to live with me?"

Chapter 11:

I was sitting on my bed, brushing my hair absently. With each stroke, the gnarled
fingers of my hand clutched at the handle of the brush to keep from shaking, my
mouth set in a grim line.

The sound of knocking on the door made my heart leap nervously into my throat,
my whole body settling back down when Edward's kind eyes appeared around the
edge of the opening.

"Good morning," he said cautiously, entering and walking slowly toward me.
Leaning down, he pressed his lips gently to mine, the fingertips of one hand
curling around my cheek.

"Good morning," I whispered in response when my mouth was free to do so, my
lips curling up into a smile in spite of all my nerves. I grasped the hand that was
stroking my face and pulled it to my lips, kissing softly at the age-spotted skin
across the back of his knuckles and then at the edge of his palm.

His smile was so soft and warm, his body turning stiffly so he could sit beside me,
his cane resting on the edge of the bed by his side.

I didn't even realize how tightly I was still gripping the brush until his large hand
moved over mine, uncurling my fingers and taking it from me.

"Let me," he whispered into my ear, and I blushed as I nodded, loving the feel of
the bristles and of his hand as he began to work his way through the long
tresses. I'd been brushing it for long enough that there weren't any tangles left,
but neither of us bothered to mention it, relishing the closeness and the
distraction of this little activity.

"Are you alright?" he asked after some time, and I nodded, my shoulders relaxing
down my back as my body softened to his touch.

And I marveled all over again at the way my Edward always calmed me.

"When is she going to be here?"

I glanced at the clock and sighed. "Any minute now."

He hummed as he continued to move his fingers through the softness of my hair
now without the brush. I felt his lips move softly over the exposed skin of my
neck as he pushed my hair to the side. "Do you want to wear it up today?"

I shook my head, unsure if I would be able to speak with the sensation of his
mouth at the juncture of my neck and my shoulder, his breath so warm. "It's fine
like this," I finally managed to whisper, my voice betraying all the strange ways
he awakened this body I'd let sleep for so many years.

His answering hum was a soft vibration against my skin. "I like it like this," he
purred, and I leaned back into him.

"I know."

The moment was beginning to turn, moving past a line we had drawn quite
carefully between one kind of touch and another, something serious and too-hot
in the air as I leaned back into him, listening to his breath and my heart beat and
feeling his hand moving tentatively down my side.

"Mom?"

I sat up quickly. So quickly I almost fell, instinctively trying to put distance
between Edward's body and mine, but he caught my wrist, looking at me with
sparkling green eyes that all but shimmered with amusement and a certain
something more. His smile was so wide it made me feel strong.

And I remembered all over again why we were doing this.

"In here, baby," I said, feeling Edward's warm hand squeezing mine.

The door creaked open then, and a pair of deep black eyes, full of reservation and
uncertainty met mine.

Carlie pushed the door open wide, stepping into the space and occupying it
completely. The air that had been too hot was suddenly much colder, but not
because of my daughter, who was trying so hard to smile. It was because of my
own shaking shivering, my heart so hot inside my chest near bursting with love
for two people, hoping they might love each other, too.

My daughter took in my companion with eyes that were hard and soft all at the
same time, her glance moving to me and to the wary wideness of my smile every
now and then. But mostly she stared at Edward.

After a few tense moments, Edward patted my hand and rose, clutching his cane
as he extended his arm.

"You must be Carlie," he said in his most charming voice, my heart melting to
hear the whisper of tension in it and the air of gentility. As their hands met, I
shivered with a shred of a happy hope. "Edward Cullen," he continued, grasping
her hand gently. "I'm so pleased to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too," Carlie said, her voice almost shy, and for a moment she
resembled me more than she did her father.

But only for a moment. She seemed to possess herself after just a second as a
sarcastic smile lit up her face and she rolled her eyes, glancing to me and
whispering exaggeratedly, "Finally."

I chuckled and held out my arms, feeling her as she embraced me and kissed the
weathered skin of my cheek. "Hey, Ma," she said quietly.

"Hi, sweetie." When she stepped back, I grabbed at her hand, feeling the smooth
strength of it and squeezing it tightly as I beseeched her with my eyes to try for
me.

Edward was still standing awkwardly, his free hand ruffling through the silvery
red of his hair before scratching at the back of his neck. He cleared his throat
then, his voice cracking just slightly as he asked, "So have you thought about
where you would like to go?"

I looked to Carlie expectantly, since she always had an opinion, but she
shrugged. "Whatever you guys want," she said uncertainly, and we both turned
our eyes back to Edward who was rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

An awkward silence descended for a moment as the two of them shuffled their
feet. Finally, Edward coughed. "Italian, perhaps?" he suggested, looking at me,
since he knew it was my favorite.

I sighed with relief when Carlie smiled and agreed. I grabbed my purse from the
bed behind me and began to shuffle myself toward the edge, placing a hand
heavily on the arm of my chair.

Carlie and Edward all but clunked heads as each leaned forward instinctively to
help me, and I paused, my eyes darting back and forth between the two of them
as they drew back, each sizing the other up uncertainly.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, half-smiling, even as the fidgeting motion of his
hands betrayed his discomfort.

He always helped me.

But then again, so did Carlie.

"No, no, it's me," my daughter said weakly, stepping away and gesturing toward
me. Edward smiled appreciatively then and curled one strong arm around mine,
letting me lean into him as I rose and settled back into my chair.

With an intimacy that betrayed our audience and my nerves, he knelt down
before me to tuck my ever-present afghan around my waist, his hand finding my
cheek as his lips pressed so softly to my temple.

He rose with creaking knees and a soft grunt, handing me his cane and moving
behind my chair to push me. I reached up with my hand to place it firmly over
his, before looking up to see my daughter staring at me

The tears hanging just barely unshed at the corners of her eyes were as real as
the hurt there.

And as real as the happiness in her smile.

#-#-#

Lunch was awkward but not as awkward as I'd feared it might be. We made small
talk, and I tried to push past my own quiet to become the glue in what this tiny
but growing part of me dreamed could be a family.

Jake had always served that role before. He'd related to Carlie better than I had,
their temperaments more suited in happy times and in angry ones. But I had still
been the one she'd called when she needed to cry or when she needed advice. I
drew on that strength, on the knowledge of that connection between myself and
the girl who was part me as we sat there, hoping she would love the man I loved
and that she would approve of me.

Over time, the awkwardness lifted, Edward's charm and his lady-killer grin slowly
setting both me and my daughter at ease. And by the end of the meal, she was
laughing and teasing him mercilessly about his driving and he and I were holding
hands openly, grasping them tightly above the table, his thumb rubbing gently
over my knuckles.

Edward insisted on paying, even though Carlie fought him for it animatedly.
Eventually she gave up, and it was only as Edward was leaning over the little slip,
peering over his glasses, that my daughter caught my eye, grinning evilly. And I
knew from her smile that she had only been fighting him for it because she
wanted to see him insist.

I tried to scowl at her, but I couldn't.

I was too happy to even pretend to be angry.

#-#-#

Edward dropped us both off in front of the building, getting out to grab my chair
and to help me into it, kissing my cheek and knuckles softly before glancing at
Carlie and tightening his fist around his cane. He held out a single hand to her,
but she shocked us both when she swore quietly and threw her arms around him.

As she hugged him, I saw her whisper something in his ear, and I thought it
looked like thank you. But I couldn't be sure, staring through blurry eyes that
were filling with tears.

When she released him, he bent down again stiffly, saying he'd see me this
evening. He waited until Carlie had pushed me safely inside before stepping back
into his car, waving slightly and pulling away.

#-#-#

My daughter and I spent the afternoon talking, her laugh feeling less forced than
it had in a long while. As if avoiding the subject of our lunch completely, she filled
me in on everything else in her life, talking animatedly about my grandbabies and
about a couple of disastrous dates she had been on recently. She tried to show
me photographs on the ridiculous little screen on her phone, and I nodded,

peering at them warily, barely managing to make out anything, the images were
so tiny.

The sun was already setting by the time she turned to me on the little couch I
normally on sat on with Edward, her head leaning gently against the back cushion
as she drew her knees up to her chest.

And she looked so much like the little girl from my memory.

"Thanks for letting me meet him," she said quietly, biting her lip nervously.

I patted her hand and then squeezed it, holding on to it as I tried to find the
words to speak.

"Thank you for giving him a chance."

"Do - do you love him?"

I only hesitated for a moment, so much feeling welling up in me. My eyes were
shining when I spoke. "I do."

She choked just a little, but she kept whatever emotions were brewing beneath
those warm black eyes in check, rasping, "I'm so happy for you, Mom."

She surprised me by leaning hard into my side, snuggling against my skin, and I
wrapped my arms around my baby, my chin resting on the smooth black hair at
the top of her head.

"It'll never make me stop loving your Dad," I whispered. "But I do. I love Edward.
Very, very much."

She was nodding and crying silently. "It's OK, Mom. I know. It's OK."

She let me hold her for a few minutes, and when she pulled back, she was mostly
composed, dabbing at her eyes absently before reaching to take both my hands
in hers.

"Mom, I understand. So don't … Don't feel like you can't … be with him because
of me."

I looked at her quizzically, uncertain as to what she could mean.

Her eyes were sad and smiling and damp and shy. "I'm sure he'll be a great step-
dad," she whispered finally, and I froze.

My mouth opened and closed with no words.

Until finally I found them, a whole new set of futures opening themselves before
me.

I squeezed her hands back before stealing one of them to wipe my eyes with my
sleeve.

I looked at her warmly then, smiling, as I breathed, "I know he will be."

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 12:

As winter wore on toward spring, my Edward and I resumed our walks out of
doors, seeking solace beneath our tree. We spent the nights in a quiet

companionship of shared air and shared cigarettes, and it felt like the beginning
of a shared life to me.

With the weather improving, I expected his spirits to improve as well, but if
anything, the longer days highlighted longer lines around his mouth. Over time, I
began to notice more grimaces marring the handsomeness of his face and an
increasing stiffness appearing in his gait. It took longer and longer to get to our
tree, his brow damp from the exertion and a certain distance appearing in his
gaze.

We sat together in silence one evening, and I watched the motion of his swollen
knuckles as his fingertips traced over the end of his bad knee.

He took a long, sad drag on his cigarette, the end pulsing fiery red against the
gathering darkness of the sky, before he put it out against the heel of his shoe.

"I went to the doctor today," he said quietly, and I felt my heart fluttering,
beating hard against the side of my throat.

"Are - are you OK?"

In the wake of his quiet I let my mind flit to the worst possible scenarios. To
being all but widowed again, even though I wasn't his wife.

His hand was warm on mine then, reassurance in his gaze as he turned to face
me. "I'll be fine," he promised, squeezing my fingers gently. As he did, I let out a
long exhale, and with it so much of the tension that had been gathering in my
lungs.

But not all.

He stared out into the darkness again for a long series of moments, his
expression pensive as he took in the stars and I took in his face.

"They want to do a total knee."

I swallowed thickly.

"That's pretty serious."

"I know." He cleared his throat then and darted his eyes to meet mine again. "It's
been a long while coming, though. They've been telling me for years that it was
only a matter of time. It would appear, however, that that time has come."

"Would you have it done here?" I asked, knowing that it was not an easy
recovery for a man who lived alone.

"That's what I needed to speak with you about," he answered gruffly, pulling out
another cigarette and flicking the lighter to set the end aflame. "It would appear
that I have a couple of options. First, I could go to my brother's again and have it
done there. But I'd be gone for months."

He smiled weakly at me, even as my heart was pounding, the idea of wasting the
time we had been allotted seeming utterly repugnant to me, and I felt my breath
quickening dangerously.

"Or?" I breathed.

"I could have it done here. Only, when I returned home, I would need … help."
His voice was so low I could only just understand over the low roar of the wind.
"With little things."

"Do you have someone who could stay with you?" I knew the answer already. I
knew his few family members had lives in other parts of the world.

"I - " he began, but then he hesitated. "I feel reluctant to ask. I would never want
to be a burden to you, my Bella. But I wondered if you might consider staying
with me? For a few weeks until I was back on my feet. I wouldn't be a burden to
you if I could help it. If recovery did not go smoothly, there are places I could go
until I was well enough that I wouldn't be too much for you."

His words were coming too quickly now, his nervousness showing in the too-tight
circling of his hand on mine and in the motion of his jaw.

"Do you think I could?" I whispered, glancing at the prison of my chair, and
wishing for not the first time that I was whole for him.

"Mmm-hmm," he hummed as he nodded absently. "With the support we have
here, the doctor said you could."

I blushed fiercely. "You spoke to your doctor about me?"

His fingertips were soft but insistent at my chin. "My darling Bella, I speak about
you to anyone who will listen to me. And he asked if I had anyone in my life."

I averted my gaze again, feeling warm in uncomfortable ways, as something
bubbled up hotly inside my chest to hear him speak of me that way.

He must have mistaken my moved silence for something other than the awe and
love that it was as his hand left my chin, settling once again on his knee as he
swallowed. "I understand if you wouldn't want to," he rasped, betraying some
emotion lying just beneath his pretense at calm. "I can speak to my brother - "

"Of course I would, Edward," I finally said, cutting him off and staring fixedly at
our hands. "Anything you needed, I would do."

There were no more words. Not then.

He just squeezed my hand as we stared absently at the sky, the connection
between us glowing more brightly than ever.

And I realized that it was true.

That I would do anything my Edward needed me to.

#-#-#

We spent the four weeks between that time and his surgery preparing in our own
small ways for the change that was coming.

For him, it was little things. He rearranged his apartment, putting furniture in
places where it would be easier to get to and relocating anything he could think
of that we might need in places where I could reach.

He cut down on smoking.

He told me just the once, on the second or third night after he'd scheduled the
procedure, that he'd been urged to quit completely, but we'd both laughed,

knowing we were too old for such things. But by and by, he went from half a pack
a night to a mere two or three.

Instead of spending less time outside, making fewer trips to our tree, we started
spending even more time there. He said he wanted to enjoy it while he could, not
knowing when he would feel ready to make the journey again on his new knee.

For my part, I tried to make myself stronger for him.

In the day, when I was by myself, I started moving, pushing myself as far as I
could without getting too tired, resting for a few moments, and then forcing
myself to go back again. In a few weeks' time, I had almost as much stamina as I
had had before my Jacob had died, wheeling myself to and from each meal, and
once I even insisted on wheeling myself to our tree.

Edward watched me, his free hand at his mouth as he braced himself against his
cane.

But when I turned to him triumphantly, a fire in my eyes, his were soft.

"You are a magnificent creature, my love," he whispered, sinking heavily to sit
beside me. He kissed me once, leaning his forehead against mine. "But on the
way back, would you humor me?"

And it was only then that I realized fully just how much my Edward enjoyed
taking care of me.

#-#-#

Carlie came to visit on the day of his surgery, driving us both to the hospital, a
sad look on her eyes. I knew she was remembering everything she had gone
through with me, so much pain leading only to the chair I found myself bound to
now.

She went to go get some coffee while Edward and I sat alone in the room where
he would stay for three days, if all went smoothly.

We looked around at the sterile bed and white walls, and finally at the little white
gown, folded neatly on the pillow near the sheets.

I offered to leave, but he laughed at me, moving to unbutton his shirt.

And there was none of the intimacy, none of the soft nighttime glow that had
surrounded us the first time he had seen me all but naked.

But as he undressed I understood for the first time what he had seen when he
had seen me.

I didn't see wrinkles or scarred skin.

I saw Edward.

I saw him completely.

When I looked up from the naked skin of his legs, over the way he had already
covered himself with the thin hospital gown, he was staring at me sheepishly.

So I did what he had done.

Rolling myself to his side, I embraced what I could reach of him, aware that I was
pressing my face to the near-nakedness of his hip as I kissed his side, near his
belly.

And I looked into his eyes when I told him he was beautiful to me.

#-#-#

For the long hours when he was in surgery, I fretted and knit and read and stared
aimlessly. I was so grateful to have my daughter near me, leaning on her in
distraction and distress, praying without any real thought to who might hear that
he would wake up and that he would come back to me.

When they finally came to get me, telling me he was back in his room, I nearly
rolled over Carlie's foot I was in such a rush to see him.

He laid there, his face pale and his eyes sleepy, his leg caught up in some
contraption.

And when he saw me he smiled so broadly I thought his face might break.

At his side, I kissed his knuckles and his shoulder, and I even leaned out of my
chair for a moment to reach his lips and his hair.

"My Bella," he breathed, and I settled back into my chair, holding his hand and
his stare, and it was enough.

For the rest of the afternoon, we stayed like that, watching TV and touching each
other gently. The device attached to his leg slid his knee back and forth,
distracting me at first, but eventually I became accustomed to its motion,
focusing only on the cool texture of Edward's hand on mine. I would only move
when the nurses needed access to him, leaving briefly when he gave me a look
that told me they were about to do something embarrassing.

Carlie just sat in a corner, reading and watching and talking on her tiny telephone
quietly.

Just before dinner, she dragged me away, but not before I kissed my Edward
thoroughly, feeling his hand in my hair and making him promise to call me for
any reason or for anything.

I was the one to break down and call him though, and for hours we simply
listened to each other as we breathed, hanging up only when the medicine made
him fear he would fall asleep.

"I love you," he whispered.

"I love you, too."

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 13:

On the third day of Edward's hospital stay, I wheeled myself down to the front
desk at the nursing home to request a van ride to the hospital.

And to sign myself out on "vacation."

For four weeks.

When I got to the hospital, Edward was sitting up in his bed and his color was
back to normal, his weathered cheeks more flush and his eyes seeming less
glazed. He was taking oral medications instead of having painkillers mainlined
into his IV, and it made my heart race to hear him laugh again.

Just after lunch time, a kindly looking doctor came in with a walker. Edward
stared at it like it both intrigued and repulsed him, and he clenched my hand
tightly. With gritted teeth, he brought himself to sitting, letting the doctor lead
him to the edge of the bed in a way that didn't put too much pressure on his new
knee.

And then he stood.

And I marveled all over again at how childlike we became when we were old. How
the tiniest of accomplishments made us so proud, my eyes swimming with tears
to see my Edward taking but a few short steps on unsteady legs.

By the end of the day, he had taken enough steps and he had proven to a
therapist that he could perform basic functions independently.

And then the therapist's eyes had turned to me.

"Mrs. Black," she said kindly, and I felt myself tense.

"Yes?"

"Edward tells me you will be staying with him until he's back on his feet?"

My eyes flickered to his then, seeing the question and the uncertainty as he
eased himself back into bed.

But there was no question for me.

"Yes. As long as he needs me."

She began rattling off instructions to me then, handing me sheets and pamphlets
on aftercare, and I pushed hard to focus, feeling needed for the first time in more
than a year.

And strangely enough, I liked it.

#-#-#

Edward was discharged in the late afternoon. I stopped at the pharmacy in the
basement while he was going over things one more time with the therapist,
getting all of his medications before calling the van from the nursing home to
come and get us.

A nurse wheeled Edward to the entrance, and I couldn't hide a shy smile to see
us both like that as we rolled down the hallways side by side. I held all of his
possessions on my lap, my fingers toying nervously with the strap to his bag as
we sat silently in the elevator. Throughout the descent, I considered all over
again the fact that once we made it back to his apartment I would be responsible
for him.

And that for all intents and purposes, I would be living with him.

At the curb, the nurse set the walker in front of him, and he made the few
difficult steps to the van independently. The driver helped him in as I rolled
myself up the little ramp on the side. By the time we were both strapped in and

ready for the ride, I was more nervous than ever, responsibility and my own
infirmities weighing heavily on me.

It was exactly at the moment when I was getting ready to panic, though, that
Edward's hand reached out for me from between the seats. I caught his warm
green eyes in the mirror on the back of his visor just as his hand touched softly
against my knee.

And for all that he was clearly in pain, his eyes were sparkling.

And I knew that, far from feeling nervous, he was happy.

#-#-#

As a special favor to me, Angela snuck away from the nursing home for long
enough to help us get up to Edward's apartment. He made no move to search for
his own keys as we rolled off the elevator, nodding gently at me. I gulped loudly
as I understood his meaning, pushing my arms to get ahead of him and Angela
before inserting the key he had made for me into the doorknob and turning.

Angela wheeled him as far as his living room, setting up his walker in front of him
and watching anxiously as he took the necessary steps across the room. I only let
out the nervous breath I'd been holding when he made it to the high-backed
kitchen chair the therapist had recommended he opt to sit in until he regained a
better range of motion.

He sat down in it heavily, smiling warily at Angela and then at me.

It wasn't until she left that he turned the real power of his eyes on me, though,
beckoning me forward until I sat beside him.

He leaned over and he kissed me, and his breath was warm in my ear as he
whispered quietly, "Welcome home, my dear."

#-#-#

Carlie had helped me get things ready before she'd left, moving a few bags worth
of my things for me and taking me to the grocery store to stock his fridge and
pantry.

I made sure he was comfortable, reminding him to take his medication and
setting him up with ice for his knees and with the remote for the TV. With my
breath still coming too quickly, I retreated to his kitchen then, needing to feel
needed if I was to keep my nerves from destroying me.

I wanted this. I wanted to love him and to care for him. To live with him, even.

But that didn't make the reality of anything I was doing any easier.

To keep my mind from veering too far into places it shouldn't go, I focused
intently on chicken and potatoes and vegetables, pouring everything I wanted for
him into my cooking, the way I always did.

When I set the table, it was with a timid smile, watching him approach and sit
stiffly beside me.

He grabbed my hand as it moved shakily to serve him, bringing the gnarled and
bony edges of my fingers to his lips and kissing each one sweetly.

"Thank you," he said quietly, and I blushed. "For everything."

I shrugged, feeling uncomfortable for reasons I could scarcely explain as I buried
my gaze in the plates and bowls in front of me.

My silence was deafening, to him and to me. I felt his hands rub mine gently,
before he spoke, ever so softly, "If … if you're having second thoughts …"

I shook my head fiercely, then.

"No. No, Edward," I cut him off, meeting his gaze. "There's no where else I would
rather be. I'm just … nervous."

"Please," he whispered. "Please don't be."

#-#-#

I did all of the cleaning up after dinner, for all that it was awkward to reach the
sink given the height of my chair. But I managed all the same.

We spent the evening the same way we always did, my head on his shoulder,
talking quietly and watching TV and smoking occasionally.

Only when it started to get late, we didn't drag and fuss and postpone the
inevitable.

Because nobody needed to leave.

He got up to do the exercises his therapist had ordered while I started fussing
aimlessly, picking up glasses and dusting surfaces that were already clean.

I locked myself in the bathroom eventually, breathing raggedly as all my nerves
threatened to overwhelm me, and I didn't want my Edward to doubt himself or
what I wanted. I didn't want him to see the anxiety that ate me, for all that
nothing had changed.

When I wheeled myself out, he was waiting, sitting silently on the end of his bed
and facing me.

Each time I had been to visit before, the bedroom door had been closed, and I
stared into it now with trepidation and curiosity. But my hands were frozen on my
wheels, my arms unable to propel me forward.

Until he looked at me with eyes full of hope and fear.

"Did … did you bring anything?" he asked quietly, not moving or rising, and I
nodded, staring at my feet.

"Just a couple of bags."

I looked up to gauge his reaction and found those soft green eyes so unsure.

"They're, um … they're in the front closet," I croaked.

"Why didn't you bring them in here?" His voice was soft and it spoke more than
just his words could.

"I didn't know where..." I hedged, trailing off.

Of course I'd known.

"Bella, darling." He patted the bed beside him before lifting a hand forward and
toward me. "My Bella, will you stay here? With me?"

"Yes," I breathed.

#-#-#

With my bag on my lap, I wheeled myself into his room, taking in the warm
colors of it and the size of his bed as I closed the door. The space suddenly felt
small and warm and my heart was thrumming, and I liked it.

Silently, he began to undress, and I wanted to duck my eyes away, but I
couldn't. Stripped down to just an undershirt, he began to fumble with his belt
awkwardly, sitting up stiffly to pull his pants away before looking up over his
glasses at me, his cheeks flushing.

"I - Bella, I - "

He didn't need to finish because I could see the problem immediately. I set down
my bag and rolled forward until I sat directly before him and kissed him softly
before leaning down to untie his shoes. I took each one from him gently, pulling
away his pants and folding them without looking at him.

Together we affixed the brace he was supposed to wear while he was sleeping. I
tried not to stare at the long expanse of his naked legs or at the angry line of
bandages across his knee as we did. But I failed. When the brace was in place, he
smiled gratefully and covered my hands with his before wincing and sliding up the
bed.

I changed wordlessly as I always did, and the entire time I felt him watching me.
Still shaking, I lifted myself carefully onto the other side of bed, hovering on the
edge before sliding beneath soft covers. Beside my Edward.

"Bella," he whispered, and he was right beside me and barely dressed, his hand
so warm on mine and his breath in my ear as I shivered. So tentatively, he traced
the line of my arm to my shoulder and neck, cupping my cheek until I had no
choice but turn to stare up into eyes that saw right through me. "So many nights
I've dreamed of you here with me," he breathed.

With one soft kiss to my cheek my nerves finally melted away and I let myself
relax into him and into his bed.

Leaning away for just a moment, I reached over to turn out the light before
turning back into him. Enfolded in strong arms, I rested my head against his
chest and let my eyes close.

"Me, too," I finally whispered against his skin. "Me, too, Edward."

And wrapped up in each other's arms, we fell asleep.

And, for the first time, without fear, we slept together the whole night through.

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 14:

While Edward's happiness at my presence in his home did not wear off quickly,
his ability to focus on that over the pain of his recovery did. The thrill of waking
up in his arms without fear of discovery that first time was marred by the fact
that I woke to the sound of his teeth grinding and of a tearing sobbing from deep
inside his chest.

Moving as gently as I could, I extricated myself from the arms of his restless
sleep and hauled myself into my chair, returning with his pill bottles and a glass
of water.

He woke with a start to my hand on his shoulder, his eyes wide and the lines of
pain on his face deep and troubled.

"Here," I whispered, my hand cool against the dampness of his brow as he sank
back into the pillows, relaxing at my touch.

He took the pills gratefully, swallowing and closing his eyes. I sat still in my chair
at his bedside, touching at his face until he opened his eyes again and weakly
smiled.

"An early riser, my love?" he asked, his voice strained.

"No, not really."

"Then come back to bed."

And I did.

#-#-#

One of the on-site therapists came to see him that morning. I retreated to his
bedroom to read and fret while they worked, the sounds of effort and discomfort
seeping straight through the walls and into my heart.

When they were done, I stole back out into the living room to find Edward lying
on his couch, ice on his knee and his hands over his face as he breathed
raggedly.

For long moments, I went back and forth, uncertain whether he would appreciate
my comfort or resent it.

So many times, he had been strong for me, his arms so sure around my waist
and his gait at my back so perfect and steady. So many times I had leaned on
him.

I wanted him to lean on me.

Rolling quietly across the short carpet, I approached him, just waiting for a rebuff
or a request for time or space. It never came. With the most tentative of touches,
I smoothed his sweat-dampened hair from his face, stroking it softly again and
again, watching the lines around his eyes as they were erased.

After long moments of these simple touches, he finally pulled his hands away,
crossing one over his chest and placing the other on my face.

He looked so tired, the skin around his eyes marred with strain. Stroking more
widely, I let my hand smooth out the wrinkles and lines around his mouth and
cheeks before sliding my thumb across his lip.

"I'm so proud of you," I whispered, but he could only laugh. His hand closed
around mine, lifting it ever so slightly so as to kiss it.

We just stared at each other then, my hands still tracing over his skin, my
fingertips speaking of the love my voice could not seem to find the words for.

Eventually his eyes closed as he sighed. "You make this so much easier, my
love."

I let my question hang silently in the air, my chest squeezing tightly.

"Having someone to work for," he explained. "Something I care about enough to
want to try."

For the rest of the morning, he slept, his breath making soft whispering noises
that reminded me where I was, even as I sat quietly and knit and read.

For lunch, I made him soup from scratch, rousing him when it was done. He
grimaced with every step toward the table, but when he sat it was with a smile.

And I knew that my food wasn't the only way that I was feeding him.

#-#-#

Some of his energy seemed to return on the third day. After breakfast, he
scratched at his scalp warily, and I asked as gently as I could if he wanted to
clean himself up.

I'd noticed that he'd been avoiding this last hurdle, knowing too well that fear of
falling or of failing at the seemingly simple task of merely bathing.

He assented gruffly, picking at what was left of a biscuit nervously.

I moved ahead of him, setting out the deep green bathrobe I'd seen hanging in
his closet the other morning and checking that the shower chair the therapist had
installed was steady and that the hose to the hand-held shower head was hooked
up correctly. I backed out of the bathroom then, hovering just outside the door
as he stiffly walked in, smiling softly at him as he closed the door.

I told myself I was waiting just long enough to hear the water turn on, but there
was something else that held me there above and beyond that.

But it was only when I heard a muffled sound of pain and defeat rise up from
within that I realized what it was.

With my heart in my throat, I knocked, saying his name as calmly and as kindly
as I could. A wordless choking sound was the only response, and my stomach
roiled until finally I put my hand on the doorknob and turned.

He sat on the edge of the shower chair, his feet still on the floor. The neck of the
bathrobe gaped as he rested his elbows on his thighs, his head in his hands, the
bandages around his knee wrapped in plastic.

But he still had one sock on.

When he heard me enter, he wiped at his eyes furiously, trying to smile but
failing as he shoved his hair up and out of his face.

Hearing nothing but my heart, I closed the door behind me and rolled to sit right
in front of him, pushing his walker out of the way and leaning down to remove his
sock. Another hopeless sound came out of his throat as I did, and I could just see
the edges of his fists, so tightly clenched at his side as he let me help him.

Wordlessly, I rose, my hands shaking terribly as they teased at the edges of my
blouse, before finally I lifted it.

"Bella, what – "

"Shh," I interrupted, still undressing, and I met his red-rimmed eyes. "Just let
me."

Piece by piece, I bared myself until I was completely naked in front of him. And
then I reached for the tie of his robe.

We didn't speak or even let our eyes meet as he helped me push the cloth away
from his shoulders, rising slightly so I could pull it away, folding it and adding it
to the pile of discarded clothes. And I could barely breathe.

I finally whispered instructions for what I knew he needed to do to settle himself
correctly in the seat so his feet made it into the tub.

And then I held my breath and joined him.

He let out a darkly chuckling sob then, and I turned to stare, seeing his face
crumple as I started to draw back the curtain and reach for the shower.

"Are – are you OK?" I asked, feeling instinctively that I should run, but knowing
how much easier this would be for him if could help him.

My eyes traced the edges of the shower over and over again as I waited in near
mortification for a response. I looked at everything, really. Everything except
him.

Because if I looked at him I knew my carefully composed control would be gone,
and that the deep buzzing in my chest would overflow and consume me.

I knew that I would need to be with him and to touch him.

"Bella," he rasped darkly, still with an unsettling sound of mingled laughter and
tears.

"Bella, I don't know if you see me the way … the way a woman sees a man. But
this is not how I pictured our first time being naked together."

When I whipped my head around, the look on his face was lost and hungry and
sad.

And I was lost, too.

"Oh Edward," I whispered, dropping the showerhead with a thunk against the
porcelain as I threw my arms around him. For the first time since before his
surgery, I was kissing him then. Really kissing him, feeling all his skin on all of
mine as a deep wanting I'd thought was a long-distant memory to me flared so
hotly in my breast and then lower, to the secret parts of me.

His arms wrapped around me, too, his hands touching tentatively until the
whimpering sounds my mouth was making encouraged him to grip me more
firmly.

When I couldn't breathe any more, I tore myself away, holding his face with one
hand while the other one settled on the bare expanse of his chest. With my
forehead pressed to his, I sucked in air through my wheezing lungs, feeling my
own eyes tightening and darkening.

"Edward," I rasped, and the sound was foreign and rasping. "Edward, I have
always seen you as a man."

#-#-#

With gentle hands, I washed him, smoothing soap over the lines of his body as
we giggled and laughed. When I washed the silvery auburn length of his hair, he
pretended to be the showerhead, holding it high as he focused the water over his
head.

When he washed my hair, he did it slowly, with a reverence that made me feel as
beautiful as he always told me that I was.

Afterward, when we were both clean, I rechecked his wound and dried our
bodies, and then, warm and naked beside his shower, we kissed until we both
lost track of time.

#-#-#

Later, in his living room, clothed and surrounded by the warm glow of the mid-
day sun, I watched him do his exercises even as I pretended to read my book. He
collapsed in the chair by my side when he was done, his grimace of pain and
exertion slowly melting away until he was grinning at me like a much younger
man and winding his fingers through my hair.

He read over my shoulder for a while, but the warmth of his breath and the
warmth of our earlier caresses had turned my body into a living, breathing thing
after so many years and months of being stone.

I focused my eyes on the blur of words before me as his hands moved whisper-
soft along my neck, but I couldn't derive any meaning from the pattern on the
page.

"Edward?" I breathed.

"Mmmm?"

"What you said this morning…" He both stiffened and softened, his body tense
but pressing more deeply against me. "You see me that way, too?"

He hesitated for a moment, but then I felt his lips brushing against the shell of
my ear as he whispered, "I do."

With hot, wet breaths, he kissed a line to the base of my neck and asked, "Does
that bother you?"

"No," I breathed.

"Good."

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 15:

We passed our time together in quiet companionship, and for all of my earlier
trepidation, I found that living together felt as easy to me as breathing. We
shared meals and we shared our days.

And at night we shared more than we ever had before.

In fact, if it weren't for the grimaces and the pills and his moments of frustration,
I might have forgotten completely that I was only there because my Edward was
ill.

Day by day, he grew stronger and more confident, though, the lines of pain
slowly giving way to ones of contentment, the simple joy in his eyes replacing the
loneliness I had seen there in our earlier days.

By turns, we started making rounds of his floor, his knee aching with every step,
but I pushed him and he pushed himself even harder. When his therapist said he
was recovering more quickly than she would have expected for a man of his age,
he simply smiled and looked at me.

And I knew that I was his reason.

And I knew that he was mine.

At the end of the first week, we piled into the van again to return to the hospital.
I stayed in the room at his insistence, helping him to undress from the waist
down and draping him with a sheet even as I was grinning and glancing away. He
caught my head between his hands then, leaning forward as much as he could
from his perch on the high table and kissing me soundly, leaving me panting
when he tore himself away mere seconds before the doctor swung open the door.

I sat in the corner, biting the ragged edges of my nails as the doctor poked and
prodded at him, sighing in relief when he declared everything to be healing
nicely. It was only as he was removing the last of the stitches that Edward
mentioned the pain he was still feeling from the surgery. They discussed it briefly
before the doctor nodded and wrote a new prescription and handed it to me.

This time, Edward went down to the basement pharmacy with me and we held
hands as we sat and waited. When I rolled over to the window to pick it up, the
pharmacist gave me instructions for how my husband should take the pills.

And this time I didn't correct her.

#-#-#

When we got home, Edward decided to lie down for a moment. Uncertain what to
do with myself, I gathered up his old pill bottles and made my way to the
bathroom to put them away in his medicine cabinet.

It was only as I was shifting the other bottles around to make room for the new
ones, that one label caught my eye, though.

One label and his name.

I was still staring at it dumbfoundedly when I heard the deep sound of a throat
clearing behind me. I whipped around, half-yelping in my surprise and dropping
the bottle, sending little, blue, diamond-shaped pills scattering everywhere.

He started to lean down to help me gather them before he winced and stood and
I waved him away. My eyes stinging with embarrassed tears, I reached over, my
clumsy fingers closing around each pill slowly and I could feel the heat of his
stare.

"Bella," he began warily but I just kept waving my hand because I wasn't ready
to speak, my heart pounding too fast and my head too low to the ground.

There was only one way to interpret this particular kind of pill.

Edward was having sex.

Or he wanted to have sex.

I glanced at the date on the bottle and started shaking even harder when I saw
that it was quite recent, dating back to right around the time I'd agreed to stay
with him and take care of him.

And then the knowledge was inescapable, really.

Edward wanted to have sex with me.

It wasn't exactly a revelation, for all that it rocked me and my long untouched
body. The heated nature of our embraces had been moving steadily in that
direction with every brush of his hand across my naked skin. But it still wasn't
something I'd managed to consider fully, my old body, so broken with disuse and
age, making me wonder if that kind of intimacy was even a possibility for me.

But apparently it was a possibility for him.

By the time I'd picked them all up and screwed the cap on, my cheeks were
flushing uncomfortably hotly, and I almost fumbled and dropped the bottle twice
as I returned it to its little shelf, my eyes still failing to meet those of my Edward
as I tried to decide what he might want from me. And what I even had left to
give.

"Bella," he whispered again and I felt his fear and his dread.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be snooping or to get into your things -
"

"Bella," he said, this time more sharply and my rambling apology stuck in my
throat as I was drawn into infinite, terrified eyes. "It doesn't mean anything if you
don't want it to."

Only my overactive mind didn't know whether to think he meant the pills or sex …
or me.

All but hyperventilating now, I shook my head fiercely and clutched the edges of
my chair.

"I don't take them," he clarified, still looking so intently at me. "I never have. I
just - I just wanted to know I could. If you ever wanted … if you ever wanted to,
I mean."

"If I wanted to?" I breathed, and it was with a deeper exhale, the haze of panic
dimly receding.

"Yes, Bella. Of course."

I placed my hand on my heart and closed my eyes and just breathed.

"Do you?" I finally whispered.

"Do I …?"

"Want to."

He touched my cheek then, his body inching closer to me and I was more aware
of it than I had ever been. He tucked one finger beneath my chin and raised my
face so gently before smoothing a strand of hair behind my ear.

"My Bella," he said quietly. "I want to know you any way you will let me. So yes.
Yes, I do. But only if it's something you want, too."

I kissed his hand, stalling, because this was suddenly too real and I didn't have
an answer.

"I - I don't know what to say. I don't even know if that part of me works any
more," I fretted, and again I was breathing too quickly.

"There's no rush, my love." He trailed his hands over my cheek so softly, and
there were pieces melting inside of me.

I gave myself a moment to consider that and to ponder his gentility and the
evidence of his desire I'd already seen in the shower or felt in our bed some
mornings. And a tremor of that same desire ran through my own body,
remembering our touches and the way he handled me, and trying so hard to
overlook my fear of my own hopeless body.

"But if there is anyone I'd want to find out with," I whispered, "it would be you."

#-#-#

In bed that night there was a certain distance that was new. When I turned out
the light, he still let me embrace him, but I didn't feel the same comfort in his
arms as they wrapped more loosely than usual around my body.

Propping myself up awkwardly on one elbow, I stared at him in the dim, feeling
his fingers trace gently across my shoulder but dipping no lower.

"Edward?"

"Yes, love?"

"Are you – did my saying I wasn't ready for … for that … did that upset you?"

He swallowed roughly and the dark flicker across his eyes told me he knew full
well my meaning.

"For sex?" he whispered, and I blushed but I didn't look away. Instead I just
nodded.

He turned over on his back then, grunting slightly as he shifted his knee. He
reached one hand to slide his arm back and behind his head while the fingers of
the other began to twine themselves softly in my hair.

"Of course it didn't upset me, my love," he said quietly. "Though … it … worried
me. I hope I haven't made you uncomfortable? With the way I've touched you?"

His eyes were warm but guarded as he stared at me.

"No," I whispered. "I … I like the way you touch me. The fact that you haven't
really since we talked … that's what worried me."

He finally rolled over then to face me, bringing his body within inches of mine,
and I shivered to feel the warmth of his presence combined with the thoughts
running through my mind of he and I and what our bodies might still be able to
do.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, his hand ghosting over my neck and down the edge of
my ribs before rubbing soft circles over my side. "I just didn't know if you would
want … "

"I want you to touch me," I said quietly.

And I realized in that moment that it was true.

#-#-#

We didn't make love that night, but Edward didn't leave me wanting, either. With
rough, worn hands, he found the skin of my shoulder and waist and hip.

And then he found more.

Lying entwined on his bed, we slowly bared ourselves to each other, and with
each piece that was revealed, we uncovered another level of intimacy, until finally
we were wrapped up in a glow of skin and smiles and kisses so soft and warm I
thought I might float away and never touch ground again. With lingering
movements of dry lips on lips and whispered encouragements, we found the parts
of our bodies that spoke to each other as a man and a woman would. His every
touch was gentle and full of love, his fingertips dancing everywhere and my body
feeling warmer than it had in years, my pulse quickening and my breathing
ragged, my mind reeling with the sweetness of connection.

And then it grew sweeter still.

When I touched him, it was with a hesitancy that grew into comfort slowly, my
fingers moving across skin and his body responding.

Until all I could hear was his voice echoing so softly around my name.

#-#-#

After, he held me tightly and I felt myself glowing, everything thrumming and
content and loved, even as I felt a growing awe for all the things my crippled
body could still feel and do after all.

With my back to his naked chest, his breath warm in my ear, we stared forward
into the darkness and basked in everything that we had found, even if we had
found it so late in our lives.

And I knew then that I didn't want to waste any more time.

"Edward?"

"Yes?" he answered, sleepily kissing my hair.

"When you're better … I - I want to. That is if you still do."

"Want to…?"

With some effort, I turned in his arms, still feeling timid but wanting to look into
his eyes. I kissed him softly and whispered, "I want to make love with you."

"Bella, darling," he sighed as he kissed me in return. He held my face in his
hands as he spoke so quietly. "I want everything with you."

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 16:

The knock on the door came in the late afternoon and right on time. Putting down
the bits of salad I had been preparing, I smiled and wiped my hands on a towel
before rolling to the door.

Our friends were all there, a motley crew with their assortment of canes and
walkers and chairs. They greeted me warmly as they made their way inside, each
one leaning in to hug me and place sweet kisses on my blushing cheeks.

And it was all so eerily familiar, so like how I had been as the woman of the
house back in Jacob's and my home, that it made me pause. Struck dumb by the
sense of déjà vu, I lingered long in the doorway, pondering how much had
changed and how much things had stayed the same.

Just as I was beginning to become too contemplative, though, I heard Edward's
voice, sounding warmer and stronger than it had in days, calling out to me and
breaking me from my trance.

Rolling through the entryway and out into his living room, I found him sitting in
the same tall chair he had been sitting in for more than a week now, his knee
elevated and iced and his walker at his side. And though he was surrounded by
people, he still only had eyes for me.

He smiled broadly when he saw me, holding out his arms. I ducked my head and
couldn't stop my own lips from curling upward, my happiness flowing freely.

Because in all the days since my Jacob had left me, I had never dreamed that I
could be so happy.

Perfectly and incandescently happy.

I stayed and talked with them all for a little while, catching up on everything that
had happened since Edward and I had all but disappeared into the shell of his
convalescence and of our growing closeness. Since I was still on "vacation," I
couldn't take my meals in the dining hall, and between my absence and his
limited mobility, Edward had seemed reluctant to venture down there himself.
Once or twice, I had suggested that he should go, but he had just looked at me in
confusion, shaking his head as he'd told me everything he needed was already
here.

But it wasn't long before we began to miss our friends, and since we couldn't go
to them, I'd invited them here.

By turns, we were regaled by tales of nursing home gossip, laughing hard at
stories of misplaced teeth and pranks on nurses and frowning at mentions of
people who were sick. Or of people who were dying.

The entire time, Edward kept his hand on my skin, intertwining our gnarled
fingers or moving his arm to my shoulder to rub softly at my neck.

After a while, I leaned over to place a kiss on his cheek before excusing myself.
Back in the kitchen alone, I finished making preparations for dinner, chopping
and mixing and tasting and feeling more alive than I had been in so long. As I
always had, I felt more included for being outside of the conversation, listening to
the gentle rise of laughter from the adjoining room as I worked to feed the people
I loved.

By and by, bread baked and sauce bubbled, and by the time the alarm went off
on the oven, my preparations were complete. I called out that everything was
done, and was immediately inundated by hands that were all too happy to help.

Everybody who could walk without assistance ended up with some sort of a task,
be it carrying a casserole or finding the leaf for the table or extra chairs. It took
some doing to fit everybody in around Edward's tiny table, but we managed.

When we were finally all seated, we took each other's hands and someone said
grace.

And with my head bowed, I gave thanks. I gave thanks for friends and family and
good health. And for Edward.

And there, amidst a scene that spoke to me of all the other long years of my life
with another man, I squeezed my Edward's hand.

Because he had given my life back to me by entwining it with his.

#-#-#

We ate together amidst an atmosphere of warmth and comfort, laughing often
and sighing sadly on occasion.

When most everything had been consumed, one of the more sturdy gentlemen
around the table raised his glass and cocked his eyebrow, offering a toast to
Edward and his good health. His wife broke in as soon as all of the glasses had
been clinked, catching my eye before toasting to me, both for preparing their
meal and for bringing a smile back to the face of a man who had spent too many
years alone.

Edward and I kissed then, in full view of all our friends, and I blushed intensely
when they applauded. But I didn't really mind.

A couple of the women lingered around the kitchen to scrub at pots and pans,
and I found myself uncharacteristically hovering near the door since they
wouldn't allow me to do a thing. The sound of rubber tennis balls on tile
announced my Edward sneaking up behind me, and I craned my neck to stare up
into those eyes I loved as they twinkled at me. He leaned in to place a kiss on my
cheek before asking if he could sneak by to get his pills.

In that tiny galley kitchen, I watched him maneuvering around and between the
women who were elbow-deep in suds and dishtowels, that charming smirk
plastered firmly across his face. He was so comfortable. So dapper. And clearly so
beloved.

As he swallowed down a small handful of medications, I watched the bobbing
motion of his throat and took in without envy the looks of admiration on the faces
of our friends.

And I glowed all over again to know that he was mine.

#-#-#

We settled in around the table again when everyone was done, playing in teams
at raucous and surprisingly bawdy games of cards. It was only when one of our
oldest companions started snoring while sitting up that people began to say their
goodbyes and gather their things.

Edward joined me at the door this time, shaking hands and kissing cheeks and
wishing everyone a safe trip down the hall or up the stairs. After the last hunched
back made its way through the door, he shifted his body and his walker away
from the threshold and closed the door, before turning back to me with a tired
sigh and a smile.

He did his exercises in the living room while I finished picking up what little our
friends had left out of place. Before long, we were both yawning and we agreed
with a single look that it was time for bed.

Lying in the dark that night, we held each other in quiet contemplation, making
gentle motions of hands on hair and skin.

"Did you have a nice evening, my love?"

I snuggled in closer to him and nodded sleepily. "I love throwing dinner parties."

"I know you do," he laughed. "And I can now safely say that I love it when you
throw them."

"Good," I sighed, and again I found myself glowing and shaking my head at my
good fortune, that I should know this kind of happiness and love after so much
time spent believing that my life was over.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Just life," I answered. And then I thought a little more, picking at the button on
his pajamas near his neck as I felt a more contemplative air descend over our
bed.

"I just never thought I'd be so happy," I eventually added.

He was quiet for a while, but then he leaned in to kiss my hair, whispering softly,
"Neither did I."

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 17:

In the weeks after his surgery, Edward grew stronger day by day, his laugh
sounding louder and his carefree smile lasting longer. Bit by bit, his range of
motion and his stamina improved, and by the end of the third week, I realized he
scarcely needed my help anymore - even though he occasionally still asked for it.
Especially when it involved helping him when he was naked.

Between therapy appointments and walks and meals with friends, the time flew
by, and it was with a wary eye that I watched the pages on the calendar flipping
past, the end of my "vacation" looming large just as my heart and my love and
my happiness grew larger, too.

Before I knew it, he was back to walking with the cane I secretly loved and his
gait was not so troubled nor his face so pained as it had been even before his
surgery. While he still didn't feel sure enough to push me in my chair or to
venture out to our tree, we began spending evenings on the bench behind the
building, sharing smoke and air and staring at the stars again.

Even though as often as not I spent most of the time staring at him, now.

At the end of the fourth week, we found ourselves back at the hospital, kissing
like teenagers again as I draped the sheet over his naked legs, blushing and
rolling away when a knock sounded on the door, and then watching as a doctor
examined his healing knee.

They discussed lingering issues of pain management and mobility, but all the
words were said with a smile and with the promise of a new lease on life. And I
smiled all over again at the hope that he would be spending that new life with
me.

When the doctor was thoroughly satisfied with Edward's progress, he shook his
wrinkled hand and turned to the both of us.

"It looks like you've done an outstanding job, Mrs. Black," he said kindly, and I
beamed. "In fact, I daresay Edward's just about ready to be back on his own."

My smile couldn't have disappeared faster.

I'd known eventually the day would come when Edward would be fully healed and
that there would be no reason for me to stay with him any more. Even though
the passage of weeks had registered in my mind, I realized in that moment I'd
still not fully prepared myself for the fact that his clean bill of health could come
so soon.

And I hadn't in any way, shape or form prepared myself to leave.

I wasn't sure if Edward shared my darkened mood or if he was just taking his
cues from my drooping shoulders and tightening lips, but he didn't press for
conversation on the way home. The entire time, we sat in awkward silence, our
eyes fixed straight ahead at a late spring morning that was more grey with rain
than green.

The ride in the elevator up to his apartment was similarly bleak and I felt a rising
sense of sadness with every moment that passed without some sort of
reassurance, wishing so deeply that he would say something. Anything.

Wishing he would ask me if I would stay.

When we reached his apartment, Edward stepped forward to open the door with
his key and held it for me. It was such a simple gesture and one he'd made so
many times before. But this time I saw it with sad and distant eyes. And I saw
the act as just more proof that he was well enough to manage without me.

Once inside, he kissed my neck and took my coat and excused himself to go to
the bathroom. I rolled myself aimlessly through the space we shared and which I
had come to think of as home, taking in the subtle signs of a joined life all around
me - the trail of books and yarns I left on every surface and the way his kitchen
was humming with life and sparking.

And then I remembered how it had looked before. Without me.

With blurry eyes and a certain sense of hopelessness, I wandered forward toward
his bedroom then, taking in the rows of my clothes and his, hanging side by side
in his closet and packed together in his drawers. And for a long moment I looked
at the bed we had come to share, sighing at the deep indentation that echoed the
shape of his body, and the shallower one that spoke of mine.

I sucked in one deep breath then and began idly sorting through my things, eying
the lonely suitcase I'd brought them in with a sense of panging dread. I was just
about to begin packing them away, when the sadness overcame me and with a
silent, shuddering sob, I buried my head in my hands.

After just a few moments of indulging myself in a lonely sort of misery, the sound
of running water in the bathroom told me that Edward would be joining me soon.
Rising slowly, I tried to pull myself together, scrubbing at my face fruitlessly and
trying to hide the signs of what it did to me just think about the idea of waking
up alone again.

I heard the thud of his cane before I saw him, his presence warm and yet wary
behind me, and I knew in an instant that my efforts were fruitless and that I was
truly hiding nothing from him. With a concerned gasp, he closed the space
between us, sitting at the edge of the bed and ducking his head until those warm
green eyes met mine. One look was all it took for him to close his hands around
my face, his expression one of alarm, as, shaking, he asked so quietly, "Bella,
love? What's wrong?"

And all my thoughts of hiding were gone when I saw the love that lived in those
eyes.

Love he held for me.

"I don't want to leave," I whispered, roughly, and I felt more naked than I had
without my clothes.

The lines of tension I hadn't even noticed on his face suddenly relaxed as he
erupted into a smile that glowed like he was lit from within.

"Thank God," he muttered gruffly, kissing me soundly on the mouth before
pressing his lips to my nose and cheeks and eyes. I felt the warmth of his hands
on both sides of my face and he was kissing me so happily and so tenderly, his
thumbs tracing damp lines beneath my eyes. "No tears, love. No tears."

He pulled my head in so deeply to his chest then, holding me tightly. And this
time, I heard him perfectly, even though he was whispering.

"My Bella, did you really think I would ever have let you go?"

#-#-#

The very next day, I gave my thirty days' notice over at the nursing home.

And I called Carlie.

When I told her I was moving in with my boyfriend, she laughed for what felt like
hours. I let her go on for a little while, but eventually I snapped at her, failing to
get the joke.

"Oh, Ma. Do you really not remember having this discussion when you were on
the other end?"

And suddenly, I did. I remembered the day my Carlie told me she wanted to
share a bed with a man but that she didn't feel ready to share his name.

And then I remembered how that had ended, five years later, with tears and
babies and with my daughter crying and knocking on my door.

"Edward wants to marry me," I whispered, my throat feeling thick and dry and
my fingers twitching agitatedly.

"That's what I thought, too, Ma."

"No, really," I breathed, remembering the day I'd told him I wasn't ready. "He
told me."

"And what did you say?"

"I told him … some day."

"Ma," she sighed exasperatedly, and I could actually hear her rolling her eyes at
me. "Not that I want to be morbid or anything here, but … exactly how many
more days do you think you're going to have?"

#-#-#

I began moving things to Edward's place in batches, taking another small pile
with me every evening. I let the night nurses know in no uncertain terms that
while I was in the process of moving, they shouldn't expect to see particularly
much of me.

And with the exception of Delores, they all just winked and smiled and nodded
knowingly at me.

In the weeks and months of darkness after Jake had died, Carlie had done me the
favor of going through the majority of my things, so there wasn't much left for
me to move. Before long, my room was all but empty of my personal effects,
while Edward's was brimming. We spent happy nights sorting through our
possessions, and I took more pleasure than I should have in combining
households the way I wanted to combine our lives.

Most things we managed to find a place for, his bookshelves overflowing with
texts that spoke of his story and now also of mine. Some things, like the tired old
couch, we decided to leave.

We still sat on it that last night before my lease ran out, though, looking around
at four blank walls that didn't really look like home. For old time's sake, we
stayed there and smoked and laughed, reflecting on those awkward first few
times when he had come to get me and not really known quite what to do.

"How can you blame me, love?" he asked, snuggling me so tightly against his
side. "I was so smitten with you already. It's no wonder I behaved like a fool."

"You were never a fool," I chided. "Or maybe I was just smitten, too, and didn't
notice. But you always seemed incredibly charming."

"I'd say I was sorry for tricking you into thinking that of me, but I'm not," he all
but growled, and it made something in my chest flutter as he leaned his lips
toward my throat. "And now that you know better, you're still willing to let me
lure you to my lair?"

"Our lair," I corrected, and my heart was aglow.

"Our lair," he agreed, and then he kissed me soundly.

By the time we came up for air, night had settled on us fully, the room
illuminated by just one little lamp I still had yet to pack away. With the darkness,
a certain seriousness descended on us, too. He rubbed his hands across my hair,
asking quietly, "My Bella, darling. You're sure this is what you want?"

"To live with you?" I asked, trailing my fingertips over the skin around his neck.

"Mmmhmmm."

"I am," I answered hesitantly. And then I paused, ruminating on my daughter's
words and on days and on how I'd like to spend however many of them I still had
left.

Because living with him wasn't the only thing that I was sure about.

He picked up on my change in tone immediately, only he interpreted it all wrong,
and I watched the happy smile lines around his eyes falling rapidly.

"But...?"

I shook my head slightly, looking down at the circles I was tracing across his skin
with my hands. "No but," I said quietly.

And then I raised my head.

"Only, Edward?"

"Yes, love?"

I flicked my eyes up to meet his, getting lost in them. And feeling sure.

"Edward … it's someday."

For just a moment he looked at me quizzically, but then his eyes widened with
recognition and a hope he didn't even seem to dare to believe.

"Edward," I breathed. "I'm ready."

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 18:

I was twenty-five when my Jacob proposed to me. It was just the two of us and
everything we had come to feel for each other over years of friendship and,
eventually, of love. Under the sweeping branches of a willow tree, he got down
one knee, asking me with the broadest, most brilliant smile if I would throw my
lot in with his. I collapsed to the ground beside him, catching him up in arms that
were wide and strong and free, kissing him soundly and telling him I would be his
for as long as he needed me.

And I knew on some level that I would always be his, even if he didn't need me.

But I knew now that I was Edward's, too.

#-#-#

I was on the wrong side of seventy when my Edward pulled out his chair at
dinner one night in the dining hall, a smirk playing deviously on his lips and
glimmers of mischief shining brightly in his eyes.

There in full view of all our friends, he apologized for not getting down on his
knees.

And then, with shaking hands, he opened a little box and held it out to me.

"Bella, my love. I feel I've spent a lifetime waiting for you. And I don't want to
wait any longer."

I felt hot tears sliding down my cheeks already, because I knew exactly what was
coming. With blurry, leaking eyes, I glanced back and forth over and over
between the web of golden filigree and diamond and the emerald brilliance of his
eyes, feeling like my life, so long in years, was finally starting again.

"I wish I'd met you when I was young enough to give you everything. But I'll give
you everything I've still got. I want to share the rest of my days with you, and to
take care of you until you're older and greyer.

"My Bella, I want to marry you. Will you have me?"

"Of course," I sobbed, beaming through my tears. With unsteady legs, I launched
myself upward, meeting his outstretched arms and steadying myself against his
neck as our lips met.

I tucked my face into the crook of his neck then, breathing deeply of his scent
before finding his ear with my lips, whispering softly, "I'm yours Edward. Forever.

"As long as my heart still beats."

#-#-#

With newly certain legs, Edward pushed my chair back to our apartment that
night, and our friends followed us close behind. I was still grinning from the sheer
high of knowing my Edward wanted me the same way that I wanted him, but I
somehow managed to find even more miles to my smile when he opened the
fridge to reveal a half dozen bottles of champagne.

"How?" I sputtered, and he winked while flashing that same, charming grin.

"You may be my life now, but that doesn't mean I have to tell you all my
secrets."

Moving around the kitchen, he reached up to the highest shelves of his cabinets
to pull down my set of champagne flutes before filling each one. Out in the living
room, we sat with our friends and laughed and smiled, drinking and toasting, and
I had never felt so warm.

As the hour grew late and my head grew fuzzier from bubbles and wine, I
somehow ended up out of my chair and sitting sleepily on my Edward's lap on his
couch. I must have fallen asleep there, my head resting in perfect comfort across
his shoulder and my body pressed so warmly to his chest.

When I opened my eyes, my head was pounding and we were alone. Edward was
snoring slightly beneath me, but I was still secure inside his arms.

The sparkle on my hand caught my eye then, and I sat up just a little straighter,
wiggling my fingers in the weak light of the lamp across the room and smiling.

"So pretty," I whispered, staring at the intricate network of diamond and the
warm shine of shimmering gold.

Edward snorted and stirred and I blushed, feeling silly for having woken him.
Shifting slightly, he jostled my weight to his other leg, stretching and yawning
before catching my eye.

"Do you like it?"

I nodded happily and leaned my head back against his chest again. "It's perfect,"
I sighed.

He let out a little self-satisfied grunt and gripped me tighter. When I looked up at
him, he was a little pale, rings showing slightly around his lovely eyes and his
silvery-red hair sticking up erratically on one side.

He was adorable.

Leaning his head back fully against the cushions of the couch, he mumbled
quietly, "It was my mother's."

Through the haze of too much champagne and the lateness of the hour, at first I
only half registered what he'd said, but then it hit me. Hard.

"It's not - it isn't - "

"Shh," he whispered and lifted his head with a groan to kiss my lips. "You're the
only woman to whom I've offered it, Bella."

"Oh."

I stared at it some more then, wondering idly about what rings meant and about
what this meant to him.

"Why is that?" I asked quietly, shifting the line of perfect diamonds back and
forth along my skin.

He hummed in my ear as he brought the fingers of one hand to rest on mine,
tracing them over the back of the band and along my palm. "Well, for one thing,
the last time I proposed to someone, my mother still had use of it."

I stiffened again at the thought and was prepared to feel sad and to offer my
condolences, but he would hear none of it, dismissing me with a wave of his hand
and a kiss to my lips.

"My mother offered it to me. But I couldn't accept. That first time it … it didn't
seem right to offer her that. Even though I couldn't explain why at the time."

"And now?" I breathed.

"Hmm?"

"Does it feel right this time?"

He looked at me with eyes that were as old as his many years. "Did my proposing
to you with it not give you that impression?" he asked teasingly.

"I - well, I - " I stammered, blushing hotly from more than just the wine.

"I feel like I've waited my entire life for you," he whispered then, and I didn't
doubt him. "Believe me when I tell you it feels right to give you everything."

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 19:

"What about this, Ma?"

I craned my neck from where I sat at the other end of the aisle, absorbing the
dress my daughter was holding, taking in long lines of old lace and ivory.

And for a moment, I could picture it. I could see in perfect detail how I would
stand beside my Edward and cry and say yes to him.

Except that, of course, I wouldn't be standing.

Struggling to keep my eyes dry, I nodded and then turned back to the rack I was
perusing, muttering flatly, "I guess it's worth a try."

All day we had been shopping, looking for something I could marry my Edward in,
and by late afternoon, it was starting to take its toll on me. In spite of my
protests, Carlie had insisted on starting with bridal shops, and I'd blushed and
refused and outright laughed at just about everything the attendants had offered.
Swaths of glowing satin and sequins had all felt so wrong, so impossible and
modern and … not me.

And not Edward either.

Eventually we had ended up at an antique store, and it had seemed right, seeing
as I was something of an antique myself.

After making it through the rest of the racks, Carlie found me a dressing room. I
turned away from the mirror, fumbling with buttons and zippers, but for once I
didn't try to cover myself or hide.

For once, my blush wasn't at the shame of being seen without my clothes on.
Instead, it was for the still-warm memory of baring myself in front of the man I
loved, and of his whispers about how beautiful I was.

Ignoring my distracted flush, Carlie stepped in then to help to pull the sheath of
fabric over my head, and I shifted in my chair to tug the layers of skirt down over
my legs.

And then finally I turned.

The woman in the mirror was no beauty, for sure. Her hair was long and more
white than brown, her skin showing all the signs of age that would keep her from
gracing any magazine page. But there was something. There was a glow to
weathered cheeks and a sparkle in those dimming, cloudy eyes.

She looked happy.

And she looked exactly how I had always hoped I would look when I was old.

I smiled at myself and tried to take in everything else, the simple lines of ivory
and the curling patterns of the lace, the sleeves that covered my sagging arms
and the skirt that was neither too short nor too long.

"What do you think?" I asked nervously, but I already knew.

My daughter's eyes were shining when I looked up at them in the mirror.

"It's perfect, Ma."

"Do you … do you think Edward will like it?"

She knelt behind me then, and I took in the sight of our two faces, so similar and
yet so different as she smiled and kissed my cheek.

"He'll love it, Ma. Just like he loves you."

#-#-#

I sat in the front seat of her car as we drove down the long and winding road out
to the reservation. My nails scratched absently at the lumps of my swollen
knuckles, and I watched the landscape passing by.

"It'll be fine, Ma," Carlie groaned, grabbing at my hands without looking and
intertwining her fingers with my bony ones to keep me from worrying them to
distraction.

Her touch comforted me, but only so much, and before long my mind was racing
again, my free hand picking at non-existent lint and tracing the lines of the
upholstery nervously.

I hadn't been out to La Push since Jacob had died. Or since I had met Edward.

Or since I'd gotten engaged.

After what seemed like forever, we turned down a gravel path, and Carlie parked
the car in front of a low, white house I knew too well. For just a moment, I
allowed my mind to sink back into my memories, replaying all the evenings Jake
and Carlie and I had spent here with his best friend and his family.

And the nervousness almost seized me all over again.

Just as Carlie was starting to help me out of the car, squeals sounded from
within, and I barely had time to get myself settled in my chair before a child-
sized bullet was launching itself firmly into my chest.

"Grandma!"

"Hi, baby," I whispered and smiled, wrapping my arms around my youngest
grandbaby and rocking him gently. Letting him sit on my lap, I rolled us up to the
house, cursing the gravel as it slipped under my wheels every couple of feet.

"Hello, Bella," a deep voice greeted me then, and I looked up into warm black
eyes framed by heavily weathered brown skin.

"Embry," I sighed, trying to hide my nervousness when he leaned down to brush
his lips across my cheek.

"You look well," he said, keeping his hand on my shoulder, and I squeezed it
lightly.

"I feel well," I agreed.

"So I hear," he chuckled, and I blushed as both our eyes shifted to the ring on
my left hand. But when I looked up there was none of the malice or judgment I
had feared in his eyes. "Congratulations are in order, apparently?"

I nodded weakly, and he smiled.

We paused for just a moment before the threshold to the house then. "I'm happy
for you, Bella. Really."

"Thank you, Embry. That means a lot to me."

"Jake would have been happy for you, too."

And I knew in my heart that what he'd said was true.

#-#-#

Embry and his daughter and I caught up over his kitchen table while Carlie
bundled up her babies. The children pouted the entire time, protesting separation
from the cousins they saw so rarely, but before long they were all strapped into

the back seat of the car, and I was hugging Embry goodbye and turning my chair
to go.

"Hey, Bella?" he asked, and I stopped.

"Yes?"

"When should I be expecting my invitation?"

"You want one?" I asked in surprise.

"Of course I do. Jake'll give me hell next time I see him if he finds out I missed
it."

"Yeah, he would, wouldn't he?" I sighed.

"You bet your life."

I shook my head and laughed, waving goodbye as I pushed hard to get my
wheels up and over the ridge of the doorway, promising over my shoulder, "I'll
send it soon."

#-#-#

With no small amount of effort, I locked my arms and hauled myself out of my
chair, flopping down on Edward's and my couch and flinging a hand over my face
in only mock exhaustion.

Dinner had been cooked and eaten and all the dishes cleared away already, the
busy afternoon swiftly passing away into evening. In the kitchen, I could hear my
Carlie humming over the sound of the running water and clinking plates, but only
barely.

Because the sounds of laughter here in the living room with me were much, much
louder.

And I couldn't help but smile as I watched my Edward - my stately, distinguished,
proud old man - being positively overrun by grandbabies.

"But you have to!" the boy cried, and I saw Edward's beautiful mouth rise up into
a crinkly smile as he mocked reluctance but then gave in. Moments later, he was
donning a paper pirate hat as he fended off the both of them with cardboard tube
swords, cackling like a perfect villain, and I was laughing just as loudly.

While he was still careful with his knees, Edward was walking without a cane now
for the first time in years, and I delighted to watch him all but roughhousing with
the children. They screeched and howled, until finally he feigned his own death,
conveniently positioning himself in front of a chair before collapsing with his hand
over his heart. The children were still celebrating their victory when I saw him tilt
his head up slightly, searching for my face and winking at me.

And I was beaming.

#-#-#

"I had no idea you were so good with children," I commented, sitting beside him
on that same couch later in the evening. Carlie and the babies had finally left,
and Edward and I found ourselves alone together for the first time all day. Echoes
of laughter still rang out in the apartment, making it feel almost eerily quiet, and
I relished both the silence and the chance to wrap myself up in Edward's arms.

And while I certainly missed the energy of my babies, I couldn't say I was
actually sorry about the lack of noise.

He just shrugged and kissed my hand, leaning back. "I always wanted them, and
I've been an uncle many times over now, you know."

"I know," I agreed, lifting our intertwined fingers to return the kiss, pressing my
lips lightly to the inside of his wrist. "But it's something else entirely to see it in
person."

He cocked an eyebrow at me, "I could have dragged out my evil pirate routine
earlier if I'd known you liked it."

I blushed and shoved at him teasingly. "That's quite alright, thank you very
much."

We sat in quiet for a few moments, soaking in the silence, and in my case
enjoying the chance to recover a bit from so much activity.

"I was terribly nervous, you know," he said finally, and I felt his hands tightening
slightly against my side.

"Whatever for?" I asked, surprised.

His expression was one of careful thought as he stared at our hands. Finally he
just shrugged and sighed. "You had a whole life before me, love. It's a relief to
know that the people you care about accept me."

"Oh, Edward. You know Carlie's loved you ever since the moment she stopped
yelling at me."

He chuckled then, and I did too, remembering how upset she had been at me for
keeping him a secret and how torn she had been about honoring her father's
memory.

"I know," he said quietly. "But it's still a relief to me."

"It's a relief to me, too," I said finally, almost too quietly to hear. But my Edward
heard me, holding me closely, and I let my eyes drift closed, surrounded by
comfort and hearing nothing but the steady beating of his heart.

"Thank you for loving my family," I said softly, turning in his arms to see
beautiful green eyes staring back at me.

We kissed for a moment, and then he pulled back, looking at me levelly.

"Dearest Bella," he whispered, and my heart stuttered as he pressed his forehead
so gently to mine. "Thank you for letting me be a part of it."

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 20:

I married my Edward on a late summer afternoon, surrounded by a circle of my
friends and family and by a glow of love so intense I could scarcely breathe.

And from the time I woke up that morning until the time we shakily undressed
each other that night, I didn't stop crying.

#-#-#

The sun was shining brilliantly and the wind stinging our faces and hands as we
made our way up the path. It was early in the morning then, with a certain chill
in the air. And a chill in my bones.

Forgoing the typical traditions about a bride and groom not seeing each other on
their wedding day, I had asked my Edward for this one small thing before I gave
myself to him forever.

I asked him for the chance to say goodbye.

With sure legs and a steady gait, he pushed my chair down the winding paths,
between granite slabs and marble figures, the rustling of the grass speaking of
new life in a world that seemed hushed and silent amidst a shroud of death.

"Over this way," I directed, my voice sounding too loud, my emotions too raw.

He didn't speak a word the entire time, just pushing me forward, and I found
myself as grateful as always for his presence behind me. Because I knew I
wouldn't have had the strength to do this on my own.

When we finally found it, his steady step faltered and then stopped, a low sigh
breaking the silence as he stepped back, his hands falling away from the arms of
the chair.

But I needed them so much.

"Please," I whispered, my resolve faltering as I saw the last name that would only
be mine for a few hours more engraved in stone.

Edward was a stoic presence at my side, his eyes cast down at me and his
expression kind but blank.

My eyes blurred by tears that were already starting to fall, I reached blindly for
him, finally feeling his sure hand connect with mine, our tired fingers entwining.
And it was only then that I had the strength to do what I needed to do.

"Hi, Jake," I whispered, even though I was speaking to nothing but stone and
earth.

And then, stopping often to wipe at my eyes, and keeping my Edward's hand in
mine the entire time, I told my Jacob the story of my Edward and the story of my
time on this earth since he had left me. I told him how I had felt him at our tree,
like he was calling to me. Like he was leading me to the man who was waiting
there for me. It was the only time I felt any reaction from my Edward beyond his
silent support, his hands twisting slightly tighter around mine and his breath
catching. And I felt his eyes on me. But I couldn't meet them.

When the story was over, I told my Jacob I would always love him. And then I
told him I was sorry and I begged him for his blessing.

And then I introduced him to my fiancé.

"I - I brought Edward with me," I whispered, and my voice only barely carried
above that of the wind. "I wanted you to meet him. I think - I think if you had
known each other that you would have been friends. He saved my life, Jacob.
He's … he's such a wonderful man. And I know I'll be happy with him. I already
am. I love him. So much."

My voice disintegrated into silent sobs then, my head slumping against my
Edward's hip as his hand tangled in my hair, rubbing the back of my head
consolingly.

And then I heard my Edward's voice finishing my story for me.

"Thank you, Jacob," he said roughly, and I could hear almost as much rawness in
his throat as there was in mine. "Thank you … for everything. I promise I'll take
good care of her."

I looked up at my Edward then for the first time since we'd arrived, seeing those
beautiful eyes ringed with red and shining, and I gripped him all the harder and
kissed his hand and his hip.

"I love you," I mouthed through those last lonely tears.

All he did was stare at me, tracing the wet lines of my eyes and cheeks.

And then, so quietly, he whispered, "I know."

#-#-#

An hour with my Edward, held tightly in his arms in the back seat of his car,
helped find my resolve and my smile, the memory of my past husband fading
away to let me bask in the love radiating from my future one.

And I felt so whole.

Another hour in a chair with Carlie found the blush to my cheeks and the glow to
my hair that sometimes felt so limp and lifeless.

And then I found myself on yet another path. One that led forward and into the
rest of my life instead of back toward my past.

And from that moment on, I never looked back.

#-#-#

The hands at my back were still strong, the gait steady. But instead of pale and
spotted they were warm and brown.

"You look beautiful, Bella," a low voice whispered to me, just as a long, sweet
note from a single violin broke the silence up ahead.

"Thanks," I mumbled, smiling and glancing upward to take in black eyes that
were full of happiness and pride, even as something bittersweet hung just barely
perceptibly at their edges.

Not only did I end up inviting Embry, but after a quiet discussion with Edward, I
eventually asked him to be the one to wheel me down to meet my groom. Since
my father wasn't available, it only seemed appropriate that my deceased
husband's best friend, the man my Jake had asked to watch out for me in the
lonely years after his death, should be the one to see me given away.

Dressed in ivory and lace, my silver hair draped with flowers and tied up in a
simple twist, I made my way down a make-shift aisle, over leaves and sticks, the
wind whipping them against the wheels of my chair.

And at the end of that aisle, standing beneath an overflowing canopy of green,
cascading from a hazy, pale blue sky, stood my partner. My companion. My
Edward.

He stood in a simple suit, a flower in its pocket, his red and silver hair rumpled
slightly by the breeze and by the nervous, repetitive motion of his hand through
its lengths.

And for an instant I thought to myself that I had never seen anything so beautiful
as my fiancé beneath our tree, waiting for me.

But then he saw me. And the smile on his face eclipsed any kind of beauty I had
ever imagined.

My chair rolled to a stop just in front of my Edward, and I found myself beaming
right back up at him as I took his outstretched hand.

And with it, I took his life and gave him mine.

#-#-#

We didn't go in for any sort of pomp or ceremony. The minister who ran the
nursing home chapel said a few simple words, and when the time came, we both
managed to stop crying for long enough to say "I do."

And then he kissed me. And it was the kind of kiss that made me remember what
lips were meant to do.

#-#-#

After the ceremony, we piled haphazardly into whatever cars were available, with
the nursing home van eventually running two full trips back and forth to get us all
over to the Lodge. Safely ensconced within the back room there, we ate and
laughed and drank and endured what felt like hours of toasts and demands for us
to kiss in the form of clinking spoons and knives on crystal. And we obliged them
every time.

At some point, Edward and I were approached by an older couple I'd never met
before, and I watched the way the gentleman's bright blue eyes lit up in exactly
the same way as my new husband's did.

Edward came as close to jumping out of his chair as I had ever managed to see
him do before, embracing the two of them in turn before leading them over to
me.

"Bella, darling, this is my brother, Jasper, and his Alice. Jasper, Alice, I'd like you
to meet my wife."

It was the first time he'd referred to me as such in the present tense, and I found
myself caught on the way the words sounded in his mouth, the way he held onto
two such simple syllables as if they were the most important words he'd ever
said. As if his happiness and pride might just spill over.

I eventually tore myself away from my husband's eyes and the from the emotion
I could see just in the simple bobbing of his throat. But it wasn't without some
effort.

Turning away from him while still holding his hand, I smiled though.

And then I introduced myself to my new family.

#-#-#

We forewent the most mortifying of the wedding traditions, laughing off questions
about garters and bouquets and smooshed cake.

But we still shared our first dance.

It wasn't particularly grand. There was no DJ or big band. Just the restaurant's
built-in speakers and a CD my Carlie had made for me.

But it didn't matter. Because it was my husband and me.

There amidst a shroud of darkness illuminated only by the twinkling lights
wrapped around every beam, my Edward stood before me, his face lit from within
by a smile that spoke of a contentment that was more profound than happiness.
It was an expression of joy so deep and so perfect – made all the more brilliant
for those darkened lines on his face that belied the sad and lonely years that had
come before it.

Reaching down, he wrapped me up in the strong arms that had supported me so
many times before, lifting me high until I could clasp my two small hands around
his neck, my tiny, shaky feet finally coming to rest on the tops of his sure ones.

And then we flew. In huge, wide circles around the room, we twirled and laughed
and kissed. And I was weightless.

And I thought I might never, ever come down.

#-#-#

The night eventually drew to a close, and as if at some sort of a signal, our
friends and family began to disband, each coming up to us in turns to offer hugs
and soft congratulations and farewells.

The very last of them to say goodbye to me was my Carlie, and just as the place
was about to shut down, I found myself in the biggest, most deeply gripping hug
she had given me since she was probably three.

"I'm so happy for you, Mama," she cried, and I let my own leaky eyes continue to
flow.

"I love you so much, baby," I whispered, and she nodded.

Finally, with shaky arms, she let me go.

My Edward was there beside me as she did so, catching my daughter up in an
embrace almost as deep as the one she had given me. After he released her, he
turned to me, smiling that devilish smirk that reminded me our night wasn't over,
at the same time that it seemed to re-awaken secret things inside of me.

Out in the darkness, he was the steady presence behind my chair again, lifting
me into the leather seat and packing away my chair.

When he joined me in the car, I realized it was the first time we had been alone
since we'd left the graveyard.

He turned to me then, the one half of his face lit up in yellow and blue from the
shining lights of the dash. He kissed me once, his hand lingering.

And then with open, loving eyes trained steadily on me, he asked one question.

"So, Mrs. Cullen. Are you ready?"

I pressed my lips to his palm and breathed, simply, "Always."

In the Twilight of My Life, Chapter 21:

For as long as there have been men and women, there have been wedding
nights. Throughout history, there have been discoveries of secret skin and
impassioned expressions of desire, blinding moments of affection and deep
whispers of love and need.

Edward's and mine wasn't the first honeymoon, and for all that it may have been
unconventional, it wasn't even the first of its kind.

But hovering there together at the threshold to our room at the inn in Port
Angeles, both of us staring at the other like there was no one else in the world
and feeling like virgins at seventy-plus years old, it certainly felt to us like it
might have been.

#-#-#

In all our months of awkward fumbling and our brushes of tired, bared skin, we
had come to know each other in almost all the ways a man could know a woman.

But never this way.

Between the ache in his healing knee and the weakness in all my limbs, the final
step had always loomed on some far-off horizon, always something for tomorrow.
Or maybe for the day after.

And then the date of the wedding had loomed large. And for all that we were
doing so many things backwards, it seemed right for some reason to do this one
small thing in the order it was meant to be done.

#-#-#

Together, we moved past the threshold and into the room where we would come
to know each other in one final way.

And again we found reasons to delay.

Well into the night, we did all the things one does before going to bed, unpacking
and laying out clothes, talking and sharing observations about an extraordinary
day. We recounted every moment. Every touch. Every word.

And then we were left with only each other. And it was enough.

#-#-#

The first time Edward and I made love, we approached it the same way we had
every other intimate encounter – slowly, and with intent and purpose and
whispered words of love and affirmation. As he did every time he found my naked
skin, he breathed into my ear the kinds of words about my beauty that made me
want to believe them, his hands making long paths along my body and his lips so
soft and warm.

When I touched him, it was with a similar level of tenderness and care.

And passion. There was passion, too.

Nothing about making love at our age was as easy as it had been in my younger
years. There were creaking joints and other considerations of age, and even when
we finally found each other, naked and ready and so close I could feel him
breathe, it was not without effort that we crossed the final inches to bring
ourselves together in that ultimate and most intimate of ways.

But when we were joined, it was with a feeling of union and oneness that took my
breath away, his face so beautiful above mine and my body moving in ways I
didn't know it still knew how to. And yet again I found my eyes brimming over
with tears. Perfect, happy tears of closeness and of a love so soft and all-
consuming, and a deep knowledge that I had everything I had ever been looking
for.

And that I held it all in my trembling hands.

#-#-#

It was still mostly dark outside when I awoke, the very palest tinges of lightness
beginning to creep around the edges of the clouds.

I stretched out on the cool sheets, feeling more present in my own body than I
had in ages, before shifting and turning, seeking out the warmth that I had come
to expect in hushed and early mornings like this one.

But it wasn't there.

Coming into a fuller sense of awareness, I shifted again and pulled myself to
sitting, my eye catching on the extra glint of gold on my hand, and a sleepy smile
stealing over my face.

And then I saw him.

And my smile grew even wider.

Standing out on the little balcony just outside our room, my Edward stood in
almost perfect stillness, his hair in disarray and his whole being possessed by a
calm I had rarely seen in him in all the months I had been in love with him. For a
moment, all I could do was watch him, his face in profile as he gazed out over an
expanse of green and rose and the breaking midnight blue of the early morning
sky, twists of smoke moving lazily around his head.

And even from here I could see that he was smiling.

Pulling my own robe over my bare shoulders and tying it around my waist, I
pushed myself out of the bed and into my chair with a quiet grunt. With stiff
hands, I slipped a single cigarette from the pack on my bedside table before
wheeling myself forward.

The sliding door opened easily beneath my fingertips, letting a cool breath of air
wash over my skin and rustling the fabric of my robe as I rolled out onto the
balcony, pushing it closed behind me and moving silently to my husband's side.

He didn't turn or move, though I knew he heard me coming, a certain slyness
appearing in his smile as his hand reached out with his lighter, his wide green
eyes dipping down to connect with mine. I breathed deeply as he flicked his
thumb to hold that little glowing ball of flame out for me, letting the smoke fill my
lungs that already felt so full.

He returned the lighter to the pocket of his robe before setting his hand down on
the railing, shifting just slightly so that I could rest my head against his side.

"It's beautiful," I said quietly, watching soft pinks and a certain golden glow begin
to steal over the hills and trees before us, the sky lightening before our eyes.

"It's alright," he agreed, the sides of his mouth twitching as he looked me up and
down. "Though I've seen better."

I blushed and let my eyes drift away from his face to peer back out over the
horizon, feeling the peace of the moment and the contentment of having him
beside me.

"You weren't there when I woke up," I said softly.

He hummed and shrugged, puffing gently at his cigarette before speaking.

"I couldn't sleep."

I stared at him impassively, my fingertips shaking only slightly around my
cigarette as I asked quietly, "Something bothering you?"

He turned to face me then, his hand moving down to brush a stray lock of hair
away from my eyes before tucking it tenderly behind my ear.

"No," he whispered. "Nothing at all."

At that, his gaze moved back to the sky and to the woods, his mouth closing
around the cigarette in his hand and then exhaling slowly.

"If anything, I'm just excited," he said, and there was a certain growing
brightness to his voice as he spoke. "It feels like the first day of forever to me."

His eyes drifted over to me again then as his lips curled upward, smiling as he
whispered, "And I can't wait to spend every day of it with you."

I wrapped my hand around his, my whole being filled with the happiness of this
of all moments, kissing the rough knuckles that I loved before resting my head
again against his side.

Staring off into a golden horizon, my husband at my side, I couldn't help but
think of all the twilights we had spent just like this, sharing air and smoke and
our lives.

And when I smiled, it was with my face bathed in the perfect glow of our first
sunrise.