Beautiful Days

Chapter 54 -"I Am Scared..."

"Esme?" I called as I walked through the first floor of the house.

The others were out for the day to get themselves fed before tomorrow. Jacob had gone with them and Renesmee to keep up with Sam and his pack in Forks and Esme and I stayed home. I would go for a quick hunt right after the others return tomorrow morning, so that Esme would not be alone.

I had just come home from going to med school to talk to Emily. The first exams will start in a week and I couldn't possibly go to any lecture right now, so I gave her the material for my students with audio records for them to get properly prepared before the exams. I hoped I would be able to go to the exams in a week anyway...

I sighed and shrugged out of my coat and hung it on the dresser in the hall. I half expected Esme in the living room or winter garden, but there was no trace of her. She neither was in the kitchen nor in my office or the library. I closed my eyes and concentrated on her heartbeat and sighed when I knew where she was... Haven's nursery.

I took a deep breath and climbed up the stairs to the second floor. I walked past our bedroom and Carlie's nursery and peeked inside her nursery for a second. The sadness overwhelmed me and I missed our children so much...

The sun peeked through the light pink curtains of her nursery and let the mobile sparkle over Carlie's crib.

I walked inside, telling myself to just take a peek and leave as fast as possible. Carlie's blue teddy bear sat abandoned in the cradle, the pink blanket with her name embroidered lay over the side and I took it into my hands and held it to my face. It still smelled of Carlie... I sighed and held it close as I walked over to the changing table.

 The sunrays let the golden bracelet glisten on the shelves next to her multiple fairytale books. I took her small bracelet with the crest of our family into my hand and inhaled deeply. As I turned around and took the nursery in, I noticed how abandoned it looked to me... It looked like it always did, but it was indescribably; Carlie was missing in here...

Her teddy rarely ever was alone in the crib, he was always close to where she was and had to go everywhere, including the bathtub and the sand box in the garden ever since she could crawl and then walk. I smiled sadly as I remembered her toddling through the house, the teddy always in one hand... And there were always some toys on the ground in here. No one of us was fast enough in cleaning after our little whirlwind. It was artificial in a way, too tidy, a nursery in which no child would ever again play or sleep in...

I laid the bracelet back to its place on the shelf and put the blanket back over the crib, before I left the nursery without a backward glance, I couldn't... If I'd ever walk back into this room, then either with Carlie in my arms or after a very long time (if ever)...

I closed the door behind me and slumped against it with a heavy sigh. I was on the brim of crying, but tried to stifle it to stay strong enough for Esme.

As I leaned against the door, I could see her standing next to Haven's cradle in the corner and without another thought I lifted myself up and walked with determined steps into Haven's room.

This room, too, was too tidy, like there had never been a child in it... Haven was only five weeks old and he hadn't really been in here as it was, because he either slept with us in the bedroom or he was with us in the house. This room though was worse than Carlie's nursery, because it was hardly finished.

The paint was standing unopened in the corner for the wall painting, I still had to build up the changing table in the corner, Esme had planned to buy a rocking chair for his nursery as well and the spot was still unused and the half finished mobile of small airplanes and hot-air balloons lay on the shelf... It didn't look as bad as it might sound, but it didn't look like the nursery that especially Esme had wished for our son. Unlike the pregnancy with Carlie, we hadn't had any time to get this properly prepared before Haven's birth. There was the battle with the Volturi, Esme's almost death, her recovery, then the complications with Haven...