Writings

“Do you remember your family?” I asked Jasper.

He nuzzled himself into my shoulder, before he sighed.

“Alice…these conversations end badly.”

I shrugged. “I want to know.”

“You don’t remember yours.”

“I know I don’t. That’s not the point.”

He rolled over in bed, flinging one arm over his head and staring up at the ceiling. I took advantage of the hole and snuggled up to him, resting my head against his chest under his arm.

It took him a long time to answer.

“I had two brothers,” he said quietly. “I don’t really remember their names. Tad, maybe. I think that’s what we called one of them.”

“Older?”

“Younger.” He closed his eyes. “I went off to war because I had to protect them.”

“And your parents?”

“Mama was a washerwoman. Daddy ranched, until the Indians came. That was before the government made the treaty with them.” He grimaced.

“Don’t you think that’s fair?”

Jasper rolled over, propping his head up on one hand.

We see well in the dark, much better than humans—or so I’m told. So I could see every bit of Jasper’s body as he lay on top of the covers, the way his eyebrow wrinkled a little bit as he frowned at me.

“Life isn’t fair, Alice,” he said.

He got up and walked to the window without taking a blanket. The moonlight bounced off his naked skin, making him look an odd shade of blue.

“Nothing about any of this is fair to a one of us.”

Forward

He only let me listen to the Nocturnes. If it was Rachmaninoff, with the loud pounding chords, everyone was supposed to stay away. Joplin, Esme was allowed to come and stand behind him with her hands on his shoulders, and run her fingers through his hair like he was a little boy. Mozart and Hayden (who I didn’t know before I knew Edward, but who I learned), those were okay for everyone to hear, as long as we kept our distance.

But the Nocturnes, I knew, I was allowed to sit on the bench and watch. The way his fingers moved over the keys, the way his head rocked toward the keyboard and then away from it, like it required his entire body to play.

It’s a good thing that vampire minds can go so many directions at once, because it’s necessary. When I get a vision, I don’t get a choice about whether or not I see it; it’s always there.

Carlisle decides to come downstairs and announces he’s going to build a fire. Rosalie decides to thumb through the automotive catalog. That makes Esme think of something she wanted from Sears. She moves the flowers aside on the kitchen table to make room for the catalog.

I see all of it, like a ticker tape machine, and I sit there, waiting for my stock to turn up. Waiting for the part that involves me, or the part that I need to change.

Esme closes the catalog.

“It’s quiet in here,” she says, and she looks pointedly at Edward.

And Edward takes the hint, and stands up, and wanders toward the piano.

He starts to play Chopin.

In my mind, I quietly cheered.

Across the room, Edward looked up.

And then Carlisle came down the stairs.

“I think I’m going to build a fire,” he said.

Forward

Even though it would be one of the biggest accidents ever on the Trans-Canada highway, the Calgary accident started with one car. One car that hit one patch of ice at the wrong angle, or going a tiny bit too fast. It spun, and hit a car going in the other direction, which made that car spin, and that car wound up under a semi, which buckled in the middle, which slammed into another car.

It’s always a possible outcome, any time anyone gets in any car. There’s always one outcome of deciding to get behind the wheel that is a terrible crash. I’ve learned not to even worry about it.

That’s the thing about seeing the future. When you do, you know that every single day ends in death. And every single day ends in happiness. It’s just a matter of which choices get made by whom along the way that decide which outcome you get today.

That day, the driver of that one car got the death outcome.

So did a lot of other people.

And that last part? That was my fault.

Forward

When I first saw Jasper, I saw him with the pale gold eyes of one of our kind. He was running through the woods, as lithe as he always has been, barefoot, and with only a pair of pants rolled up to the knee.

He sprang at a moose, and as his teeth made contact, he snapped the animal’s neck.

In the vision, I cheered.

Jasper has the power to keep from attacking humans; he always has had it. I thought it was a matter of making a choice.

But that night in Calgary, it was a matter of too great a temptation.

Forward

I found myself alone in the Portsmouth house, which was rare. Rosalie and Emmett were off in Newfoundland, and Jasper was off hunting with Carlisle. Esme was drawing plans for a new house on the back porch.

Edward came home from the library early, sat down. Opened the piano and started to play.

Chopin Nocturnes.

I hadn’t heard them in months.

Taking the invitation, I tiptoed across the living room. Sat down on the bench.

He didn’t get up.

I listened to him play for the better part of two hours. Edward gets lost in his music. He closes his eyes, and he rocks back and forth as he plays, like his whole body is involved in the playing. Like pushing the pedal requires every muscle, and not just his right ankle.

As I listened, I found myself thinking of the photo that got thrown at me. The way the glass shattered and fell out of the frame. The way the woman looked-with her light eyes the same shape as Edward’s. The man, with his strong build and his wild hair.

Their little baby.

The music stopped. Edward pushed himself back on the bench and reached for the keyboard cover.

“Don’t,” I whispered. “It’s good that you remember them.”

The keyboard cover closed with a soft thud and Edward disappeared.

Forward