Come Home: Chapter 8

Characters belong to SM and the beautiful music that inspired this piece belongs to Ryan Tedder and his band of musical geniuses. The rest is all from me.

Chapter 8

- 1989 to 2013-

Tanya Jane Cullen was born on July 23, 1989. Renee was there to catalog her
granddaughter's childbirth, much to Bella's horror. We came home from the
hospital three days later, with no idea what we were doing or how to be
parents.

Our college plans vanished when Renee told us we had to get our own place a
few months later. She said she'd paid her dues in the parenting department,
and didn't sign up to house a newborn in addition to the two of us. So, we got
our own apartment, but no matter how hard we tried, we just couldn't make it
work. Daycare was too expensive, so Bella had to stay home with Tanya,
leaving my piddly income to take care of us all. We were constantly late with
rent, and eventually our landlord stopped being understanding and evicted us.

We had nowhere to go and no idea what we were going to do. We fought all the
time, about things like the light bill and our decision to elope. Even though my
relationship with my parents had become strained when we left, I reached out
to my mom, because I didn't have anyone else to talk to. She could sense how
miserable we both were, and one night she offered us the out that would save
our relationship.

"Come home."

I wanted to protest, but I just couldn't.

"Your father and I can help you," Esme continued. "You can stay with us and I'll
watch Tanya. You can go to school and get back on your feet, Bella can work on
her relationship with Charlie and … it's a good choice all around, Edward. Come
home."

Bella and I talked that night, and through her tears, she agreed it was the best
option for us.

We moved back to Minnesota at the end of the month. My parents picked us up
at the airport, and I'd never been so happy to see them. Esme surprised us with
a welcome home party, which all of our high school friends were in attendance
for, and my uncle offered to pay me if I wanted to work in his woodshop, which
I absolutely did.

Over the course of the next six months Bella explored her college options, and
she decided she wanted to study nursing at The College of St Scholastica. She
researched scholarships, applied for the program, and in the fall of 1990 she
became a full-time student.

Woodworking turned out to be the one thing I excelled at, and before long I was
handcrafting furniture. I used my parent's garage as a showroom and pocketed
as much of my earnings as possible. By the time Bella was in her junior year of
nursing school we were able to buy a small piece of property on the outskirts of
Bruno. It was perfect for the three of us, with enough land to build a bigger
house and a shop for me.

Bella graduated with honors in the spring of 1994 and was offered a job at St.
Mary's Hospital in Duluth, the same place she'd done her clinical rotation. It had
taken a while for them to fix things, but Charlie was there at her
commencement, sitting in the chair next to me with Tanya on his lap. Part of
him would always see me as the country bumpkin who ran off with his
daughter, but he accepted our relationship for what it was and we always
treated one another with respect.

Our son Riley was born in the fall of 1996, and our youngest daughter, Kate,
arrived in the spring of 1999. By then we needed more space, so we had
Emmett design us a house, which had a showroom for my furniture attached to
it. We were able to raise our family in a comfortable spot, with our close friends
and loved ones nearby. Life slowed to a good pace, and after enduring all of the
chaos we'd inflicted on ourselves during our teenage years, everything finally
fell into place. We still fought occasionally, but then we'd talk things out and
make up. We watched our kids grow older and enter their teenage years, and
sometimes late at night we'd stay up, reminiscing about the trouble we caused
and praying that they wouldn't throw it back at us tenfold.

We celebrated twenty-five years of wedded bliss in the summer of 2013. Fall
was soon upon us, and then the accident happened.

It was a Friday in October—the 18th to be exact—and I was busy in my shop.
Mrs. Black had ordered an entertainment center, and I was in the midst of
carving an intricate design into each of the legs when my phone rang.

"Shit," I muttered, setting my tools down and heading off to my office. I hated
interruptions, and when I saw "private" flashing across the screen, I got even
more irritated. "What?" I huffed out.

"Is this Edward Cullen?"

"Yes. Can I help you?"

"This is Deputy Daum from the Carlton County sheriff's department. There's
been an accident, Mr. Cullen. Your wife was air lifted to St. Mary's Hospital." I
gripped the phone tightly and fell to my knees. "Mr. Cullen?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to patch you through to the hospital." The next few hours passed by
in a blur. I listened as the emergency room staff spoke to me about brain
injuries, increased intracranial pressure, and hematomas, but the words didn't
sink in or make any sense. I was shaking so bad I couldn't drive, so I called
Emmett and asked him to come and get me. I couldn't see Bella for hours
because they'd rushed her straight into surgery, and when I finally did see her,
the sight ripped my heart out. The whole left side of her head was bruised, she
had tubes coming out of everywhere, and even though she was unconscious, I
could tell she'd endured a tremendous amount of pain.

Angela told me the details of the crash; how the drunk driver coming at her had
crossed the median and hit my wife head on, sending her car toppling down a
steep hill and causing her head to slam had against the driver's side window.
She told me that Bella was unconscious and unresponsive, and that the
information on the CT scans led them to place her in a drug-induced coma. She
sucked the life right out of me with each word she spoke, and when she was
done, I had no idea what I was going to do.

Time passed in slow motion after that. Each day I found myself waiting for
answers that might never come. I stayed strong for the kids, but at night, when
I found myself alone in the bedroom Bella and I once shared, the fears I worked
so hard to push down all day reared their ugly heads, threatening to consume
me. I was lost, spinning in circles and wondering if I'd ever get my life back.

All it took was one small gesture—Bella opening her eyes—to breathe life back
into me, and push me out of my funk.