Chapter Twenty-Four
She had been busy re-making all the beds in the house when the phone rang. Perching on the edge of her own half-made bed, left till last because it was the largest bed in the house and took the longest to make, she picked up the phone from Carlisle's nightstand, answering with a bright,
"Hello?"
"Mrs Cullen?" the woman on the other end of the line asked softly. Esme hummed softly in confirmation of her identity, trying to figure out why the woman's voice was familiar to her. "This is Nurse Jackson, I work with your husband-"
"Has something happened to Carlisle?" she asked, her voice raising as panic coursed through her veins as all sorts of different scenarios popped into her head – this was her worst nightmare. "Is he ok?"
"He's fine," Nurse Jackson said quickly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to worry you," she sounded genuinely apologetic and Esme couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped her. "I'm calling to give you a message from Dr Cullen because he's a little bit busy at the moment. He wants me to ask you to get the guest room ready because he will be bringing company home with him."
"Who?" Esme asked.
"I'm afraid I can't tell you too much," the nurse apologised softly, "The situation is a little…complicated and the police are involved. All I can tell you is that we have been treating a teenage boy who is…unable to go home."
"Oh no…" Esme gasped sympathetically, her mind now supplying all the reasons that the poor boy couldn't go home. Sometimes she cursed her over-active imagination.
"The social worker that was sent to handle his case was…well there isn't a word I can think of to describe her behaviour but Dr Cullen and myself will both be putting in letters of complaint against her. She was all for throwing the boy in an orphanage…"
"No!" Esme gasped in shock.
"Yes. She was…despicable. Dr Cullen had her thrown out and has offered to take the boy in so that he won't have to go into care, so that he can stay with someone who is actually thinking of his well-being," the nurse finished her explanation and Esme found herself nodding in agreement.
"Please tell Carlisle that I will get the guest room ready and I'll also inform the children of what has happened," she said, her voice filled with determination. "Am I…am I allowed to know the boys name?"
"I don't know…" the nurse said.
"Don't worry. I wouldn't want you to get in trouble," Esme said quickly.
"Sorry," the nurse apologised, "I'd best get back…"
"Of course," Esme agreed, saying farewell to the nurse before hanging up the phone, replacing it into its charger.
For a moment she just sat, worrying about what could have happened to the poor boy and then she pulled herself together, abandoning her own half-made bed in favour of rushing to get the guest room ready, filled with determination to make everything perfect so that they could help the poor boy in any way they could.
Informing the children about the guest Carlisle was bringing home with him had gone almost exactly as Esme had predicted. She'd called them together in the living room, perching on the coffee table opposite them as they squashed onto one sofa. As ever when they sat like this Alice was the one squished in the middle and Emmett had been relegated to perching on the armrest.
A smile flashed briefly across her face as she remembered how often she and Carlisle had watched the four of them fall asleep all squished up on the sofa, back when they were younger and could aril fit on the cushions together.
"A guest?" Edward had asked.
"What sort of a guest?" Rosalie had been immediately suspicious.
"One of Carlisle's patients who needs a place to stay and someone to look after him," Esme had explained, sighing sadly as the suspicious look remained in her eldest daughters eyes. Poor Rosalie.
When they had adopted her they had been told about her background, told what her father had been convicted of…child pornography. Esme had been physically sick, filled with worry that the evil man had done something to the poor little girl but nothing had ever been confirmed and Rosalie had never spoke about it.
But she still worried…and she wasn't a violent person by nature, in fact she abhorred violence…but sometimes she wished she could have five mutes alone with Rosalie's biological father…with a baseball bat.
That horrible man deserved much worse.
"Who?" Emmett had asked, startling her out of her unusually dark thoughts.
"I don't know," she'd answered truthfully and at once the tension in the room rose. Alice had looked worried. Edward had taken over the job of looking suspicious from his blond sister. Emmett had taken on a rather adorable confused look. And Rosalie had gone blank, cutting off all her emotions and retreating into herself like she had when she had first come to them as a little girl. "The Nurse I spoke to couldn't tell me over the phone because of the circumstances surrounding his case," she had explained and the suspicion had slowly faded out of Edwards eyes, replaced by understanding. "All I know is that it is a teenage boy who needs our help. Now, I want you all to be nice to him when he arrives – he'll be nervous and frightened so we need to show him that he is welcome here. Just like we made sure that you knew you were welcome here when each of you joined out family."
They agreed, Emmett announcing that it's be good to have another dude in the house and she'd left them to talk about the latest turn of events as she went to start cooking dinner for everyone.
"Carlisles car just pulled up," Alice told her fifteen minutes later, stepping some of the cheese Esme had been grating, earning herself a slap to the back of the hand. "We're gonna wait in the living room. Emmett wanted to wait at the front door but we talked him out of it," she explained with a smile, "Last thing the guy needs is to be ambushed by us as soon as he steps through the door, right?"
"Right," Esme agreed with a chuckle, moving the bowl of cheese out of her daughters reach before checking on the timer by the oven. "I'll come with you. I've got five minutes or so before I need to put the pasta on."
The two had just arrived in the living room when they heard the sound of the front door opening. Nervously she smoothed back her hair and straightened the pretty apron he wore (a practical but stylish apron made by Alice as a Christmas present), listening to Carlisle as he led their guests up the stairs.
"…and up here on the first level is the living room," he said as he stepped into the room, smiling around at his gathered family. He turned to say something more, probably to introduce them all as the boy stepped into the room after the kind hearted doctor but he was cut off by a loud gasp from Alice,
"Jasper?"
A/N There we go, another chapter at last. Sorry it took so long – life has been so crazy! I've barely had time to think let alone write! Hope you liked it.
