Carlisle's Diary

She's Gone

Dear Diary: July 13, 2013

I'm still trying to absorb just how blind I have been lately; how blind we all have been and selfish. It has seemed perfectly normal to go about our daily routine and not really realizing that one of our most beloved members, the only woman who kept me whole in every way possible, has been feeling like she was no longer needed. Even worse, she feels like "part of the furniture." The fact that I'm writing this at all is amazing considering this woman; my wife is still not here. She's still not home. As I know all of you know more than me about this as she had written it down; I will tell you what happened from where she left off.

3 days after that hunting trip, I had finally decided to go back to the hospital. I had a whole week off, and it was actually Esme who called the hospital and spoke to Bill about my taking the time off. She told him that I was helping lift some furniture and a piece slipped, spraining my arm pretty badly. Bill told her that it was not a problem and even laughed when she said that she would staple my trousers to the floor in order for me to not go to work. I wasn't going to go against her wishes; I liked all of my pants in one piece, thank you very much!

That morning I got dressed and was very happy to be returning to work. I hugged and kissed Esme on my way out of the door. She seemed a bit more quiet then usual, but I didn't think much of it at the time. I walked out and--without looking back--got into my car and drove away. Hindsight is 20/20 and how I wish now that I had looked back. Would I have seen her pain? Would she have shown it to me?

I worked a full 9 hour day and had quite the variety of patients. Charlotte was back from her honeymoon and we took some time during lunch to talk about it and how much she appreciated everything Alice did for her. We were in a good mood even though we were both in the ER that day. And boy did we have a zoo and a half in there. First of all, 3 teenage girls were brought in handcuffed to their respective gurneys because they'd apparently attacked another girl who finally got the nerve to fight back and she had hit them all with her tennis racket. She was also at the hospital because they had actually stabbed her. How she still managed to defend herself, is beyond me.

After that we had 5 (not kidding) women go into labor within 7 minutes of each other; 2 were delivered via C-section. The others were natural births, one of which had quadruplets. After all of that, we had a few mentally ill people who had gone off of their medications come in to be readjusted or sent to the psych ward for evaluation. One of them was convinced that I was a walking tree and that I had a tail which he was trying to grab; that was a new one for me, I have to admit.

I then changed back into my regular clothes and went home, when I got there it was still relatively light outside. All of the cars were in the driveway, so I parked mine and walked into the house where most of my family was lounging around in one way shape or form. All of the Watchers were conspicuously absent, though we knew they disappeared from time to time to do whatever. I didn't give it much thought and went upstairs to change out of my office clothes into comfortable home clothes and my favorite loafers.

Expecting to see Esme in our master suite, I was surprised to find the rooms empty. As I changed, I felt that something was off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Needless to say, I went downstairs and joined my family who were all doing some various form of debating. Some were talking about parties while others—especially the men—were talking politics. I sat down in my favorite chair and took out that day's brand new New Hampshire Times and started to read. I don't know how much time had passed because I had already reached the business section of the paper when I heard Bella speak up.

"Um, where's Esme?" she inquired.

Everyone looked around, quite obvious that she wasn't in the room with us.