Bella seemed fine enough the next morning at breakfast -- I always made sure to ask if I could cook some bacon and eggs for her, but she would just insist that she was fine eating that sugary cereal crap -- and when I left for work I noticed that the hazardous snow and ice had, thankfully, melted.
I couldn't tell in the days that followed whether or not Bells was giving me the cold shoulder for worrying Renee with that phone call, or if she was just back to her usual, quiet self. I made sure to give her a bit more space than usual, if it was the former, knowing that the last thing a kid needs is her dad hovering over an icy shoulder.
That's why I was pleasantly surprised to come home a few days later to the smell of something... different. It was as if Renee was back in the kitchen cooking up one of her infamous experiments. It turns out that Bella had taken the time to cook some chicken enchiladas, which were actually better than expected.
"Dad?" Bella asked halfway through the meal, breaking our usual silence.
"Yeah, Bella?"
"Um, I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to Seattle for the day a week from Saturday... if that's okay?"
Given the accident earlier in the week, I was a little hesitant for Bella to be behind the wheel on such a long trip -- even if she wasn't technically driving during the last car crash. I was happy that she was asking permission, though, and realized that this was an incredibly important parenting moment.
"Why?" I asked.
"Well, I wanted to get a few books - the library here is pretty limited -- and maybe look at some clothes," she said. My daughter, the reader. Well, I could get on board with that -- maybe I could even come with, and it'd be like the old days when we used to drive out to Port Angeles for ice cream and a movie when Bella was younger. Hell, I'd even pay for the gas. I'd have to play this cool, though.
"That truck probably doesn't get very good gas mileage," I said, laying some groundwork.
"I know, I'll stop in Montesano and Olympia -- and Tacoma if I have to," she said.
"Are you going all by yourself?"
"Yes."
"Seattle is a big city -- you could get lost," I noted, leading up to the real ask.
"Dad, Phoenix is five times the size of Seattle -- and I can read a map, don't worry about it."
"Do you want me to come with you?" She seemed to simmer on the question for a moment, and I held my breath.
"That's all right, Dad, I'll probably just be in dressing rooms all day - very boring," Bells said, dismissively. I kind of figured that'd be the answer I'd get, and I knew better than to push it.
"Oh, okay," was all I said in response.
"Thanks," she said, smiling. It was only then that I remembered that next Saturday was supposed to be the high school dance -- I'd seen the flyers up all over town over the past few weeks.
"Will you be back in time for the dance?"
"No - I don't dance, Dad."
"Oh, that's right," I conceded, and left it at that. I figured if Bella didn't want to go to some dance, I shouldn't try to make her. I did worry about this upcoming trip to Seattle, though -- it's a tough, winding four hour drive. Well, I'd bring it up again sometime before that Saturday, just to make sure her plans were all in order... and as safe as possible.
Bella brought up another trip a few days later during dinner, and I was much happier to hear about this one. She had been invited by her new friends to head over to First Beach in La Push -- a place the two of us had been to countless times while visiting Billy and his family back when the kids were little.
It's a beautiful land -- as is all the area falling within the Quileute Indian Reservation. Hell, the Quileute people likely lived on all the area from Port Angeles to Forks, too, up until the colonizers arrived to settle the rainy area, and corralled the Indigenous people who were already here to a pitifully small piece of land on the coast. Thinking on it too much made me feel guilty for my place as a police officer in a society built upon the unlawful seizure of land, genocide, and complete lack of meaningful reconciliation in the decades to follow, but I'm honored to at least be considered a friend by Billy Black, Harry Clearwater, and many of others the Quileute Tribe.
Bella snapped me out of my thoughts by asking about the area.
"Dad, do you know a place called Goat Rocks or something like that? I think it's south of Mount Rainier."
Hm, pretty sure that's where Harry went hunting a few months ago.
"Yeah - why?"
She shrugged. "Some kids were talking about camping there."
"It's not a very good place for camping," I said, worried about just how knowledgeable that Newton boy was about the surrounding area -- sure, his dad sold backpacks to hikers, but I didn't know if his knowledge had been passed down to the son. "Too many bears. Most people go there during the hunting season."
"Oh," Bells murmured. "Maybe I got the name wrong."
I sure hoped so -- no daughter of mine would be camping in bear country.
Bells went on her trip the next day, and though I was a little concerned about something bad happening, I was happy that she was spending more and more after school time with friends. I made sure to ring up Billy to let him know that Bella would be in the area, and he said that Jacob would be more than happy to swing by the beach to make sure she was doing alright. Knowing Bella, she'd accidentally fall off a cliff or something, so it was good peace of mind that Jacob would be around. That boy had become something of a nephew to me over the years, seeing as I'd been around him more than I'd seen Bella as he grew up into the strong, smart young man he was now. I knew that they were both far past the age of planned play dates or anything of the like, but I wondered if there wasn't some way Billy and I could get the two of them to spend more time together.
Of course, there had been that little rift between myself and the Black family a few years back, once I'd heard word that some of the younger Quileute boys were refusing to be taken to the hospital since Dr. Cullen started working there. Now, usually I'd let bygones be bygones, and I knew that both Billy Black and Sue Clearwater had their First Aid in a pinch, but the thought of some young man falling ill, or losing a limb to infection, or any number of things, just because they didn't like the newcomers didn't sit right with me. I'd tried to get Billy to use his authority to put an end to ridiculousness, but he merely gave me a dark look and told me to leave it, so I begrudgingly did.
When Bella got home from her trip she said that she had some homework to do and that she wasn't hungry. I wanted to ask her how it had gone (I was happy to see that she was still in one piece), but I could tell that she wanted to be left alone so I made something up about a basketball game so she wouldn't feel obligated to stay downstairs.
I went fishing the next day; the first day off I'd had in a long while, and though I'd have loved to have spent it with Bells, I knew she'd likely just be shut up in her room. It was a hard thing to accept, as I cast line after line into the Sol Duc River north of town, that Bella likely wouldn't ever want to go fishing with her old man like we used to, but I guess that's what happens when kids grow up. I just wish like hell I hadn't missed so much of those growing up years.
I managed to hook a large catch by the end of the day, and after killing the fish, cleaning them, and offering a quick Quileute prayer that Billy had taught me (though really more of a "thanks") to the river, I packed up and headed back home. Bells was there when I arrived, though she seemed to have her nose in some school work. I left her to it.
The next morning was bright and sunny, and I was glad; it hadn't been this nice out in the entire two weeks that Bells had been living here, and I was happy for her to see that it wasn't raining all the time in Forks.
"Nice day out," I said to Bells when she came downstairs for breakfast.
"Yes," she said, flashing a grin wider than I'd ever seen on her teenage face. The sight made me smile back in a way I'd seldom done myself -- at least not since those golden years with Renee.
Work went by as usual -- there's not much for a chief of police to do in a town as quiet as Forks. Old Mrs. Dunlop did call in to report that the rare sunshine we were seeing that day was annoying her cats, though, which didn't necessarily constitute a visit from a police officer, but I went over there anyway -- I knew she'd been lonely since Dale died two years ago, and sometime all the people really need is someone to chat with for a few minutes.
Bella was reading in the backyard when I got home. She ran in to start dinner, even though I'd insisted time and time again that she didn't need to feel obligated to cook for me -- it's not like I hadn't been capable of feeding myself for the past decade and a half.
"Sorry, Dad, dinner's not ready yet - I fell asleep outside," she said, heating up some oil on the stove.
"Don't worry about it," I said. "I wanted to catch the score on the game, anyway."
Bella decided to join me on the couch after dinner, which was a rarity, so instead of the baseball game I figured I should change the channel to something more her speed. I found a sitcom that she seemed to enjoy, and I was happy enough to finally be spending some time with my daughter away from the dinner table.
"Dad," she said during a commercial, "Jessica and Angela are going to look at dresses for the dance tomorrow night in Port Angeles, and they wanted me to help them choose... do you mind if I go with them?"
"Jessica Stanley?" I asked. It was important to know which families to call if anything bad were to happen to the kids.
"And Angela Weber."
I wondered if this meant that Bells had decided to go to the dance after all, and would maybe be cancelling that solo trip out to Seattle on Saturday.
"But you're not going to the dance, right?" I asked.
"No, Dad, but I'm helping them find dresses - you know, giving them constructive criticism."
"Well, okay," I relented, knowing that the act of shopping -- while wrongfully cast in a negative light by a patriarchal society due to its manufactured adjacency to femininity -- was a great way for friends of any gender to bond. "It's a school night, though," I added, just to make sure she wouldn't be out in the city too late.
"We'll leave right after school, so we can get back early. You'll be okay for dinner, right?"
"Bells, I fed myself for seventeen years before you got here," I reminded her, though I was touched by her needless worry.
"I don't know how you survived," she joked. "I'll leave some things for cold-cut sandwiches in the fridge, okay? Right on top."
What did I ever do to deserve such a sweet, caring daughter?
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