Chapter One

Renee

"I have to go Charlie and I need you to let me."

The look on my husband's face as I spoke those words broke my heart but it was the truth. I had stolen time away from my life's work to find love, a husband, and to my great joy a baby daughter but now I had to return, leaving them behind without a word of explanation. How could I explain? He would never understand, he would think I was making fun of him or lying to hide the truth. I knew Charlie wouldn't just sit back and let me, he tried everything he could to persuade me to stay here in Forks with him and our infant daughter but it was useless.

He watched white faced and uncomprehending as I finished packing my case and carried it downstairs halting only when I reached the front door. I had considered leaving while he was at work but that would have been the coward's way out and although I may be many things, not all of them things I was proud of, I wasn't a coward and he deserved better than a "Dear Charlie" letter. My husband was a good man, a really good man, and he deserved much better than I was giving him.

"How can you just up and leave like this? You owe me an explanation at the very least. You keep telling me that it's not my fault so what is it? Is there another man? And what about Bella? What do I tell her when she grows up? Think about it Renee, whatever the problem is we can work through it, surely nothing can be so bad that we can't sort it out?"

I sighed and stroked my baby's soft downy cheek with the back of my hand as she lay asleep in his arms.

"Tell her that I loved her very much, that I loved you both and that's why I had to go. You're both better off without me and Charlie, please don't try to find me. Just look after our daughter, keep her safe and try to forget I ever existed."

Tears were coursing down his face and damping the fluffy pink blanket wrapped around Bella but I had no choice, I couldn't weaken now despite his pleading words which shook with emotion.

"I love you, Renee, don't go, please."

I shook my head choking back tears of my own as I opened the door and picked up my case packed with everything I needed.

"I'm sorry Charlie. Goodbye."

I almost ran down the steps to the waiting taxi and as it sped away I forced myself not to look back. If I had seen the two people I loved more than life itself standing there I would have ordered the taxi to turn around and I couldn't do that. Instead, I settled back in my seat and closed my eyes fixing the memory of Charlie's face and Bella's scent in my memory. They would cope, Harry and Sue would make sure of that, they were Charlie's closest friends and the best friends either of us could ever have. They were also the best people to watch out for my daughter. Despite my breaking heart I knew I had done the only thing I could and the pain was my own fault for wanting the normal things that every woman wanted despite being no normal woman. My pain, their pain, was all down to my own selfishness.

Charlie

I watched in disbelief as the cab disappeared down the road and wondered what the hell had just happened. Up until last night, everything had been great, my life was perfect, I had a beautiful wife I thought loved me and we had created the beautiful creature asleep in my arms yet this morning my life had crashed and burned before my eyes with no explanation.

We had been at Harry's yesterday for dinner, we spent a lot of time there, Renee and Sue having become firm friends from the very first time they met. Everything had seemed fine until Renee disappeared for an hour without explanation. When she returned she tried hard to act as if everything was fine but I could see something was troubling her. We left earlier than usual and when we got home she put Bella to bed then disappeared for a soak in the tub, something she always did if she needed a little time to herself.

When she reappeared she was quiet and distant, unwilling to talk and took herself off to bed early with "a headache". When I went up a little after ten she was already asleep or at least I had thought she was.

It wasn't until early this morning that I woke to find her already up and packing a case. When I asked her what was wrong, where she was going, she just shook her head but I could see she'd been crying. She refused to answer any of my questions and escaped downstairs while I scrambled out of bed and threw some clothes on.

When I joined her she had made coffee and was preparing Bella's morning feed. At first, I thought she was planning on taking Bella somewhere, was our baby sick? But why a suitcase? I was confused and about to start questioning her again when she turned to look at me and dropped the bombshell.

"I have to go Charlie and I need you to let me."

For a moment I was speechless with shock then I begged her to tell me what was wrong. Whatever it was we could sort it out between us, we were adults and there was nothing so dire it couldn't be resolved, but she refused to say any more. I ran back upstairs to get Bella, hoping the sight of our infant daughter would change her mind but it didn't, and I could see she meant what she had said, I wouldn't be seeing her again. She wouldn't even tell me where she was going and when I called her mom to see if Renee had spoken to her there was no dial tone, it had been cut off.

When there was a knock on the door a few minutes later as I fed my daughter her bottle I jumped up, it must be Renee coming back having decided it was crazy to run away but I was wrong, it was Sue Clearwater. She took Bella from me and walked through to the kitchen picking up the half empty bottle I'd put down and that Bella was beginning to cry for.

"I take it Renee's gone?"

I nodded trapped in misery,

"She rang me a little while ago and told me she was leaving. She asked me to come over and look after you and Bella. Sit down Charlie before you fall down."

I sat down mechanically, my mind whirring with questions.

"Did she tell you where she was going? Or why? She wouldn't tell me anything Sue. What happened yesterday? Something changed while we were at the res, where did she go?"

Sue had no answers for me, Renee hadn't told her any details, just that she was leaving and knew I would need some help and support. She insisted that nothing had happened the day before and I wasn't sure whether I believed her or not but either way I couldn't get anything else from her.

I trudged back upstairs numbly not knowing what to do, I noticed the photo of the three of us still on her bedside locker. Her jewelry, including the gold wedding band I had given her, was in her jewel casket, and most of her clothes still hung in the closet, she had taken only the bare essentials.

An envelope with my name scrawled on it in her familiar script lay on her pillow and I scooped it up hoping it might just explain what was going on.

I opened it with trembling fingers and shook out the contents. A bank book containing what looked like most of the money Renee had earned working part time at Newton's store fell out and a simple note.

"For Bella's future, I wish it could have been more."

That was it, no signature, no explanations, nothing more.

At first, I said I couldn't go to work but then decided it was my best hope of finding out where Renee was going and discovering what exactly why she had left so abruptly. Sue offered to babysit Bella but had a warning for me as I left.

"Leave it be Charlie, don't try to find her."

I turned on her suspicious, what did she know? But sensing the question she merely shook her head,

"If she left without telling you anything then she doesn't want to explain or be found. Let it go, Charlie, it can bring you nothing but heartache. She's gone, concentrate on your daughter now."

I was sure she knew something but even when I begged her to tell me she insisted there was nothing she could tell me that I didn't already know and I had to settle for that, after all, Sue would have told me if she knew anything wouldn't she? Or at least she would have told Harry and he would have passed any information to me, we went way back.

It wasn't until I had shut the front door and trudged down the porch steps that it occurred to me Sue had phrased her answer very carefully. She hadn't said she knew nothing more, only that she knew nothing more that she could tell me. Was I being paranoid? Or did she know more that she wasn't at liberty to tell me?

I drove to work deciding not to tell anyone what had just happened until I knew a little more but also knowing that the news Renee had left town would already have gotten round, nothing happened in Forks that stayed a secret for long, so I told a little white lie, that Renee had gone to look after her mom who had been taken ill. I felt bad about it but for now, I wanted to keep her abandonment of me and our daughter to myself, it was just too raw.

Once ensconced in my office with the door firmly closed I rang a pal in the San Diego P.D and asked him for a favor.

"I think there might be something wrong with Renee's mom, we haven't been able to get in contact with her so could you just do a quick check for me."

He didn't ask any questions, just took the number, but I think he was aware there was more going on here than I was telling.

As I waited to hear back I tried to act as if nothing was wrong and for the most part, I think I succeeded, the office atmosphere didn't feel any different and I hoped I might get to the bottom of the mystery before they found out Renee had left for good. I rang home two or three times to check on Bella and make sure Renee hadn't come home and the news was always the same, Bella was fine and there was no sign of my wife.

It was getting close to the end of my shift when the long awaited call came.

"Sorry to take so long Charlie, we had a multiple shooting to deal with. Are you sure you gave me the right number?"

"Yeah, Renee phones her every week religiously."

He was quiet for a minute and I felt myself tense up,

"Well, I don't know what's going on Charlie and it's none of my business but that number doesn't exist. I tried a trace but it came up empty. I don't know if you got the number scrambled or what. You want to double check it and get back to me?"

I thought quickly,

"No, it's OK, it was just a false alarm, I guess I got the numbers mixed up, sorry to have bothered you."

How could Renee have been ringing a nonexistent number all this time and talk to someone on the other end? She'd told me she and her mom didn't get along and that's why she only rang and never visited, it was also why I never got to meet her even when Bella was born.

I called the cab company that had picked Renee up and found that she had been dropped off, not at the airport as I had expected, but at the train station. Calling in a favor from the clerk at the ticket office I discovered that if she had purchased a ticket she had done so with cash and they had no records that would help me.

It didn't take me long to realize Renee was gone, vanished, and had made very sure that I would have no way to trace her. She didn't use her passport or driver's license and her bank account hadn't been accessed although I knew that would be a dead end, she'd left the book here for Bella. Everywhere I turned was a dead end, Renee's cell phone was switched off and I found it the following day in the trash the SIM card cut into confetti.

As the weeks turned into months and then a year I had to accept that I would never discover where Renee had gone or why and I had my hands full bringing up our daughter alone. When she was old enough I told Bella that her mom had left us and she seemed to accept that although I knew it hurt her but as she grew up she asked more questions that I couldn't answer them, I just didn't know what had happened and the only memories Bella had of her mom were the photographs Renee had left behind and the ache in her chest from being abandoned.