A/N: Stephanie Meyer owns Twilight.

Twanza does so much more than betaing: thank you for kicking my butt and holding my hand.

o o o

The summer she turned ten years old, Bella Swan came home from soccer practice one Saturday morning to find her parents sitting at the kitchen table silently and obviously waiting for her. The room was filled with sunshine, but the air was still and tense in a way that Bella had never quite experienced in her short life.

At first she welcomed the apparent peace, the unexpected absence of terse words or loud music to drown out loud, angry voices, but, bbut it was a short-lived relief that quickly died the moment she saw her parents' expressions: Renee's face was stony and drawn, her lips pursed tightly and her nose wrinkled with the effort it seemed to take her to focus on a single spot on the table in front of her. And as if that had not been enough, seeing Charlie immediately cemented the certainty that something momentous was taking place: Bella had never seen her father cry, and she was shocked to the core, terrified at what catastrophe might have caused him to weep so openly and so profusely. He was a different man right then, not her cheerful, steady father, but a weakened boy who seemed to struggle with grasping the basics of his surroundings and of her very presence. So fragile, so vulnerable, a stranger.

Her first reaction was purely physical: adrenaline shot through her and she could feel her legs tingle with the impulse to start moving, to get away, away, before it was too late, but her mother's hand and her kind, imploring eyes reached her before she could back out.

"Sit down, baby. Your daddy and I have something to tell you." Renee's voice was steady and low, unwavering despite the sob that now escaped her husband's chest. Her hand, however, shook noticeably and Bella felt a wave of nausea rise to her throat. She feared she might throw up, there and then.

She did as she was asked, though, and held on to her mother's hand as if it could reverse whatever nefarious mechanism had started to work in the engine of their lives. She turned to her father and her heart broke a little, irrevocably, when he wouldn't, or couldn't, meet her eyes.

"What is it, Mom? What's going on?" Her brain quickly conjured all sorts of monstrous scenarios involving disease, death, financial ruin or natural disasters: pushing back the mundane reality that should have been obvious to her long ago.

"Isabella," her mother began, using her full name for only the second time in her life; and then, as if to rectify that, "Baby..."

Renee swallowed hard, stopped talking and turned to Charlie, daring him to join in, to rise to the occasion, to lessen the blow by sharing the responsibility of delivering it.

Reluctantly, Charlie reached out for Bella's other hand, and it was like this, joined in a broken triangle, that Bella heard the words that would end her childhood and forever change the way she saw the world.

"Bella," she paused, gathering strength, "your Dad and I have decided to get divorced." Renee's voice broke on the last syllable, and the next words came out in a rushed whisper: "I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry."

"What? No... Why?" Bella's incredulity dulled her pain and delayed the inevitable heartbreak. It was shock, pure and simple: an almost overwhelming feeling that this was a bad dream, a misunderstanding; that it was all happening to someone else.

Charlie found his words then.

"It's nothing you did, darling... it's been a long time coming. Your Mom and I, we love you very much. More than anything, and nothing will ever change that. But we don't love each other anymore, not the way we should. It's time for us to go our separate ways. I'm sorry, Bells."

Bella said nothing.

Later on, in the lonely months that followed, she would lie awake in her bed at night wondering when it all started- when it all ended. Years later she would finally see that her parents had stopped being a unit a long, long time before that fateful Saturday morning; that they probably never were. She would come to realize that the way they'd never sit in the same room without her for more than a few minutes at a time, that the tears and muffled screams she'd hear through closed doors when they thought she was asleep, and above all the apathy and detachment that characterized their family life were all clues, laid open for her to see; dots just begging to be connected.

But at that time she had no way to understand that this, her life, her family, was what unhappiness looked like. She had nothing to compare her life to and thought it had all been normal, commonplace, fixable.

She hadn't even know it was broken.

Shock made her numb and so the next few hours were a blur. The copious tears that were shed that day in that sunny Arizona kitchen were not hers; the drawn explanations of logistics and changes that lay ahead for her evidence of meticulous planning that had likely taken place many months ago.

There was no more shouting, and no more bitter words, and Bella thought it strange that in this, in the process of their separation, her parents appeared to me more calm, more focused, and more in tune with one another than they'd been for a very long time.

Bella was stunned by how smooth and efficient the process of terminating a marriage, a family, could be; she was amazed at how quickly boxes were packed, cars were sold, surnames changed, new jobs sixteen hundred miles away were found and signed up to. Holiday and visitation plans were drawn and she learned that she would continue living in Arizona with her mother, that Charlie would come spend every Christmas and Easter in Phoenix (though not at the house, which was no longer his house), and that, from now on, she would be spending her summer holidays with him in Washington State.

"Why Washington State? Why not California? Why not stay in Phoenix?" She asked her father, confused and overwhelmed by the distance he was willing to put between him and her. But Charlie had not responded, shaking his head gently, as if this was just a detail, unimportant, secondary; an obvious fact that she should have grasped all by herself.

Only three weeks later, and mere days before she was due to go back to school, they all drove together to the airport - the last time they would do so as a family. Bella waved goodbye to Charlie as he walked through security to board a plane that would take him all the way up north to the small city of Forks, where he would take up a new position as general surgeon in a small county hospital.

Renee and Bella drove back home that afternoon in silence and that night, Bella asked her mom if she could stay with her just that once. She fell asleep with a tight, hollow longing in her chest that she knew was there to stay.

o o o

That same summer, in Forks, Seth Cullen broke his arm as he was trying to climb a particularly slippery tree that his twin brother, Edward, had conquered without any hesitation or difficulty. The arm was reset by their father, Dr. Carlisle Cullen, and was only a minor hindrance to the rest of their holiday plans as Seth quickly learned to ride his bike, play soccer, and kick his brother's ass on the Xbox one-handedly. Nothing, not even a broken arm and an itchy, bulky cast could dent Seth's determination to live life to the fullest.

Edward practiced the piano every day, without gaining any sense of pleasure or satisfaction from the act. He felt an innate need to achieve perfection in everything he did, and ran scales again, and again, and again, until his fingering was flawless and there was no more room for improvement or criticism.

Their older brother, Jasper, learned to drive, thanks to the infinite patience of their mother, Esme, and her battered old manual-stick Volvo, the clutch of which bravely bore the brunt of his petulance. Freedom was only a step away for him, and he looked forward to the day he'd have his license and would finally be able to escape his dependence on his family and their increasingly alien rhythms and desires.

o o o

On the last day of the summer holidays Esme sat outside on the porch, weighed down with an unidentified sense of anguish and loss, and waited for her husband to come back from the hospital.

When Carlisle came home, he sat next to her. The night was cold but unusually dry and they could see the stars through the trees. He gratefully grabbed the mug of steaming tea she proffered.

"Things are never really going to be the same again, are they?" Esme reflected and placed her head on her husband's shoulder.

Carlisle turned to her and smiled.

"Why so melancholy tonight, my darling?"

"I don't know," Esme sighed. "Jasper all grown up, and the twins already lost in a world of their own." She paused, as visuals of Seth and Edward's intricate games and insistence on spending so much time locked in their room flitted through her mind. "I feel like this was the last summer of their real childhood, you know? From now on, it will all accelerate out of control. Out of my control."

Carlisle put his arm across Esme's shoulder and pulled her close to him. He kissed the top of her head and rubbed her arm in a soothing motion. He knew what she meant, even though he didn't share her somewhat dramatic vision of everything coming to an end. Perhaps because he was a doctor or more simply because he was an optimist, Carlisle believed in organic growth, in the ebb and flow of life, in gradual, harmonious changes, not in sudden, harsh, water-shedding breaks.

But he also recognized Esme's maudlin musings for what they were, a fleeting moment of sadness in her otherwise pragmatic and positive approach to life and parenting; no words were needed from him, just his silent presence and unspoken support.

As they sat together in the rapidly chilling night, Carlisle recalled the slumped shoulders and vacant stare of his newest coworker, Dr. Charlie Swan, who had arrived today from Arizona with dark circles under his eyes and the ghost indentation of a missing wedding ring on his left hand. He counted his blessings: the solid, real weight of the house behind him, his lovely, loving wife next to him, and his healthy sons upstairs in their rooms.

"Let's not worry now about a future we know nothing about, darling." He got up and gently pulled her to her feet. "Come on, let's go to bed."

o o o

A/N: thank you for reading!

Special thanks to Evilgiraffe, HoochieMomma and MizzHyde for listening, squealing and encouraging me, and to my amazing TSA friends for putting up with me despite my lack of Drarry credentials.