Fathers

Charlie

Part Eleven

By Simon

Well, it’s a done deal. I’ve proof that Bella and Edward are doing the deed, as it were and I’m about as PO’d about it as a father can get. And the thing that burns my grits the most? Carlisle. Damn Carlisle who couldn’t be bothered to talk to his boy about keeping it zipped.

He has daughters, right? Two of them and he has less than no compunction about them shacking up with two of his sons right there in the family home. You know what they say about the rich being different? Yeah, well I know at least one way you could add to the list of how.

And Bella—what the hell was Renee teaching her all those years she had the kid to herself, you want to tell me that because I’d love to hear that. But, hell, what did I expect when her own mother is looking twice at anything in long pants. She ends up with a third rate semi-pro ball player who can barely keep food on the table, right? No wonder the Cullen life-style started to look good to Bella.

I just wish—damn, I wish she had something better to focus on, if you know what I mean. What’s her plan, huh? You want t tell me that? She looking to get herself knocked up so that there’s a nice shotgun wedding and she can tap into their platinum credit cards and everything that goes with that kind of garbage?

I tried talking to the man, to Carlisle. I tried every damn week, went over to the hospital and sat in his office drinking coffee while he pretended to do paperwork, politely answering any questions I had but not asking anything in return. He’s hiding something—hell, no he isn’t. He’s up front about his feelings that his ‘kids’ are all perfectly normal and just doing what kids do. Excuse me?

He’s just fine that two pairs of his foster kids are shacking up in that big house—he even had the nerve to joke that they only had four bedrooms so someone had to double up and that seemed like the easiest solution. Not funny. Just flat out not funny.

So Edward is the only one in the house with his own room and, damn, it seems that he’s gotten lonely because he’s practically moved my daughter in there with him to keep him warm.

I even mentioned those damn used condoms I found in Bella’s room—you can imagine how pleased that made her old man, right? You want to know what he said? He said—to my face, mind you, he said that I should be happy that at least they’re using protection and being safe. Oh yeah, I’m just pleased as punch.

Why is everyone trying to make it seem that I’m the only one who doesn’t get the point? I get it, all right—I sure as hell get it. My seventeen-year-old daughter is doing whatever she wants and her boyfriend’s family is just fine and dandy with that.

So I suggest to Carlisle that since Bella’s underage maybe I should, could, as the local law do something like file some statutory rape charges again young Edward.

His answer? You’re not going to believe this. His answer was to barely keep a straight face and as calmly as you’d ask someone to pass the butter, say that he didn’t really think I wanted to do that to my daughter.

He’s afraid that I don’t want to do this my daughter? I don’t want to? Excuse me and go to the devil, you arrogant sonofabitch.

So Bella came home last week and announced that the latest is that the Cullens have decided that they’d like to give her a birthday party to celebrate her eighteenth in a few days and, man, she was spitting mad about it, too. Why? Because they know that she doesn’t want any fuss made about the thing and how dare they?

Well, okay, I don’t like them after what’s happened but I have to admit that it doesn’t sound like a death sentence or anything. In fact, it sounds to me like they’re trying to be nice to her but that sure isn’t the way she’s looking at it.

So I talk to her and try to drill some manners into her head and finally, after about three hours of solid back and forth, she agrees to go to the thing and make the best of it. She even asked me to go, but I have to work that shift and I guess she understands because she didn’t push it and stomped up to her room to sulk. I swear, I remember when she as going through the terrible twos but this teenaged thing makes that look like a walk in the park.

That was three days ago and things have gone from bad to I can’t believe this.

First of all she comes back from the party with her arm bandaged, trying to sneak in so I wouldn’t notice, but I get paid to notice things. I didn’t bother to say anything to her, but I noticed.

Then there’s something wrong in Truelove land. I don’t know if the kids had a fight—another fight, I should say or what but something sure went sour fast. Edward is still hanging around but he’s got a big stick up his…well, you know where it is. He barely looks at her and sort of flinches away when she tries to hold his hand or something. He’s even been sitting in the living room with me watching ballgames. Okay, I’ve seen the kid enough to know he’s no sports fan and that’s just not right. He’s avoiding Bella and hiding behind good manners and ‘male bonding’ with me.

So then it really hit the fan yesterday. I came home from work to a dark house, assumed that Bella was with Cullen and let it go for an hour or so until it was pitch dark out, raining and I got concerned. I called the Cullen house and got no answer—with that many people living there you’d think someone would be home on a Tuesday evening around dinnertime. I tried a few times and got nothing, not even a machine so I tried the hospital and was informed that Dr. Cullen was no longer with them.

Excuse me?

I call Hank Jameson, the head of the place and asked him what the hell was going on and was told that Carlisle up and handed in his resignation that afternoon with no warning. He cleaned out his office and walked out, left no forwarding address and didn’t even finish out his shift, saying he’d let them know where to send his last check.

I mean—who the hell do they think they are, you want to tell me that?

They up and leave and take my daughter with them, just like that? They couldn’t call me, let me know something about their plans? The didn’t consider that I might want to know, that I have a right to know?

Why the whole family, why all of them went along with this, I’ve no idea but something stinks about this and I’m damned if this is the end of this.

I’m worried, scared for her and just about as PO’d as I’ve ever been in my life. I’m betting they’ve eloped; waited until she was a legal adult and took off. She’s pregnant, I just know that she is and when I get my hands on Cullen—Edward, I mean, I’m going to tear him apart.
 

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