Our Infinite Sadness

Phenomenon

At dawn, Alice made phone calls to the house as they returned. They all knew now that Edythe was having suicidal thoughts. Just great.

Everyone stayed out of her way. Including Carlisle.

Esme watched her from a distance and longed to say how sorry she was for her faithlessness yesterday. Edythe didn't want to hear it.

Alice helped with Edythe's clothes. Truly she was capable of dressing herself, but the Cullens whenever possible indulged each others' rare and few pleasures. Alice intensely enjoyed unveiling new, untried outfits from garment bags. So Edythe allowed it.

Today Alice dressed Edythe in a smart ankle length linen dress, fine blue and white checks with large blue buttons on the white cuffs of the short sleeves and white satin piping down the back zipper line. Matching satin piping on every seam terminated in bows, giving Edythe the appearance of a wrapped present. She consented easily enough to the choice. It would go well with her favorite hair comb, the sapphire and diamond one, reminiscent of her real eyes, the pale blue eyes that she had lost.

"You dress me like an American Girl doll," Edythe griped, but without conviction. She did appreciate the outfit. Alice patiently braided her hair and set the jeweled platinum comb. Then she pinned a white satin bow atop Edythe's head. She accepted this accoutrement passively, indifferently, despite how ridiculously over the top it would make her look in Forks High School. Edythe was being dressed for the center stage of a Broadway musical, not a day of drudgery.

"Thank you Alice. Lovely, as always."

"I know, right?"

"And I am truly sorry. For my thoughts."

Alice airily said, "Thoughts are not deeds."

"Truly they are not," Edythe averred.

­­­­­_____

The five immortal high school children piled into the silver Volvo. Rex drove. He was in positively chipper spirits.

"Thank God it's Tuesday," he blithely said, unperturbed by the dark mood.

Alice hissed, "Rex. Please. Emilia. Contain him."

Emilia smirked at Alice and said, "And why should I? He makes a good point." Then she said to Edythe, softer, "You've got this. Right Edy? Please tell me you've got this."

Emilia was irritated that they had blown a perfect opportunity to fix 'The Swan Problem' last night. To Emilia's mind, the boy was nothing but a painful wart that needed removal with dry ice. Once the contagion was burned off and excised, the nagging ache would effervesce into nothing, and Edythe would forget which finger it had been on.

Rex drove with particular caution this morning, through a remarkably tempestuous ice storm. The roads were a speed skating course, compounded by steady forty mile per hour winds and fierce gusts equivalent to a tropical storm. He crept down the road at fifteen miles per hour maximum, edging around several spin-outs and fender benders. .

"We'd better find a spot on the lower lot today," Jasper suggested.

"Too right," Rex agreed.

Alice advised them that they'd have no trouble, as half the student body would be running a half hour late. "In fact the robo-calls are going out now. Delayed start, one half hour. A lot of good it does at this point. The roads are already a bumpercar track."

Emilia suggested, "We have time to stop for doughnuts."

Edythe truly appreciated their efforts at diversionary banter and levity, but nonetheless she felt herself sinking into a deep hole. She would have to face Benjamin again today. As Rex had said with his sometimes uncanny precognition, thank God it was Tuesday. That meant no Choir. Edythe would only have to endure Benjamin Swan through the single hour of Biology. He would likely say hello, despite her expressed conviction that basic courtesies and civility were unnecessary. If thusly compelled, Edythe decided that she would hold her breath and return the greeting. That much had always sufficed for the others. This Benjamin Swan fellow seemed not excessively moronic. He would take the hint with at most two repetitions of the lesson, and thenceforth she would have the space and latitude to slowly immolate, as she'd been doing this past century.