Midday Clouds - The Charlie Swan Story

Chapter 52 (Eclipse 11)

"Billy! To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Hah! That's the Charlie I know. Well, I was just thinking it would be nice to get a group together this weekend to catch the start of the Oilers and Ducks series. Maybe all the kids could come by too, we could do a potluck kind of thing."

It was the first time that Billy, or anyone on the reservation, had planned a gathering of sorts since Harry died. I knew that Billy was thinking about that very fact by bringing this up. It also seemed to be something of an olive branch.

"That would be perfect," I said with a genuine smile. "I've been meaning to swing by La Push sooner rather than later, and I just ended Bella's grounding, so she'll be free to come as well."

"Jake will be glad to hear it, Charlie. I'm thinking I'll invite you lot, the Uleys, the Clearwaters, and whoever else might want to swing by. More the merrier!"

"Sounds good, Billy. How've you been holding up lately?" I asked, concerned about how hard my friend had been taking the sudden and eternal disappearance of Harry from his life. I sure had been having a helluva time adjusting, myself.

"Oh, you know, these old bones are creaking in ways I haven't heard before. You'd think I'd be spared the worst of getting old, given that I can't feel half my body! But it's my elbow joints, they're on their way out. It's pushing the damn chair around. But hey, we keep going until it hurts-"

"-and then we keep going anyway," I said, finishing off what had become something of a motto for him, Harry, and I as we'd navigated the ails of adulthood in our own various ways.

"Okay, Charlie. I'll let you get back to the important work. You just see what you can do about getting Bella out here this weekend! And hey, maybe wear something nice for a change this time? Hah!" He ended the call before I had a chance to rebut, or ask why, exactly, he was telling me to dress up a hockey game.

But it wasn't like I didn't have an idea. I knew that Billy had an inkling of the friendship that had been, well, strengthening between Sue and I over the past few months. It's not that we hadn't been friends before Harry's passing, either, but we had really found ourselves leaning on each other in the wake of his death. That, and the whole highschool sweethearts of it all, definitely left us in a somewhat complicated situation, and one that Billy was clearly aware of.

"Wear something nice," I mumbled to myself as I tidied up my desk. Like there was anything wrong with my plaid button ups. I'd be sure to wear a clean one, of course, and maybe the one pair of jeans that hadn't been worn through with holes (yet), but I woulda been wearing that anyway, no matter who was going to be there, and no matter what Billy did or didn't say about it. Still, I found myself mentally creating an outfit for Saturday in my head when Mark, who usually had the overnight shift but was covering, knocked on my desk. He had a deck of cards in his hand.

"Hey Chief, wanna play a few hands?"

I looked over at the still daunting list of Italian regions and towns I'd yet to cross out, and back to the face of the eager young officer.

"Ah hell. Why not."

—

I got home around 5:30 pm that evening and was perturbed, though not especially surprised, to notice Edward's silver sedan parked in its usual spot at the end of the road. It had been one day of newfound freedom, and Bella was using it in exactly the way I hoped she wouldn't – by spending more time with her boyfriend, and only her boyfriend.

But I was hopeful. Hopeful that Bella would agree to come with me to the Black's place for the game this weekend, hopeful that that would reignite the friendship (or whatever else it might have been) between Bella and Jake, and hopeful that might just drive a wedge between the two doting lovebirds. I didn't exactly want to wish highschool, love-triangle drama on my 18-year-old daughter, but if that's what it took to get her to recognize Edward's toxicity, then so be it. I just worried that Bella might start coming home with injuries again, now that she (and more worryingly, Edward) would be away from my watchful eye.