"Dad never comes to these," Elspeth tells her grandma. "Too many strange Bells. If there were strange Edwards, Mama might have trouble with them too, but there aren't so far. But I can reintroduce you now, if you'd like."
"Eggs are very popular among the high-metabolism set," laughs Elspeth. "Someone must have stashed them here. You can eat them, you can wait for whoever it was to run out of their own fridgeful and hand them over."
"How much do you remember? I can fill in most of the rest," she says. "Your father didn't have much to do with raising you."
"Almost nothing. Faces, half faded out. I knew your name, and that I was a Junior before I started using 'Cullen'. I could probably find the place we lived, if I went to Chicago. I have - automatic answers to standard autobiographical questions, and not all of them are attached to the various cover stories. Beyond that, nothing much."
"Well, let's see... you had no grandparents," she says. "At least three of them were dead when you were born, and I wouldn't have known my father if I passed him in the street. Not that I was allowed to tell you that, because Edward Sr. had very definite ideas about which parts of my life were acceptable for polite company. You did have an uncle on your father's side - nothing on mine except Chris, until she died. Is that the kind of information you're looking for?"
"Melancholy philosophizing. Yes, this is a tendency I recognize," says Lizzie, smiling.
Lizzie does not approve of Edward Masen, Sr. He had lots of money, which was nice, and he did genuinely love her, which was also nice, but he completely fell down when it came to parenting his child and if the practical considerations (i.e. money) hadn't been so hard to overcome, she probably would have left him over it. As it is, she tried to minimize the damage. It's hard to tell how well she succeeded.
"No, that's your wife's area of expertise. Although I guess you could always ask her for tips."
It's perfectly familiar, except for the change of species. There were a lot of hugs in Edward's childhood, and the majority of them were from his mother.
Is that the kind of information he is looking for?
It has the potential to be, but it's not what she'd expect, going on secondhand information about Esme and Carlisle. She's not competitive. Edward can have as many mothers as he wants. He can start a collection. Just as long as he doesn't start keeping them all in glass cases in his basement, because that would be inconvenient and sort of creepy.
That surprises a laugh out of Edward. "I don't know if 'mother' would be the best way to describe the relationship, anyway, except for convenience's sake, inadequate words for the odd configurations that crop up in covens - we often presented that way, but just as often I posed as her brother. Once as her nephew. Carlisle I do have more of a filial feeling for, and she's his wife, in addition to being a generally motherly person."