As New Moon opens on the morning of her eighteenth birthday, Bella is dreaming of her grandmother—her dear, old, wrinkled grandmother. Edward—beautiful, youthful Edward—saunters into the scene, and Bella is faced with having to tell her grandmother she loves a vampire—and she thinks that’s the disturbing part of the dream. But suddenly, Bella realizes:

There was no Gran.
That was me. Me in a mirror. Me—ancient, creased, and withered.
Edward stood beside me, casting no reflection, excruciatingly lovely and forever seventeen.

Tick Tock

Forever seventeen. Two simple words, and yet they provide three books’ worth of heartache for Bella and Edward. By the end of Breaking Dawn we know that everything turns out swell for the two (now three, counting Renesmee), but while Bella is still human, growing up and growing old are major concerns for her. After all, as New Moon opens, year eighteen is already in the rearview mirror for Bella, and she’s zipping along toward nineteen. After growing up comes growing old, and in the framework of Edward’s eternal life, Bella’s eightieth birthday is just the blink of an eye away.

At least that’s the way it feels to Bella, because she lives in historic time—that is, time that passes, that speeds along from one moment to the next from birth to death. Historic time can’t be slowed down or stopped or repeated. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end for each of us. The choices that we mortals make in this “time zone” really matter,  …