Guyssssss, This chapter is slightly indulgent in the sense that I got to write Dorothy as an original character. She just came to life as a really important figure in the formation of Emmett that I used as a tool to explain his development/ subsequent relationship with Rosalie, but she's got such a beautiful personality and heart that I owed her time as a stand-alone character, as well as a little bit of a tool in Rosalie too. (no spoilers). I loved getting to write Emmett's family though, and to me this interaction is just as important in the character development we'll see in Rosalie as well.
In a way, I also wanted to write Dorothy as a foil character for Rosalie to highlight character development and Rosalie's struggles with no longer being human. Emmett's mother was also a foil character for Rosalie in my mind because of class/ socioeconomic status but also sheerly because of maternal energy and whatnot.
These next two chapters were VERY hard to write though in the emotional sense. It is HEAVY, and I understand this deals with a lot of dark topics. Because of that TRIGGER WARNINGS EXIST FOR THESE CHAPTERS. The grand narrative can be read without these next two chapters if you are uncomfortable reading them. Please take care of yourselves and your mental health.
TW: Abuse, violence
St. Jude
Another conversation with no destination
Another battle never won
And each side is a loser
So who cares who fired the gun?
And I'm learning, so I'm leaving
And even though I'm grieving
I'm trying to find the meaning
Let loss reveal it
St. Jude, the patron saint of the lost causes
Rosalie - Not a Home
I looked toward the window, watching as the sky began to turn grey.
The rain would start soon, clouds covering the sky in a heavy blanket across the Southeast. It was the perfect day.
I closed my box now, satisfied with packing. I started toward the coat rack where I'd hung a white day scarf and some gloves.
I slipped off my current gloves and slipped on a nicer lace pair and wrapped a white scarf over my hair.
Emmett, Edward, and Carlisle had gone hunting before we'd be getting on the road tomorrow morning. It was a perfect time for me to leave on my own mission.
"Where are you going?" Esme asked in conversational curiosity.
I could tell she was really just itching to talk to me about my extended absence, but I denied her.
"I've got to go into town and grab some things before we leave." I lied easily.
I threaded my arm through the loop of my bulging handbag. It was thick with the stacks of money I'd stuffed in there.
Emmett didn't need to know where I'd gotten all this money.
It was Royce's money.
Every last cent was Royce's money that I'd taken when I killed him. I don't know why I took it, except sometimes I'd look at the stacks of towering bills as a reminder of my human life and its downfall.
I kept it as a relic of my own naivety and blindness. I'd been so… blinded by his… money and his attractiveness as an eligible bachelor. I'd been so distracted that I couldn't see…
Maybe I took it as a way of getting back at him for his defamation of my good name and reputation. Maybe I took it as a way to wipe the world of any traces of him.
However, I knew it would have the opposite effect.
He would become a martyr as soon as they found his body... They would assume someone did it for his money.
So, I left my wedding dress in the vault that was empty besides his dead, disgusting body.
I think I wanted everyone to think they knew I did it, or at least my ghost did.
I was… theatrical.
The rest of the Cullens didn't know I'd been so careless, allowing rumors and stories to bud surrounding the deaths of those men. I imagined they'd be disappointed in me.
It had been careless. But, I had been desperate.
I shook my head to redirect.
I thought of my conversation with Emmett late yesterday afternoon…
Something stirred in my stomach like a butterfly.
Nothing could scare me off, even all that he said, and something about his frankness set me on fire.
He trusted me, treating me as his equal. He talked with me, not at me.
No one had ever done that before…
This revelation made me want him more than I'd ever wanted him before – to expand on such intimate conversation and manifest our closeness.
On one hand…
On the other hand, I was broken hearted. My soul was ripped out. I was devastated to find out more darkness under his innocent boyish face. I couldn't accept his goodness had just been an illusion. I couldn't. I couldn't cope.
But amidst it all, leaving today for his family's house, I agreed to something I didn't even know I could do. However, I could see he needed it of me, so of course I would move mountains.
And, this was the only way I could answer his question about how I felt about him. As I spent my time alone in the forest this past week, I'd come to the conclusion that action was his language.
He didn't need my words, even though I didn't have any because they were all a tangle in my head.
Emmett communicated only through doing, and if I was going to make it up to him for snapping at him with unwarranted anger or if I was going to let him know that I did… feel… something for him… no matter how complex or confusing it was to me, I had to do this.
"Would you mind grabbing something to protect this china? Just something that I can wrap it in?" Esme requested.
It was one of her prized props - dinner plates and a silver set. I didn't blame her. Aesthetic beauty was also one of my fixations. I felt that my environment really contributed to my mood and mental state.
I really did love that Esme wanted to make a beautiful home…
"Of course." I said, putting on a pair of sunglasses before I ducked out the door.
I was in the car what seemed like forever. I could've run faster than this.
Roads turned to gravel then gravel turned to dirt then dirt turned to dust under my tires.
I was lucky that the sky rumbled with the threat of a storm, but not a drop of rain fell from the sky. It was perfectly over cast.
I watched the grass get higher, and the spaces between houses getting longer and longer.
Everywhere I looked was brown.
Mud. Dirt. Dust. Muck.
I had perfect vampire retention so when Emmett had told me where he'd lived, I'd remembered.
However, the farther I drove, the more convinced I was I'd made a mistake.
I hadn't seen a house for miles, just little shacks here and there dotted along the land, a couple of barns, and some workers that whistled as I passed, when I finally came up on a dusty road on my right that I was supposed to turn down.
The mud seemed heavier, the grass seemed taller, the white cotton seemed more like ghosts dotting the haunted land and warning me to turn around and run.
It looked exactly like I'd imagined and endless road to nowhere would've looked.
I would have given up, but that's when I saw it.
Just as Emmett said.
As I approached, I knew I was in the right place, but it still felt so wrong.
I'd never seen anything like this. It was all at once enchanting and terrifying.
Three girls that looked like they'd been raised by wolves sat out on the caved in front porch of a rickety house. They watched me curiously as I approached.
One of the younger feral girls which must've been Ruthie or Annie May had their eye down the barrel of a rifle bigger than they were. Emmett told me that Annie May was twelve, and Ruthie was six, but these two girls looked no older and bigger than nine and four.
The girl that must've been Annie May lowered the gun from their big brown eyes, just like Emmett's, except Annie May had a light yellowed bruise around her left eye.
She flicked on the safety before putting the gun by her side. Curiosity made her stand up by the creaky column holding up the patched roof over her head of brown hair.
I recognized Dorothy immediately because the feminine version of Emmett's features were prominent on her sun-tanned face. She had long black hair and big blue eyes so that she resembled that Hollywood starlet Vivien Leigh in the movie role of a starving, suffering girl in rural Tennessee.
Dorothy was really beautiful under all this.
Dorothy had her long, ink black hair in a messy, knotted braid that went down the center of her back and almost down to her tailbone. It had been a while since she cut her hair, or did anything with it for that matter.
Her skinny legs were tucked under her while she taught the other girl crouched like a wild animal at Dorothy's feet how to skin a squirrel.
"Pull hard." She instructed the littlest girl's hands on the pelt, before getting her own hands in there to finish the job correctly.
My mother always told me you could tell a lady by her hands. I'd never had to work a day in my life so my hands had been dainty and unspoiled even before turning into a vampire.
Dorothy's hands had blisters and callouses all over them. Her fingernails had mud and blood under them. She'd had to work harder than I could ever imagine.
I also couldn't help but notice a collection of dark burgundy bruises on her neck the shape of fingers. Her left eye had a purple ring around it and her lips were littered with black scabs.
It made my stomach churn.
As if she'd heard my thoughts just like Edward, Dorothy looked down and away from me in shame, hiding behind a tendril of black hair that escaped her braid as she stood to her feet too.
She wiped her dirty hands on the sides of her dress and her sweating forehead with the back of her wrist.
I stopped the car at the edge of the road, imagining it would be all right to park here.
Like I was a mirage, Annie May rubbed her big brown eyes to try and see clearer.
I realized I was nervous. I took a deep breath of sticky summer air and turned, giving a pleasant smile as I approached, taking extra care with my steps since my shoes were sinking into the mud and dirt up the path.
"You got the wrong place, I suspect, miss." Dorothy called with an accent just as thick as Emmett's and a voice that would've been just as loud, vivacious, and boisterous if whoever had given her those bruises on her neck hadn't damaged her vocal cords.
I remained watchful and wary for clues as to who could've done this to her, because it was obviously a pattern. Dorothy had the worst of it, but Annie May's own yellowed bruising made me inspect Ruthie's face too.
Ruthie was still crouched like some sort of wild animal near Dorothy's feet, and looked up at me with dusty, grey, blue eyes.
There was something visibly… off… about her, but her round freckled face was free of bruises.
She didn't seem to know how to speak, or less likely, I was speaking in a language she didn't understand. She just stared at me with those wide, dusty blue eyes.
"No, I believe I got the directions right." I offered nervously.
I sounded nervous because I was. I was certain I was in the right place though.
Dorothy was so much like him…
Dorothy crossed her skinny, bony arms over her hollowed chest. There was no way she was Emmett's age, or well, older than me at my change. She looked wiry, bony, and shapeless like an early teenager.
Muted colors of fabrics danced on the clothesline, waving like threadbare flags of surrender in the coming storm.
The air was thick with a late summer storm, and my own chest seemed to manifest its thickness.
I took in everything I could about this place, the place Emmett had grown up, focusing on even the tiniest details.
In a human second, I'd created an entire story about his childhood, and it was a splendid fairytale that meeting his family and seeing the reality of this troubled land would soon dissipate.
"I just made the acquaintance of your brother, Mr. Emmett McCarty." I suggested, unable to stop a smile as his name rolled off my tongue.
Dorothy looked over me as if there'd be a trace of him somewhere for her to hold onto. It was evident she missed him, but she remained light.
"Aint nobody ever addressed him so fancy before." She laughed, a laugh like Emmett's, childish and free.
She coughed, not a sickly cough, but a pained cough of straining her vocal cords and her hand came to her neck.
It made my throat burn when I imagined the blood under her bruises.
I clenched my jaw, willing myself to get a grip.
"You aint bringing any trouble are you?" Dorothy had a glimmer of panic in her big blue eyes at what I assumed was worry about how on earth I could've made his acquaintance when for all she knew he'd just been rotting away in jail.
"Who're you out there conversin' with, Dorothy?" A man's voice that was low, tough, and full of life experience came from inside the shack.
His tone was accusing like that of a jail warden that had caught one of his inmates doing something questionable.
I watched Dorothy flinch at his voice and straighten up to her full height, as she saw him.
Out from behind a creaking door came a man just a little shorter than Emmett but with that same raven black hair and jawline so their relation was evident.
"I don't know. Who am I conversin' with?" Dorothy had the same quick wit and straight to the point conversational skills that Emmett did, and she raised an eyebrow as she looked back at me.
"My name's R-…." I started to give my real name then I cut myself off for some reason of security. "Vivien Leigh."
I blurted the name of the Hollywood starlet Dorothy had made me think of. God, how stupid. They didn't seem quite like the moving pictures type so I assumed I was safe.
"And who's Vivien Leigh?" Emmett's father asked crossing his huge arms over his chest.
"She knows Emmett." Dorothy responded easily, still keeping her impossibly blue eyes on me.
It made me selfishly miss my own violet eyes…
"That's some car." He marveled in a side note.
His dark eyes seemed impossibly black as they scanned over me. He was terrifying, even to me, even immortal and invincible. I didn't want to believe he was responsible for the markings on his children, but it was seeming evident.
Annie May and Ruthie both avoided his eyes.
It made the venom in my veins flare.
That's when a woman appeared at the threshold of the house. She was warmly maternal and had a subtle prettiness to her. She had a few silvery streaks in her shoulder length brown hair, but had a juxtaposing youthful roundness to her.
Her hair had prematurely greyed from how hard her life had been, but otherwise, she was vibrant with impossible youth.
As she flashed a smile in my direction it was obvious this was Emmett's mother by her wide smile and dimples.
I drank in every bit of him I could see here.
I noticed the whole family was all intensely nervous and staring at me, but she was invitingly warm.
"Miss Vivien Leigh, how lovely to make your acquaintance." She began, extending her hand for mine. "Helen McCarty."
The first thing I noticed was the finger shaped pattern of green bruises on her wrist, but I made sure she didn't know I'd seen them.
I was disgusted at the violent undercurrent evident already in this place. It triggered something deep within me that froze at the sight of danger and I began to clam up.
I had to fight it and focus. My mind stayed busy analyzing Emmett's mother.
Mrs. McCarty had manners and carriage that separated her from her husband and children, and it seemed I'd been the first guest in a long while to appreciate them.
"It's a pleasure, Mrs. McCarty." I smiled and shook her hand swiftly enough she wouldn't notice my cold skin through my gloves.
I watched his family around me, drinking in the details like a fish in water because I saw him in their faces, in their hugely open eyes, and in his mother's dimples as she smiled over at me pleasantly. I realized I didn't want to miss a glimpse of him.
"Did I hear my son sent you?" She asked in a sweet, caramel voice.
Just like Dorothy, she searched me for traces of him.
I nodded with a grin.
I saw she looked upon my clothes with the slightest wistfulness as if once long ago she had dressed similarly. She didn't wear gloves on her calloused, bony hands now but I saw the delicacy in which she flourished her hands as she spoke. She knew what it was like to wear lovely lace gloves.
I picked up in her eyes that Emmett's mother worried about how I saw her.
Honestly, as I met her gaze and she sighed, I saw an old civility in her like she'd not always been a part of this world. I saw in her posture that perhaps she'd been a Southern Belle on a different tier of society when love and children pulled her further and further down the dirt road.
Her accent was also just a little different than the rest of them. It was slight, but I noticed it.
Alabama. Old Southern Money. King Cotton money.
I recalled Emmett had mentioned his family had moved. I wondered if life had always been like this for their family or if it was just the Depression.
It had been nothing but a myth to me. I was protected by class, money, and my parents, but it was a living reality to this family. Want had been replaced by need and need was now desperation for survival.
My father had me under the impression that people like this just brought it on themselves.
As I stood here though, I frowned.
I was unsure of everything I knew of socioeconomic status.
"Girls, you'd swear I didn't teach y'all any manners. We have a guest. Go get cleaned up for dinner." Emmett's mother encouraged, looking over at Dorothy just for a fleeting moment before she painfully looked away.
Dorothy knew what was expected of her.
"Come here, little bird." Dorothy bent down to pick up Ruthie and winced in evident pain at unseen afflictions on her skeletal body.
She put Ruthie on her hip like a baby though Ruthie was far from it now - in physicality anyway. Ruthie's legs were long enough to hang halfway down Dorothy's gangly body. Ruthie ducked her head to Dorothy's shoulder and Dorothy kissed her head.
Dorothy brushed by her mother like a phantom without another glance, and it became evident they had a relationship based on distance and it was better that way.
"Now, come on inside out of this heat." Emmett's mother motioned me inside. "I'm almost finished with supper."
Emmett's father's eyes were heavy on me, but he didn't follow us. Instead, he turned to scold Annie May for something she'd done incorrectly with the gun. Before they left my sight line, I saw him grab her arm in a way that made me flinch too.
I had to focus on the task at hand.
I would be alone with Emmett's mother. In a different, normal life this would've been difficult because I was trying to impress her or win her favor…
Now, it was difficult because I would be ignoring the burn of my throat at the thought of her hot, beautiful blood.
I clenched my jaw. I was better than this. I was angry with myself.
"Emmett told me so many lovely things about you." I said with my very best finesse as I followed her inside.
I could focus on being the charming, sociable Rosalie Hale that I had been so long ago…
I remembered parties, and kisses on the cheeks, and champagne, and money, and… Royce… and inappropriate advances from my father's friends… and… crushing expectations… and… stifling... and...
"Oh, he's too kind to me." She responded with perfect civility before she opened the creaking door for me.
I saw decorum in her like I saw in Esme, and even though the McCartys had nothing and this house was a little more than a shack, you could tell aesthetics mattered a great deal to her and she spent time decorating it with what she could.
I took in the room, trying to find any trace of Emmett living here - an old photograph, a lost pair of shoes, anything that might have been an artifact of his human life. I wanted to imagine him sitting in the chair in which I would sit, what things he laughed at, what days he passed under the sun in tanned human skin.
Something caught my eye, and it was the piano in the corner. I imagined Emmett learning those few, awkwardly played notes of Ave Maria at that very piano and it made my breath hitch in my chest.
"He told me you played." I mentioned, keeping my eyes on the ivory keys trying to imagine his human fingers there.
I couldn't really imagine him here at all. It felt so displaced.
He felt too... big for this stifling, strangling place.
"Oh, not very well." She said and it was evident she said this modestly, because I watched her eyes light up. "But, I studied a lot as a girl. The piano was the only thing I brought with me when we moved."
"I understand. Music does the soul well." I responded, knowing it was necessary to keep conversation easily flowing. "Where were you from?"
"I grew up in Alabama on an old plantation." She said, not to my surprise.
She confirmed my musings.
"And yes, I agree. Music… Ah, it really keeps me happy, especially these days." She smiled tightly and motioned for me to sit at the kitchen table next to her while she cut some tiny, meager looking vegetables. "When it's gotten pretty hard..."
If she made one misstep with that knife and cut herself and blood…
I tried not to look too nervous.
"Do you play?" She asked with a smile.
I just bit my lip and nodded modestly.
"I'm sure you're a beautiful musician." She added.
I noticed again how differently she spoke than the rest of the family.
"I've just had a lot of practice." I exhaled thinking of all the extra hours I'd accumulated over the past two years.
"I haven't had much time for music since we moved here a little over a decade ago, but I insist on keeping the piano close. It seems like… well, sometimes it seems like my only connection to staying civilized way out here." She giggled without humor. "John always said it was silly to keep it around though."
I understood her hang up. I also sensed just how much my presence had triggered immense self-consciousness in her. I'm sure it had been easy to forget that not everyone lived like she did when she was so immersed in this world, but now I was standing in front of her as a reminder that there was still another world out there - one she was locked out of now.
"I just like to have it here…" She looked over to the ivories with melancholy.
I noticed immediately a photograph on the ledge of the piano and an uncharacteristic smile spread across my face.
"Is this Emmett?" I grinned, picking up the old frame.
This was my first tangible trace of him living here and having another life once, and I was enthralled.
It was a lovely idyllic scene from before the 1920s. Emmett's mother was standing young, gorgeous, and well dressed with a baby in her arms and another one evident in her swollen belly. Emmett's father was crouched in the grass on his knee, uncharacteristically smiling widely with his arm around a little girl that must've been Dorothy, because right next to her was a little boy the exact same age, no more than two or three with wild curly hair and a mischievous dimpled smile.
Henry.
I was right and it took my breath.
I smiled, almost laughed, unable to let go of imagining the vibrance of his full, real life.
"That was while we were still in Alabama. He and Dorothy had just turned two and John had just enlisted, so I insisted we have our photograph taken… You have no idea what can happen in wartime." She sighed, still keeping her hands busy.
"How long have you had all this land?" I asked, hoping to answer my own questions about the lives Emmett had known.
I saw they were all well dressed, Emmett's mother wearing lace gloves and an elaborate summer hat.
"Oh, well… I guess it's been a little over a decade now." She nodded, seeming to sigh as she felt stifled by this knowledge. "John… was a little unsettled after the war, and finally after a few years being home, he bought all this land with hopes of having something of our own apart from my parents, and so we picked up and moved. I loved him and I already had four kids with another on the way so I would've followed him anywhere."
She laughed, forcing humor and light in her eyes.
"I remember on my wedding day, people telling John and I they hoped we had a house full of children." Something dark entered her tone but she still laughed. "And children are a blessing… but God just kept blessing me. I birthed thirteen children. Then, He took 'em all away one by one. I thought I was cursed for the longest time. I had six beautiful, precious girls that grew up lovely and strong, and seven boys and not a one of em but Emmett survived past age three. I thought I was cursed, but he had the funniest perspective when he was younger. He swore Dorothy saved him because he was the only boy that was a twin."
"I didn't know that." I pondered thinking of the fondness Emmett had for Dorothy and his easy, grateful belief in the women that 'saved' him.
"Either way, there was no place in town big enough for all of us, so we found this place out here on the land. I suppose it also made transit a little easier to work the land instead of coming in from town."
"Well, Emmett was insistent about how you made a lovely home and upbringing for him." I added for her own benefit. "He played Ave Maria for me and told me it was your favorite."
She seemed heavy laden, and I imagined this would help her feel better, but she stopped cutting vegetables and I saw this truly affected her so I was glad I said it.
"Truly?" She furrowed her brow ever so slightly as she looked up at me but tried to remain removed.
"Well, that makes me glad to hear." She cleared her throat not wanting to get emotional, going back to her job of vegetables.
"I always… worried about him growing up here." She snorted. "Though he never did need my worrying anyhow. I didn't even really have to raise him. He was like a weed, I didn't do anything, but he grew all the same, wild too."
She laughed a little, this time with real bright eyes.
I couldn't help but grin back.
"How'd you know him again?" She thought to ask.
"My father introduced us." I answered quickly.
Her eyes looked over me with curiosity, but she was cut off.
Dorothy came into the room with Ruthie on her hip and Annie May trailing behind.
Immediately, my mind went into a frenzy because on Annie May's lip... was blood.
I held my breath and clenched my jaw, control never being this difficult before.
My mind struggled and I looked down to make sure I wasn't going to break the photograph in half as I set it back down on the piano.
"Mama, you got a wash rag?" Annie May asked.
Emmett's mother immediately sighed as if she knew her husband had hit her child, but didn't possess any shock anymore. It disheartened me when I tried to focus on anything but Annie's bleeding lip.
God. Damn. Blood.
I was reminded I was a monster.
I could've screamed.
Annie May cleaned up her lip, and I noticed outside of the frenzy of my cursed blood lust that even she wasn't surprised she'd been hit. This seemed like too common of an occurrence and I wondered if this was how it was for families and I just had no idea.
Maybe, I'd just been living in a fairytale world imagining that women weren't abused each and every day...
This harrowing, dark thought sobered me enough until Annie's bleeding got under control and I finally looked back up.
They were obviously uncomfortable I'd been here to witness Annie getting hit, so my odd behavior and aversion to the blood hadn't been too troublesome to them.
I imagined Carlisle would be proud of me. I wouldn't think even Edward or Esme could've handled what I just did.
When I finally looked back up, I noticed all three of the McCarty girls didn't look much cleaner other than their hands. Their dusty, muted color dresses still had stains and mud caked into their thin threads.
I was glad Dorothy returned because I was strangely addicted to looking at her. Dorothy had the feminine traces of Emmett's features and it made me stare at the contours of her beautiful, ruined face. Her full, baby lips were divinely feminine, but I imagined if she smiled, she'd look like Emmett and I didn't want to miss it.
However, I was also terrified when I looked at her. When I looked at her features, I saw Emmett, but when I looked into her eyes, it was the strangest sensation that I was looking at myself.
Something about her, perhaps it was the ruining of her beauty with bumps and bruises, made me feel like I was looking into a mirror.
It sent chills down my spine.
"Tell me what you need help with, Mama." Dorothy mumbled in obligation as she sat Ruthie down in one of the chairs around the table.
I worried the chair I sat in would break beneath my weight, but still I sat almost levitating around a table with extensions of Emmett.
Annie May sat next to me, wordlessly but still staring widely with those big brown eyes. I noticed her cheek was red too. I tried not to imagine the cut on her busted lip.
"Annie." Dorothy scolded, her eyes widening as she said with her gaze that it was impolite to stare.
"Did you clean that cut on your eye?" I saw Emmett's mother's eyes linger on Dorothy's face for just a second.
"Yes." Dorothy exhaled exasperatedly, jumping in to help, but not willing to talk any more.
"I'll help if you need it." I stood, the chair scraping across the floor that was mostly dirt I think, if not all dirt.
"Oh no, you're our guest." Mrs. McCarty smiled at me.
I bit my bottom lip, descending back down to where I sat.
"Will you braid my hair?" Annie asked me boldly.
"Annie. No." Dorothy scolded her in a way that was distinctly mothering, darting her eyes over.
"I'm not very good at braiding." I mumbled, trying to get out of it.
"Then, you can practice on me. I don't mind how it looks." Annie shrugged. "Just make it like Dorothy's."
"Annie May." Dorothy used more of her name, widening her eyes.
"I can do that." My voice shook with inevitability, before I smiled politely at Annie.
Then, with her own grin she turned her head so I could get my fingers in her hair.
I was nervous. What if I pulled too hard and pulled her head clean off her spine. I was anxious, but she waited for me.
I held my breath, not allowing myself to get distracted with blood lust or dangerous thoughts as I finally found the dusty locks of her hair.
My fingers moved ultra slowly and with expert care.
I used every bit of focus I had, but my mind drifted to imagining this room if Emmett had been here…
How full of life would it have been? How many laughs would have ensued?
I liked to jump into these fanciful fairytales, thinking of how he fit in to his human life.
The door opened behind me and Emmett's father sat down at the head of the table with a bottle of dark liquid. I looked down and away to avoid having my gaze caught in his direction.
Energy seemed sucked out of the room. All that was left was fear.
Emmett's mother fussed over making sure the table was set and we were comfortable. Even living like she did, she had her hair pinned back away from her face neatly which is more than you could say for her children though Ruthie giggled with happiness after I finished with Annie May's braid.
Annie May stood up and twirled side to side in vanity and confidence. It was fulfilling to see the smile on her face.
"Don't I look pretty?" She played with Ruthie, grinning.
Ruthie just smiled wide and happy.
Dimples appeared on her cheeks.
It was worth the pain.
Dorothy and Mrs. McCarty served us on mismatched fine china as if some of the pieces had been broken over time from each set, but fine china it was.
I also noticed the utensils were heirloom silver when I looked down at my place setting.
My dead heart was heavy in my chest as I traced my finger along the stem of the fork. I tried to recall the pattern on my great grandmother's silver that one day would've been mine.
It seemed silly to be sad about not having things like that now because I had no use for them. I'd have no daughter to pass my heirlooms along to. I wondered who would get my family's silver now... Would it be sold for pieces at an estate sale with the Hale name long forgotten? Would it be tossed aside collecting dust? Would it get lost? I couldn't bear to think of it.
"I know it's not much, Miss Leigh. We've fallen on hard times with the animals died off and the crops this year just not..." She began, darting her eyes down toward a meager plate of food as she sat it in front of me.
A couple slices of potatoes, a few tiny green vegetables, a carrot, and some flour mixed into some sort of gritty substance as well as some sort of meat that I assumed had to be a poor squirrel like the one I saw earlier…
Emmett's father snorted.
I realized then this was a feast for them, and she was trying to impress me. She seemed to have a thirst for entertaining that hadn't been quenched in quite some time.
Dorothy stared down at her plate, not eating though I heard her stomach make an awful growling noise.
Ruthie reached for her food with grubby hands. Her mother slapped her wrist.
"Not before Grace, darling. And remember, I told you to use your fork. Haven't I taught you any manners?" She scolded then shot me a look as if this had outed her as a terrible mother. "We have a guest."
Then, at Emmett's mother's request for prayer, Dorothy slowly reached out for my hand, her skinny fingers caked with old blood and dotted with callouses and busted blisters.
Dorothy's father claimed her hand with startling immediacy and she flinched, her shoulders so tense they rose to her ears.
Annie May took my hand, and I found her conspicuously rubbing her hand over mine to feel the soft fabric of my glove. I didn't despise her, just her insistent and obvious contact with me.
She was a sickly looking girl, coughing from deep in her lungs and wiping her nose on her sleeve before she gave her infected hand back to me. If I could contract illness, I would've definitely caught something from Annie May McCarty.
Dorothy's fingers finally reached mine, but not without great effort.
She noticed through my gloves that my hands were cold and her eyes darted up to meet mine. I took a swift inhale, my cursed throat burning at her scent, my eyes focused on the burgundy bruises around her neck where blood had risen.
Dorothy looked away now, bowing her head.
My throat was still taut and smoldering as Emmett's mother said Grace. I was watching Dorothy out of the corner of my eye so I saw she was watching me too. I tried to remember not to sit up so straight.
Humans didn't do that.
"So tell me again how you know my boy." Emmett's father jumped right in to conversation.
I was distracted from the blood in Dorothy's bruises immediately.
The way he spoke in possession of Emmett rubbed me the wrong way. There was something... menacing about it - more like a stifling ownership and less like he was claiming him proudly and familiarly.
"Well it's quite a story." I fought my thoughts of blood lust and distraction and exhaled a smile.
I was Rosalie Hale - what that meant before Royce King. I could charm anyone. I was enchanting.
My mind was racing as I tried to remember all the details for the story I'd crafted on the way over.
I'd come up with so many stories and pathways I couldn't recall which one I'd decided to use.
"My daddy owns a lumber business up near the Kentucky line you see, and was looking into hiring from the penitentiary. It's terribly overcrowded anyhow so they didn't mind one bit."
"He forgot his lunch one day and I went down to the mill to make sure he got it." I told a spin on a familiar ghost story.
"I got one look at Emmett and knew he didn't belong there with all those other men. He was good, and kind, and..."
Emmett's father laughed humorlessly.
"You're sure you're talking about my Emmett?" He raised an eyebrow.
Dorothy pushed her potatoes around her plate so she could keep her gaze down, but I saw her pain without seeing her eyes.
Even though it wasn't even my fight, I longed to prove Emmett to his father.
In a way, I guess I subconsciously thought this would help me prove myself to Emmett too.
"Oh absolutely sir, I think I know my own husband." I blurted out this new fact and the air was sucked from the room as everyone stared at me.
If I could blush I would have.
God, Rosalie. Stick to the script.
I'd just gotten pig headed and testy, challenging Emmett's father, so I said something I couldn't take back. I had to think on my feet now.
"What. Did. You. Say?" Emmett's mother's big eyes were wild with questions as she looked at me like I had just grown another three heads.
Dorothy had all but fallen out of her chair and she dropped her fork to the ground with a clang. She looked at me like I was an angel and Satan all at once, then I think I saw her smile a little while she sized me up.
Annie May giggled and looked at Dorothy.
"Pardon my manners and outbursting of sorts. I see this is new information to you all." I tried to redirect. "It just happened very quickly… I was just... so taken with him when I saw him at the mill that day. Bail was no problem for my family, but my brother's a very good lawyer so he had him proven innocent anyhow, and once he was freed we were married right away."
I put on my best performance, sighing dreamily. I was theatrical and knew I could convincingly play the part of being in love with Emmett.
This made my stomach turn somersaults. I could imagine what it might be like to be in love with him. Right?
"Really?" Emmett's mother's eyes had started to mist over and I think it was tears of shock and joy.
I nodded, putting on my best 'lovestruck' face.
"My baby..." Emmett's mother covered her face with her hands to cry. I still think they were tears of joy.
It was oddly amusing and intriguing to view Emmett as someone's child, as her son. It made me imagine him again at this table, on this land, in this sticky air...
"Now don't get all emotional, Helen" Emmett's father scolded.
"He's... Married. And God, she's so beautiful." Helen marveled with a glisten in her eye.
"I'm sorry. You're just so... lovely, and... easily the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. My stars."
I smiled brilliantly, reveling in the approval I was getting from her.
"But oh, I could kill him for not telling me!" She frowned though. "And why didn't he?..."
"I'll bet you had your poor daddy in an early grave over Emmett." Emmett's father started, putting his elbows on the table. "He couldn't have approved of a boy like that for you. Isn't that right Dorothy?"
Dorothy's face went white as death and remained in defiant silence.
"I'm talking to you, Dorothy." He scolded, grabbing her arm gruffly.
My eyes went wide.
She silently yelped at his grip but just nodded, her big blue eyes glassy and defiant as she looked up at him. What I saw under all that was just a scared little girl.
It made my stomach churn.
"My father was overjoyed." I spoke through my teeth, but tried to maintain a pleasant outwardly appearance.
"Really?!" Emmett's father was skeptical. "I mean... Emmett's beneath you, a simple illiterate, and a criminal at that."
"John..." Emmett's mother whispered under her breath, her eyes tortured as she tried to hide her displeasure.
She didn't speak against him so this was the best she could do.
"My daddy wouldn't dare deny me." I cooed.
I got back on my game, though I frowned at the thought of what my real parents would've really thought of Emmett...
My mother would've been mortified and insist I was the reason she needed medication for her nerves. I imagined Emmett laughing wildly and inappropriately at afternoon tea at the country club in his too short trousers and messily tied tie.
I imagined my mother making snide remarks down her nose and my father sweating trying to make conversation over scotch that cost more than Emmett's family's land, but failing miserably at talking about anything other than banks, business, boats, or buildings.
I imagined when Emmett said something at the dinner table in his thick Southern accent, everyone would think he was stupid so they would thoroughly quiz him on impossible topics to prove it.
I imagined Emmett and I with a baby carriage walking down the street and greeting passerby that whispered behind our backs, saying our baby was some sort of white trash and no amount of my parents' money could hide that. I imagined us trying to make a life in Rochester society, but always getting sneered at and looked down on. I imagined every room we walked in we'd clear out. I imagined every table we sat down at would immediately go silent.
Then, I imagined Vera and her husband... and Henry...
Real, true, honest love.
A carpenter...
I was lost in thought and I so desperately needed to return.
"Plus, money and all that's not something I had to marry for. I have plenty. My daddy worked hard so I could marry for love. We've got old Union mill money to fall back on."
I added the last bit for my own effect and noticed the ghost of the arrogant Confederacy in his narrow eyes, so I knew I'd chosen my words correctly.
The corner of Dorothy's mouth turned up just barely before she took a bite of potatoes.
I imagined no one had ever stood up to her father.
A part of me thought maybe I could kill him before I left. I watched the vein at his throat expose as he looked over at Dorothy. I imagined hot, wet liquid then I stopped, getting a grip.
I prided myself on my control.
And, I'd never take the satisfaction of killing for vengeance from Emmett. I knew it all too well, and if Emmett wanted his father dead, he could come do it himself.
I'd bring him here. I'd let him bathe in his blood. I'd be there to make sure he didn't do it too quickly and painlessly. I would want him to be able to revel in it like I'd reveled in my own kills. I think I'd even enjoy watching him do it. And when Carlisle asked where my humanity was... I wouldn't even care. As I imagined it, I couldn't help but smile.
"Well, that settles it." Emmett's father sighed and sat forward on his elbows challenging me with his gaze but maintaining an outward appearance of hospitality and pleasantness.
Then, it was all shattered.
"It's obvious he knocked you up. You only married him to save face for your rich little society life, and now you're here to see if you can get something from us." He narrowed his eyes at me. "See if you can get this land for your Yankee daddy and his business, and my boy doesn't even have the decency to show his face to tell us that."
"John!" Emmett's mother hissed but he dismissed her, just staring straight at me.
I wasn't the woman to be challenged.
He had no idea.
In my human life, I would've just been mortified and tittered. But now… Now, I had experiences that allowed me to access sheer, monstrous rage.
I hated to be misunderstood and misconstrued. I hated my good name had been tainted and my reputation had been shattered. I wasn't going to let that happen again no matter how insignificant it might be.
My stomach dropped to my knees, and I felt my insides rearrange before I got them back into the right spots to speak again.
"No." I corrected, venom pulsing through my veins as I got angry, and when I got angry I got icy and I lashed out.
Out of habit, that's exactly what I did.
"Though, I do desperately wish Emmett had left me a child to remember him by now that he's dead." I stared straight at Emmett's father as I said words that stung on my tongue more than I had anticipated.
My womb was tragically empty and it always would be. I didn't even have to pretend I was emotional about this. I really was.
And Emmett... was dead. He'd never experience a beautiful, rich life full of experience because I'd pretty much robbed him of it. He would never father children. He would never grow old and tell stories of days gone by. He would never put down roots and walk in the sun.
He was dead.
Then, after I realized what I'd said, I ducked my head, theatrically creating the appearance of tears as I pulled out a handkerchief, covering my face.
Darkness filled the room.
"No. No. No." Dorothy pushed away from the table. "Not Em."
Emmett's mother stood with her.
My dead heart ached as I watched them process my words and enter into their grief.
"I'm so sorry." I said, and this time I didn't have to act.
I really was sorry as I watched them all fold in on each other.
Dorothy paced, her voice cracking as she started to cry in her hoarse, broken throat.
"Emmett's gone?" Annie's bottom lip trembled and Ruthie looked to Dorothy, registering her tragedy before she started to cry too.
Emmett's father clenched his jaw.
"How?..." The faintest concern flashed through his eyes. The continuous news of death was wearing him down. "How'd it happen?"
I mimed the drying of my eyes before I spoke.
Dorothy was still pacing, taking shallow, shaky breaths.
"Well he... it was a tragic accident." I began, adding a sob to my voice for effect, but watching the undoing of his family made me emotional enough that it was genuine.
"Someone lost control of their car and, he ran into the street and pushed a little girl out of the way but it was... too late for him." I settled on my first instinct though I'd practiced far more elaborate stories.
However, I saw how much they needed to believe he'd died a hero.
Emmett's mother remained strong but her eyes fogged over as she held onto Ruthie and Annie May burying their faces into her for support of their sobs.
She patted their backs in solidarity. Emmett's father shook his head, thinking of something to say, but just taking a swig of dark liquid from the bottle in front of him instead.
"We had the funeral service before I could track you down." I added depth to the tale I wove, still dabbing at my eyes and adding crying sounds.
"It was beautiful. You would have loved it... Now, he's at peace. On a hill, under a magnolia tree."
Emmett's mother seemed satisfied at this information.
"Prayers were said?" She asked to make sure.
"Absolutely. All my family are devout Catholics." I told her, knowing this was probably important to her.
Emmett had mentioned his mother was Catholic and had at least given it an honest effort to make sure her children knew what that meant.
I knew enough about Catholicism if she quizzed me.
"All right." She just nodded, taking a long swallow.
She was an incredibly strong woman, acting as the bonding agent for her family. I saw how much they all relied on her. Wisdom and maternal energy radiated from her.
She was a lady.
But now, she cried over her loss, feeling it deeply. I thought of what she had said about God blessing her with children only to take them all away one by one.
This loss she felt in an entirely different way. She was losing her son yes, but more than that she was losing her life line.
She wiped her eyes at the threat of tears, but still they streamed down her skin in rivers.
Emmett's mother's skin was different than Emmett's had been when I'd found him. Luckily, my vampiric memory was able to capture the exact color in the human flush of his cheeks that day.
However, Helen McCarty's skin was absent of his sun-color. Hers was sickly pale, almost squalid yellow. She looked stunted in growth, like someone that had grown up underground. The sun and light was absent on her skin.
All there was in her life was darkness…
I swallowed nervously before I spoke again.
"I came because I wanted to know you, but also… because my family… Well, I have money, and I… It's the least I can do." I said as I opened my purse.
Emmett's family's eyes all went wide as full moons as I placed the large stacks of bills on the table.
I stared at them, those awful things, thinking of Royce's greedy hands on them…
on me…
I squirmed.
"We can't accept this." Emmett's mother breathed in awe, wiping her eyes as she looked at the thousands in front of her. "It's too much."
"You must." I insisted, hearing thunder rumble outside. "You're my family now too, and please… let me do this for Emmett."
"I promised him I'd take care of you, and it means a great deal that I keep my word to him."
I was able to muster up authenticity in my tone because this was the truest thing I'd said all day.
My dead heart seemed to skip in my chest as I said this. For the very first time in my life, I knew I was acting selflessly.
Or was I?…
My motives weren't entirely pure. Yes, I wanted to help Emmett's family, but maybe more than that… I wanted to prove myself to him in one of the only way I knew how.
I looked at the money in front of me and clenched my jaw. I wanted to get rid of this part of me figuratively and literally, and now was the perfect time.
These people needed this money and for the first time… I felt ready to let go.
My mind went to the hours before my death, seeing Vera's husband kiss her with so much love, real, honest, love.
I realized in that moment that Royce and I hadn't had that. He didn't love me. He never did. He was greedy and wanting for me, like I was an unfeeling object just like these desirable stacks of bills, but he didn't love me.
Maybe Royce did adore me in the beginning…
But, he never loved me.
It wasn't love…
How would I have known? Now did I even know what love was?
I thought about the way Vera's husband kissed her, showcasing his love in a kiss.
I thought for a brief moment the last conversation Emmett and I had.
I could see how much he wanted to kiss me. I could feel it thick in the air around us. I could see it in the way his eyes fixated on my mouth.
But when he didn't kiss me… Even when I saw how badly he wanted to…
Maybe…
Just maybe…
This time, it was something different.
When he didn't kiss me... Even when he wanted to...
Was that... real... honest... love?
How would I know? How could I?
My stomach knotted because now...
I think I wanted…
I wanted to be loved.
And maybe…
Just maybe…
He could find me worthy of his love…