So here's where I really highlighted the three facets of womanhood and feminine experience as the three characters of Rosalie, Emmett's mother, and his sister Dorothy. I wanted to talk about the call to domestic life, motherhood, identity, love, and sexual purity as a standard for measuring the value of a woman in regards to her male counterparts. These are obviously heavy topics and I took my time in dealing with them. I explain a lot of Dorothy's background to contextualize her character, but also highlight Rosalie's own character. Without spoiling anything, I think Dorothy's experience of romantic love and pursuit of it beyond social context and reason is a point for Rosalie's character development, and I think the way Emmett's mother clings to her husband is an example of this 'loveless' marriage institution Rosalie was afraid of the night she came across Royce and his friends before her assault. I also dealt with motherhood as a curse in a conversation between Dorothy and Rosalie that I found interesting in Rosalie's character development and FOIL study.

I'd love your thoughts, and reviews and I appreciate your time sending them to me!

These past 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/ CW: Abuse, violence, rape, racial strife, pregnancy loss

St. Jude

And I was on the island and you were there too
But somehow through the storm I couldn't get to you
St. Jude, somehow she knew
And she came to give her blessing while causing devastation
And I couldn't keep my mouth shut, I just had to mention
Grabbing your attention

St. Jude, the patron saint of the lost causes
St. Jude, we were lost before she started
St. Jude, we lay in bed as she whipped around us
St. Jude, maybe I've always been more comfortable in chaos

Rosalie - Domestic Servitude

As his family cried together and recalled memories of Emmett to me, Dorothy's emotions got the best of her, and even though thunder rumbled and roared outside, she stormed out the door and into the stirring air.

"Dorothy." Her father called after her.

She didn't turn around, but he didn't follow her.

As if Emmett had told me to do it himself, I knew I had to go after her.

"If you'll excuse me for a second." I breathed, delicately pushing away from the table to follow her like a moth to a flame.

"Let her go." Emmett's mother sighed.

It was obvious she and Dorothy had a very strained relationship and she didn't know how to parent her anymore. Dorothy was her own self much as she had described Emmett to be too - raising themselves and each other alone in the world.

Emmett's mother was seeming to save me from my own misery at how Dorothy would respond to my advances.

I still had to try.

For Emmett.

"Oh, it's no trouble." I said, and it was sort of true so I followed Dorothy with conviction out the front door.

In the coming rain, Dorothy screamed into the void, kicking an old can as she crossed the yard on a warpath. She gripped her hands in her lice filled black hair, screaming again in her hoarse, strained voice before she fell to her knees in the mud.

My entire core hurt as I watched her this upset, knowing that Emmett would've been absolutely tortured by Dorothy's pain. This was the most important person in his life and he would hate to see her like this.

"Dorothy," I spoke in a soft, unsteady voice as I approached.

She cried into her hands, wailing like I'd never heard someone wail.

She was being ripped apart.

Something was tragically beautiful about seeing the hole Emmett left behind in his siblings and family. I didn't have that experience. I'd all but been wiped from memory or at least that's what my bigoted parents had hoped after Royce's lies.

Watching Dorothy cry now though made me think maybe one day Dorothy'd remember to tell her children about him or she'd name one of her sons after him and he'd live on in a name or a memory or an old photograph. There'd be something human and lasting about his legacy separate from his immortal one.

But, in the pain Dorothy was in now, I almost wished I could tell her the truth.

I almost wished I could tell her Emmett was all right. Well, in a way.

I almost wished I could bring her back, and make Carlisle change her too. She had the look of a lost cause and he'd always had a sore spot for those cases.

I would bring her to Emmett like a gift.

But, that wasn't fair.

It wasn't right.

I mustered up the courage to reach out for her, but just as my fingers touched her upper arm she yanked herself away.

"Don't touch me!" She shrieked, shying away from my contact.

Something about the look in her eyes was familiar and tragically sad. I thought about the way I'd yelled the exact words in the exact same way at Emmett just a short while ago and it took my breath clean out of my chest.

The look in her eyes… I'd seen it in the mirror.

The bruises on her neck, the scabs on her lips, the black blood of her battered face, the dead emptiness in her tragically beautiful face…

I gasped an inhale before she looked over at me.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…" Dorothy mumbled tragically.

It had hit me like a freight train.

I hadn't been ready for this. I hadn't expected this.

Something triggered deep inside of me and I wanted to run away. But I didn't. I couldn't.

Not now.

I didn't know what to say. I just froze like I had that night in Rochester under the weight of those animals.

I couldn't even fight. I couldn't even scream.

"I'm sorry." I breathed heavily.

"No. It's all my fault." She sobbed, returning her face to her hands as she sobbed, ignoring my weighted apology.

"No, it's not." I spoke as softly as I could, feeling like a ghost outside of my body as I looked on her familiar pain and brokenness.

"He wouldn't have even been in that godforsaken prison if it weren't for me." Dorothy wiped her eyes, croaking through her ruptured vocal cords. "It's all my fault. He'd… He'd still be here. With me."

"Don't say that." I tried desperately to search for the right words to say but there were none.

Dorothy looked back at the house, then back at me.

"You know what he did?" She spoke in a secretive manner.

"I know a little." I didn't dare breathe, but I imagined there was more to his story than what he told me.

I was hurt, but I didn't have time to wallow.

"Would you tell me the truth then? Is that really how he died?" Her gaze was harsh and challenging as if she could see straight through me, but there was something that was plaguing her thoughts that she needed me to assuage.

I nodded, hating to lie, but knowing it was necessary.

"Yes." I whispered, willing her to believe the false sincerity I was producing in my eyes and my tone.

I wondered about her cryptic words, as if there would've been some other reason he would've died lately that she could think of. I thought of what he said about having a 'good reason' to kill some people the day he got arrested.

The words now held a deeper meaning.

I was watchful, but mostly I was just still sad and taken aback, unable to think about much else than Dorothy's familiar tragic look…

"Was there pain?" Dorothy asked in a haunted breath, wanting to know. "He didn't deserve any pain..."

"No." I lied, still hating myself for lying but knowing it was the best thing. "He didn't die in pain."

She exhaled in a small relief, but she boiled over again.

"None of this would've happened if it weren't for me." Dorothy gritted her teeth seeming to be angry all anew.

"Emmett'd still be alive... And... and... and... God, everyone around me is dying..." She started to panic, and I tried not to get distracted by the quickening of her heartbeat and the venom that pooled in my mouth at her rapidly moving blood.

"Why am I still here? I want to die." Dorothy sobbed up to the sky like she was talking to God. "Let me be with them."

I wondered about the plural she spoke of and thought about how Emmett told me he had six sisters and I'd only seen three today. I thought of the six children that had died as babies, and how Emmett was the only boy to survive.

Dorothy wanted death in a similar way that I wanted death, as freedom and release, but somehow… The way she spoke of dying now seemed wrong.

"Dorothy, living… it's a gift." I spoke my own selfishness, wanting to be in her shoes again no matter if her shoes were worn and maimed and her story was tragic.

"No. My life has been… miserable. I don't want to live it anymore." Dorothy said, totally convinced of this. "I'm so… tired… and with Emmett gone there's…. no point."

She sobbed uncontrollably, ducking her head as it got heavier.

My dead heart wrenched in my chest.

"Dorothy, you're young and beautiful and you have so much life to live. You can fall in love and have babies and…" I went on with the dreams that filled my own head so I was convinced they had to fill her head too.

"No, none of that is for me anymore." She sobbed, but something sharp resembling anger seemed to build up inside her.

"Oh yes, it is. You're..." I almost said human…

"No. I can't." Dorothy argued with me. "I'm... not that kind of girl anymore…"

It didn't make sense to me, and I pushed harder.

"You're a beautiful girl, and you'd make a lovely wife for any man. He'd take care of you, and love you, and you could be a mother, and have beautiful children and grandchildren, and… be… happy." I realized I was getting carried away and ancient pain radiated through my limbs.

Dorothy snorted a humorless laugh.

Even in her starvation and battered state, she was beautiful. She had to be the prettiest girl in town…

I knew what that was like, and somehow I thought of it as a curse…

Maybe…

Maybe she did too.

"Nobody'd ever marry a girl like me." She said, discouragement and disillusion in her broken voice.

"But…" I started to protest.

"Vivien… I'm not… fit for marriage anymore." Dorothy looked over at me with wide eyes. "Don't you understand?…"

All at once she willed me to understand, but also hoped I wouldn't.

Then, I thought back to my own fears that I let fester in my gut.

My stomach dropped and I immediately felt anxiousness that I didn't know how to process. I didn't know what to say.

Just her presence now illuminated my darkest thoughts, but something told me to keep pressing.

"Where did you get those bruises on your neck?" I asked softly, already feeling like I knew.

She frowned, immediately angry.

"It's none of your business." She snapped with the roll of the thunder, the sky opening up into a summer rain.

"Dorothy, you can talk to me." I said in the softest voice I could muster, trying to find some sort of relation point to her that wouldn't cause me to have to bare my broken soul too. "I think I understand."

"No, you don't." She snapped, frowning and turning away from me, storming off to the shelter of a barn that had been empty of animals for quite some time.

I reacted how she hoped I would, but also hoped I wouldn't.

"Yes. I do." I said with conviction, following her closely out of the rain.

"What do you know in your pretty little princess world about what I've been through?" She spat fierily under the meager shelter of the barn's patchy roof.

"More than you realize." I found a dry area close to her and she looked at me with wide, fearful eyes.

She decided she knew that Emmett hadn't told me her story. He would never.

I wonder if he even knew.

But, I did.

I knew.

I knew because it happened to me.

I'd never told anyone, and I swore I never would.

I wished there was another way, but there wasn't

I was scared to tell her my story, and I was still so irrationally ashamed of it. I thought that maybe if I wasn't beautiful... maybe if I dressed more modestly. Maybe I had worn too much rouge. Maybe I had batted my eyes too freely.

My mother always said not to tempt men. They couldn't help their impulses. They couldn't help it. That's just the way boys are.

I was asking for it...

And, I relived my punishment every single day.

But conviction poured over me and I sensed her struggles were my struggles.

And, just like her duplicitous expectations earlier, I had my own. I hoped she didn't experience what I had, but if I was going to tell her, I hoped I was right…

"A couple years ago, I was at my friend's house. It was just a week before my wedding. She had the most… darling baby." I thought of Henry with perfect recollection.

Even his precious, baby scent filled my nose.

I clenched my jaw.

"It was only a few blocks home. I didn't think I needed a chaperone." I started, my knees feeling weak so I sat down on an old stool.

There was another empty stool in this dry patch under the leaking roof of the barn that Dorothy could take when she was ready.

She was far from it though, so I had to continue.

"I was engaged to be married to the most eligible bachelor in town… He was… handsome and wealthy and well-mannered… My parents approved… Everyone was jealous of me… My life… was perfect." I spoke through my teeth, rage making my venom flare in my veins. "Everything I ever wanted… was right within reach."

"But… I saw him on my way home from my friend's that night…" My voice shook and Dorothy softened, her eyes finally finding their way over to me even though I couldn't look at her.

"He was… drunk…" I swallowed nervously tasting the rain as it diluted the taste of her mildly tantalizing scent.

I couldn't even think of it though.

I was in Rochester…

"And… he was with some friends, some that I'd never met." I breathed. "Sons of other rich men."

Dorothy sat down beside me now, her eyes wide but soft and opened.

I still couldn't look at her. I wondered if I'd have to say anymore or if she could just guess.

"It was cold, too cold for April… His friends told him that I was… too covered up…"

Dorothy exhaled now, as if a large weight had been lifted off her chest at my own heavy words.

"I'm sorry." Dorothy breathed sincerely and emotionally.

I looked up and noticed tears were streaming down her face. I was right. This was cathartic for her.

My stomach twisted and turned because I hated I was right.

No woman should ever…

"They all eventually got their justice." I clenched my jaw in encouragement, imagining their brutal deaths that still didn't seem like enough for what they'd done to me.

She wasn't a stranger, but it was so much easier to talk to her…

A woman who knew…

This opened up a part of my thoughts that was dark and terrible…

It could send me deep, fast if I let it.

But now… something was different.

Now, I didn't want to let it.

Because for the first time, I had told someone and now that my wounds had been ripped anew, I wanted to heal.

For the first time, I believed maybe I could.

"Good." Dorothy swallowed nervously, her voice cracking with emotion.

She'd experienced a similar catharsis. Maybe… just maybe she wanted to heal now too.

I nodded confidently feeling a lot more sure about her than I was about myself.

"You are not whatever happened to you." I said with wisdom I didn't know I had. "It's not who you are."

I frowned, wondering where this had come from and why still I didn't feel like I could truly take my own advice and liberate myself from what Royce had done to me.

Dorothy nodded with a sad exhale that was like deflating a balloon.

"Lately it's felt like that's... all I am." Dorothy sighed with deep sadness. "But maybe... one day I can be more than all this again."

I nodded in encouragement.

Now though with a glimmer of confidence that I had given her, Dorothy began her story too.

"I was more once. So much more." Dorothy bit her bottom lip though I knew this story already had a tragic end but I couldn't truly imagine how tragic.

"Em and I were a lot more similar back then because I always wanted to be more like him. I'd follow him around and try to copy him and be just like him, but I didn't realize how hard it was going to be. He was real special, and only he could be that way. He was the only one strong enough."

"I remember how he always had a smile on his face, he'd make games out of work, he'd find fun in the boring, he'd laugh when everyone else was ready to cry, he'd... Emmett was really like... sunshine. I mean, you know. He makes everything... brighter." Dorothy smiled lightly.

"I know." I couldn't stop my own little smile.

"But he was always like that for as long as I can remember. He was always smiling, always happy, and always friendly. He'd make fast friends with strangers when we went to town."

"He was... always a people person." Dorothy smiled and I couldn't help but mirror her smile. "So it made me try to be to."

"And it didn't matter how rich or poor they were, he treated em all like they were kings and queens and I guess he expected other people'd do the same. I don't know if he told you, but Emmett and I grew up different than this. I remember like it was a dream of another life, but we lived in Alabama with land and money and a big house full of servants that did everything for us, and our bellies were always full." Dorothy spoke with wistfulness.

"I had candies every. single. day. I'm not even lyin. But, we was about five or six or so when Emmett and I found out what it meant to be poor. Our Pa... well he bought this land, wanting to make something of himself and have something of his own and not live off my mother's family's money forever I guess. But things went sour real fast. There was a bad deal that put us out of a place to live and most all our money." Dorothy narrowed her eyes.

"Our family was too big for any of the places in town, but we couldn't have afforded it anyhow so we ended up with all this land but nowhere to live. We found an old house that used to belong to some sharecroppers and my ma was convinced she could fix it up so here we've been ever since fighting for our lives and working every day cause of our Pa's pride." Dorothy snorted.

"That's when Em and I started to understand class. We started to understand unreasonable hate. Grown adults would call us trash to our faces when we'd go into town for supplies. Especially when Emmett and I made friendly with the Sanders family…"

Dorothy's eyes went dark now.

I didn't understand.

"They worked our land for shares you see, and they live just down the way. Emmett was too damn friendly not to speak as he worked so close alongside em."

"Our Pa didn't lift a finger except to hit us, so when Em worked our land, he got closer to Sam Sanders and his Pa. Sam was about our age, and he was working our land too - for his family's shares, so he and Em made fast friends, and Mr. Sanders taught Em how to be a man like our own Pa never would." Dorothy said.

"Emmett loved Sam, but it was also an open rebellion against our Pa every time Em spoke to him." Dorothy's smile was long gone now as she frowned.

I puzzled.

"When we were thirteen or so, Em broke up a fight outside of town. A group of boys had been picking on Sam's little sister Bonnie. Em broke one of their noses, and it just happened to be a cop's kid…" Dorothy sighed.

"And when Em took Bonnie's hand and walked her home, that just about sealed it. People talked from here to the county line about Emmett being... well, you know…" Dorothy trailed off with an annoyed look on her face.

I didn't know.

"My Pa was so embarrassed, God, he hit Emmett so hard he couldn't walk for days." Dorothy recalled, shuddering. "We all thought he'd beat him to death, but Emmett's too damn proud and stubborn. He took a beating that'd kill any right minded person and just smiled all smug and satisfied at him."

Dorothy laughed a little, darkly and deeply before she lost to a coughing fit.

I felt my hands ball up into fists. I couldn't imagine something like that and I didn't want to. It was hellish.

"Why?" I finally asked.

Dorothy tilted her head a little, like she couldn't possibly understand my ignorance.

"Oh… Miss Vivien…" Dorothy's brow furrowed and she looked away from me, blushing. "I s'pose I forgot to mention the Sanders are black…"

I'd lived a very VERY sheltered life when it came to racial strife, and the experience of it in the Deep South just on the other side of the days of the Confederacy was amplified to a barbaric, lawless extent. Racism existed in New York, sure; it was 1935, but here in the South… It was entirely different.

Something called… Jim Crow laws…

I had a sour taste in my mouth as I looked back at Dorothy though. Dorothy just nodded with pain in her eyes that I'd never understand.

"I'm sorry." I didn't know what to say.

"No, Emmett always knew he didn't do nothing wrong. He just… treated people fair. Even people like my Pa that didn't deserve it." Dorothy exhaled wistfully. "And, I always just wanted to be just like Emmett… Have a heart as big as his was…"

I admired that about him too, loving learning details about him through her eyes.

"Even though our father didn't approve, Em would constantly be raising some sort of ruckus with Sam. You could hear em from here to the state line horsing around. Oh, how they'd laugh." Dorothy was filled with ancient sadness. "Sometimes they'd pull pranks on me… Put frogs in my bed… Like… children…"

The corner of her mouth lifted slightly.

"I'd always fancied Sam too but in a different way than Em did..." Dorothy said.

I knew where this was going.

I felt it tragically.

"I remember for our sixteenth birthday, Em and I went dancing outside of town. I'd made a new dress and I'd braided some flowers my sister Caroline had picked for me in my hair. Sam was there that night, and he asked Em if he could ask me to dance..."

She giggled at the memory.

"Em was all at once the happiest and most nervous person in the room - besides me and Sam of course. I danced with Sam and... he told me I looked beautiful."

Dorothy's eyes lit up like fluorescents before they flickered out.

"I was too naive to know what it meant, but…" Dorothy sighed. "I easily fell in love with Sam."

I watched the way she spoke of him, studying the way her eyes flickered like candlelight in the torrential downpour.

"We were careful and secret for years because we were both just afraid of going to jail."

I remembered a pair like them was illegal here and it made my stomach turn. I didn't understand.

I watched Dorothy talk about him with admiration and wonder and love…

"I was so in love with him. Oh God, I was so in love... We were gonna run away to Europe or something; we just needed a little more money to get out of here…" Dorothy mumbled.

"But, then... I… got pregnant…" Dorothy had such pain in her tone that made me want to cry.

"I was so skinny I barely showed so I guess I was lucky…" Dorothy started to cry now. "But… But time was running out that I could hide it…"

She wiped her eyes.

"Dorothy..." I exhaled her name tragically, unable to fathom her experience if this was just the prologue for context.

"It didn't matter though. I had the baby too early… She was too little…" She wiped her eyes now. "My mama said it was God's wrath… That He killed my baby because… because she was… an abomination of God…"

Dorothy sobbed.

Death was heavy in her voice, heavy on her face. Her sunken eyes and hollow cheeks seemed to deepen and darken.

"I couldn't believe that though…" Dorothy sobbed into her hands. "'cause God, she looked like one of His angels… So peaceful and… beautiful…"

My heart was shattered into a thousand pieces.

"She was perfect." Dorothy breathed darkly. "When Em saw her, he said she had my nose. She was too pretty to have my nose…"

"But when my parents saw her…" Dorothy's voice cracked. "Immediately, they knew… They knew what I'd done… They knew…"

My soul felt squashed and ripped in two.

"But, even my Pa wouldn't raise a hand to me that day…" Dorothy's voice was haunting.

"Em was so kind to arrange a place for her on the hill over the river a couple miles South. He secretly fetched Sam too… for me… For us to… grieve… We went late that night, so no one'd catch us…" Dorothy cried new tears, unimaginable grief in her voice.

"A few days passed where nothing had changed and aside from my lost baby…. and my parents's harsh silence, nothing more truly terrible had happened."

I couldn't imagine anything more terrible than what she'd already told me and I wanted to tell her I couldn't handle any more, but she needed to open up to me.

It wasn't about me.

"I'd just started to feel safe again, when they ripped me out of my bed in the middle of the night. I'd heard stories… But, they're scarier than you'd ever imagine... Vivien, I'll never forget waking up to those... those monsters… Like… Ghosts… God… it's white hot and burned in my eyes."

She cried.

I had never heard of anything like this in my life, and it absolutely shattered me. I didn't understand.

"They tied me up and put a bag over my head so I wouldn't see where we were going; once we got there and they pulled the bag off, I was convinced I was in hell." Dorothy said hauntingly.

It seemed to kill her and heal her all at once to finally tell somebody.

"They had Sam there... tied up like... like an animal." Dorothy covered her mouth with a shaking hand and looked down. "He was already beaten up real bad... But, but they made sure they kept him alive…"

"They told him he had to keep his eyes open and watch or they'd kill me..." Dorothy swallowed. "They told me after I had a proper man, I'd be cured... That, I... could be freed of my affliction. That I could be fixed… with enough…"

Her face was full of disgust and horror and I imagined mine was too. I was in physical pain over her story, and the weight on my chest got heavier.

I was sick now, unable to imagine hearing any more.

"But when they were finished with me, that's when they finally killed Sam, and I thought they were going to kill me too, but they didn't have the mercy." She sobbed, and I was broken hearted.

"They dropped me just outside of… the fight club… I mean, where… Emmett was working that night. They knew where he was because they were comin' for him next. I was still too shaken up to realize it though."

"Emmett knew immediately what they'd done to me. I'd never seen Emmett cry. Never. But God, Vivien, he broke in two in front of all those people. I'd never seen him like that. And it scared me to death. God, it scared me to death." Dorothy said, but she wasn't done.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream.

All of it. All at once.

"I hadn't started processing just how bad it all really was until I saw Emmett's face." Dorothy swallowed and I couldn't even imagine.

"But after he got sad, he got drunk and angry…" Dorothy went on. "He went looking for them. He had an idea of who they were… I didn't want him to tell me."

"He went looking for them with the intent to kill them. I begged him not to go. I'd never seen so much rage in someone in my life, and that's the last time I saw him.… Because then, he was arrested and I just knew they were in on it… They knew where he was… They knew where he'd be… They were in on it. They're all so corrupt."

Dorothy clenched her teeth. I saw how this filled all the holes in Emmett's story now. It made my skin crawl.

I had my own experience with corrupt police officers. I knew all about that.

"They've come back for me, night after night since Emmett's been gone. Randomly, so I'd never know when they'd come... Sometimes it'll be days. Others, it's every night. They insist I need more 'conversion' so…"

Dorothy clenched her teeth, and I was shaking with anger. No. Way.

"Sometimes I think the waitin' and the not knowing's worse… I just… stay… afraid… All… the… time…"

The markings on her weren't from her father after all.

But her parents knew. They knew and they didn't do a damn thing about it.

Honestly, maybe they couldn't.

No one could.

But, she wasn't safe here. None of them were.

"Dorothy, listen to me." I stood authoritatively, interrupting her.

"You have to get out of here." I told her strongly. "You can't stay here anymore."

Dorothy looked at me sadly.

"But Ruthie..."

"No, Dorothy, I'm serious. Emmett would tell you to listen to me." I insisted in a panic. "He wanted you to get out of here…"

I knew it was probably true.

She swallowed.

"Here." I pulled out the remaining cash from my purse not having the time to empty it before I'd followed her out the door. "It's almost five thousand dollars and if you need more, you write me, all right? I can give you anything you ever need for as long as you live. Take this and get out of town."

"I can't write." She snorted.

"Dorothy, listen." I willed her to listen to me, regardless. "You just have to get out of here. No matter what."

Finally, she didn't protest.

"But, where would I go? What would I do?" Dorothy mumbled.

My mind raced.

I knew exactly what she'd do.

I clenched my hands into fists.

"I'll come for you tonight. After everyone's asleep. You have to run." I told her.

Her eyes went wide.

"What if the Klan's come too?…"

I wanted to tell her I'd kill them all.

"They're never going to touch you again, Dorothy. I swear to God." I told her intensely, so intensely I watched her shiver.

I had to reel in my predatory side, because subconsciously she registered it and she was now subconsciously fearful of me.

I'd find out who they were… I'd kill them.

"What about Annie and Ruthie?" Dorothy mumbled, still apprehensive.

"That's enough money in there with your parents, they can both go to school. Things can be better for them than they were for you. They'll get out of here too. But, you… you have to get far."

"Okay…" She finally agreed, and I thought I heard hopefulness in her voice.

I heard the door open of the house and I knew someone was coming to check on us so I motioned Dorothy forward as we started back.

Our eyes lingered because we knew about the rogue mission we were embarking on.

Her father stood near the front door with impossibly black eyes, rain pouring down his stoic face.

I wondered who he'd been before the war. I wondered if the war was even to blame anymore…

"Dorothy, stop actin a cryin fool and y'all come in outta the rain." He said gruffly, but under it all I did imagine there was concern for his little girl and radiating sadness over his lost son.

But, maybe there wasn't.

Dorothy didn't say a word as she ducked her head shamefully into the door of the house.

Emmett's father didn't follow, and I still smelled him outside the door when it shut behind us.

It was too quiet for anyone but me to hear it, but I heard him start to cry when he was alone and walking further and further away from the house.

I furrowed my brow not truly understanding.

Tears hadn't been far from the eyes of the other three McCarty girls, and their sadness had made the air thick and heavy as I followed Dorothy back in the house.

My eyes did finally meet Emmett's mother's and I mustered up enough courage to finally say it.

"Use that money to get out of here." I boldly suggested once silence filled the air.

Everyone looked back up at me like I was a ghost with five heads.

Annie's eyes were impossibly wide and confused.

"You can run." I breathed. "Emmett would want you to run."

Emmett's mother frowned.

"You barely knew him." She snorted. "You don't know anything about what he'd want for us…"

Somehow her accusation that Emmett was just a stranger to me hit me where it hurt…

"I know you shouldn't have to live like this." I said, nervous and scared since she was pushing back.

"We're doing fine… It's just a… rough patch…" She said, and I heard her heart quicken.

I didn't understand her hold up. Why was she still here? Why was she so deep in this hell she couldn't see she needed to take her children and get out? Why was she so addicted to this domestic life of… of servitude?!

"Mom. We're not fine." Dorothy interrupted strongly.

The air was heavy.

"Ruthie's getting worse. Annie needs a doctor. And… And I… I can't do this anymore." Dorothy's eyes were wide and filling with tears. "We're not fine."

Emmett's mother's bottom lip trembled and her eyes got glassy too.

She cleared her throat.

I almost thought she'd cave, but that's when she turned toward me with fiery betrayal and distaste in her eyes.

"Get out." She finally told me fiercely, and when she grimaced I saw Emmett's dimples on her cheeks.

"You can take your money." She growled.

"No… It's… yours…"

She didn't say anything, just stared at me.

It left a sour taste in my mouth as I nodded and clenched my jaw.

"Mom, you know she's right." Dorothy hissed.

That's when Mrs. McCarty did something that shocked me, she slapped Dorothy straight across her face, as if she was accusing her for starting all of this.

I almost gasped at the sharp crack of Helen McCarty's hand on Dorothy's already battered face, but more than that the explosion of pent up emotion behind it. But also, such deeply rooted hatred was evident in her eyes that I imagined it was much more complex than just this snowball of situations.

I imagined she'd resented her daughter for years. She was jealous of her daughter's beauty and youth. She was angry that she'd wasted her good looks on love and her young years on a failed motherhood. She was afraid Dorothy would be an old maid. She was upset that Dorothy had been her best chance back to a life of aristocracy and money. She wanted a wealthy, Southern husband for Dorothy that carried a good name and an even deeper pocket book. She wanted more, and Dorothy had failed her. Dorothy had no desire to be used as a pawn or a tool for her parents to climb out of this hole, to wear dresses and gloves like the ones I had on…

Dorothy wasn't a tool like I'd been for my parents…

Apparently this all had struck a nerve in Helen McCarty at once.

Ruthie sensed the tension and started crying again, but still not a word came out of her mouth.

Annie looked over at me, her own jaw clenched resolutely but tears streaming down her desperate face.

She was strong. If she got through this sickness, she might survive it all.

"I said get. out." Helen McCarty looked over at me in anger.

Finally, my eyes lingered on Dorothy, hoping this wasn't the last time I saw her face.

She nodded resolutely.

Now, I painfully knew it wasn't.

—

The air was thick and muggy, heavy with the blackness of midnight.

Change filled the air, and in the still of the night I felt a chill run up my spine.

I was glad I could see well in the dark because I still barely noticed Dorothy finally approaching - alone. Her black hair was black as the night and as her limited human eyes finally found me, she picked up her pace, nervousness evident in her.

My dead heart rose to my throat.

My automobile was a little off the road, back down the path. I'd walked the rest of the way. I didn't want to be heard. I looked around for evidence that we weren't alone, but tonight we undoubtedly were.

Dorothy grinned in expectation as she came closer, but I noticed tears in her eyes. She was anxious. I heard it in her thudding pulse.

I was glad I'd gone hunting in the break of time.

"It's going to be okay." I breathed softly, and she nodded, biting her bottom lip.

She didn't have a stitch of baggage to her name. Nothing was materially attached enough to her to leave with.

She was empty handed.

"I know. It doesn't make it any easier though." She mumbled.

"They'll be all right." I lied the best I could, trying to put on a brave face for her.

For a second Dorothy and I just stood there while she let her big blue eyes scan the land she'd been raised on. She sighed, deepening her inhale as if she was trying to remember what it smelled like years and years from now. She took mental photographs, seeming incredibly decided about leaving this place that was all at once her home and her hell.

Then, she turned her back on it all like I'd never really been able to do, and we started to walk down the path toward where I'd hidden my car.

She crossed her arms over her chest and kept her gaze down. I wondered what was going through her mind. Maybe then, I'd know what to say.

"Where am I going to go? What am I going to do?" She worried quietly, taking this responsibility from me and speaking into the silence.

I still knew exactly the answer to this question.

"Somewhere you'll be safe; somewhere very far away." I told her, then I looked at what she was wearing, knowing she'd attract attention as a foreigner in rags.

I veered off to a wooded cover right before where we'd turn to get to the car.

"Here. Wear this." I started unbuttoning my own dress.

"What are you doing?" She raised an eyebrow.

"You need a proper dress where you're going." I told her.

She did. She needed to look like a proper society girl who'd just moved to town after the death of her parents and mysterious uncle…

"And you'd wear rags?" She was skeptical.

"It's only temporary." I insisted, and began to slip out of my dress so I was standing in front of her in my skivvies.

I was modest so of course I tittered, waiting vulnerably with my hand outstretched waiting for her to take my dress.

"Come on." I urged her, handing her my dress.

Dorothy huffed and took my dress and began to modestly get out of her own.

I tried not to look at her, but I did. She had bruises and cuts and burns all over her body. She was tattooed with pain, and it made me sick.

I couldn't imagine. Life would be unimaginably better for her outside of this

She handed her dusty rose colored button front cotton frock to me, keeping her eyes off me as I slipped her dress over my head and she got into mine.

It fit her like a glove, though it was a little loose on her skeletal shoulders and hips, obviously not tailored for her.

"Will you let me do your hair?" I asked, taking the pins out of my fascinator hat so I could fix it in her own.

"As long as you don't mind lice?" Dorothy snickered as I slipped off my gloves and handed them over to her.

"Oh, I'll be fine." I said, putting a pin between my teeth as Dorothy turned so I could get my fingers in her long black hair. With my vampire sight, I picked the lice and eggs out of her hair with ease.

"God, your hands are freezing!" She flinched.

"Sorry. Bad circulation." I mumbled, working my fingers into her braid so I could pull her hair back off her long, swan's neck.

She accepted this as true without much questioning.

I rolled her hair back like a true society woman, and there was something incredibly intimate about doing her hair. I imagined some sort of cosmic connection to her family line, and how in a way Emmett's blood flowed in her veins and he could live on in her and her children. Maybe a tiny piece of me could too… Figuratively.

I took my high heels off so I noticed she was exactly my height as we swapped shoes.

Dorothy's shoes were black lace up boots worn down to their last fiber. I could feel the gravel under the balls of my feet as if the shoes didn't even have soles.

No matter for me, but it did break my heart these were the kinds of shoes she had to wear.

Dorothy's foot was just a little smaller than mine, but it'd be all right temporarily.

She looked like a regular society lady now.

She was... beautiful.

"Now how's this gonna help anything?" She gestured down to her Cinderella make over.

"Here." I started on a note as I pulled a pen and stationery from my purse. I was thanking God I still carried proper stationery. My mom always told me that you always needed to be prepared to write a thank you note.

"Go to this address. Rochester, New York. Ask for Vera." If I'd had a heart it would be racing.

Dorothy frowned.

"What?"

"She'll take you in." I assured her though I didn't know if it was true.

"Tell everyone your parents died in a tragic fire, back in Alabama, and you tried to track down your great uncle. Last you heard he was in Rochester but you haven't been able to find him yet."

Dorothy registered what I said with a nod.

"Tell her your name... Tell her your name is Rosalie. Rosalie McCarty." I spoke in a confident tone, but I felt the weight of this name on my tongue.

It was a special name. It would hold weight with Vera too. It'd soften her heart to Dorothy, and… and it was selfishly special to me too.

"Why?"

"So you won't be found." I reasoned.

She took this as a good enough answer.

"Tell her you'd like to be hired on as a nanny. She has a baby named Henry. Tell her all you'll require is a place to stay. She will protect you and care for you while you get on your feet." I promised and knew this much would be true.

Dorothy didn't protest like I imagined she would. She was eager for escape, and she jumped at the opportunity.

Instead, she just nodded.

"Well, all right. Call me Rosalie!" She twirled in a circle, looking down at her new self.

My dead heart hurt like a sore bruise.

"All right. Now let's get you to the train station." I redirected before I'd get too emotional as we walked, totally trading places on this path.

I had to admit, I was acting selfishly and I even knew it plainly. I wanted her to take my name because I was also giving her the life I imagined for myself. She'd be able to start over and sport the name I would've if I'd been married to Emmett in the normal, uncomplicated real world like I'd said I was… Dorothy'd get to fall in love again and get married and have babies…

She'd live as Rosalie McCarty when I never could've.

Maybe this would even be the name on her tombstone after she'd grown old and grey haired, surrounded by grandchildren.

A name is vitally important, and incredibly personal. After all I'd shared with her, the clothes we'd swapped, and after all the parts of our souls we'd bared, this seemed so simple, but it was… enough to make me finally crack.

"You know Dorothy…" I started, my voice shaky and weak. "After… what happened to me… I never imagined I'd be worthy of anyone's love ever again. I imagined I was... dirty and ruined. I was used... I imagined no one could ever look past that part of me. I imagined I'd always be afraid, always withdrawn, always full of nightmares. I imagined I'd never find anyone that could make me feel loved and safe again."

It made butterflies flutter in my stomach.

I realized then I was exceptionally emotional in a way I'd never let myself be before and I felt real, excruciating pain reeling through my body.

"But then, you did. You found Emmett?" Dorothy's big blue eyes looked on me with openness and... a glimmer of hope.

I realized what she meant. I had told her we had married. I had told her he had theoretically accepted all of that baggage and weight.

I had told her that he had lightened my darkness…

It was merely a fairytale, but… its falsity gave her hope.

It just scared me to death. I had told her these things in an effort of catharsis, not a solved problem that ended in a promise of a fairytale. Would that even be the case? Right now, for me all of those things were still open-ended questions reeling in my mind.

"I did. I found Emmett." I breathed and was even able to give her a little throbbing smile.

My frozen heart was heavy and I imagined my limbs melting off my body.

I thought about Emmett with nervousness imagining if he could look at me like Dorothy was looking at me once he knew. I thought about whether or not he could make me feel safe and loved again as I'd described to her. I thought about whether he could bear my heavy burdens, and whether he'd even want to.

I was plagued with anticipating fear and I hadn't even told him.

We both slid into our respective seats in the car and closed the doors quietly behind us.

"Are you ready?" I asked, but in a way I was asking myself before I turned the keys.

I was giving someone my life, my dream, my clothes, my name…

But, Dorothy'd given me someone to talk to about what happened to us when we never imagined telling anyone else about it. She'd given me closure. She'd given me confidence. She'd given me hope. She'd given me priceless insight on Emmett. She'd given me a new life too.

She'd given me something bigger than myself and my immortality.

She'd given me the thought that maybe just maybe I could heal… Maybe I didn't have to be what happened to me forever. I didn't have to be defined and weighted by what happened to me.

I could change.