A/N: Thank you for your reviews! I own nothing but what I own...or something.

1948-1955

In Point Place it seemed like everything mattered, once.

Edna grew up in Point Place. Her father, Private Henry Edward McCullough, died bleeding his guts out on French soil. He was a hero, yet he left his frail wife Francine alone with two kids and no way to make real income. The war was over and women were expected to go back into the home, not be the providers. So Francine worked at a diner making less than nothing 

while her children survived off of diner leftovers and charity. Still, it was a good time for Edna and her brother. They had friends in the trailer park they lived in and used their imagination to get them out of their hell. They weren't exactly sweet kids; her brother was a pyromaniac and Edna was a loud-mouth tomboy who knew how to curse like a sailor and spit like one too. They'd worry their mother to death with their behavior. Still, they always seemed to mean well; Edna even remembered times when she and her brother would steal Mrs. Hansen's pies cooling from her trailer and sell slices to the men on their lunch breaks from the factory just so they could afford groceries.

It was a man from the factory that would change their lives forever. His name was Hank Berman. He was forty-one to their mother's twenty-eight in 1948 and he lost some of his hearing in the war. He was a man who you knew would give way to fatness and he always smelled of cigarettes, pomade and lard from some greasy meal or another. He worked in the office so that meant he had a good job and he wasn't married so to the scores of war widows he was a dish. He met and started dating their mother after he came by to thank them for the stolen pie. While he was courting Edna's mother he would give the kids nickels and tell them about his wartime experiences. They got married not even two months later and Hank moved them all to a small house across town. Edna was ten and her brother just turned eleven. Edna was just happy to not live in a trailer and that her mother was happy. Her brother, however, was sullen and given to frequent outbreaks of anger after their mother married. "What's wrong?" she would ask him.

He would always look like he was trying to say something, but every time he would just shake his head and give her a one-armed hug. "Nothing," he would whisper. "Don't worry about it."

The marriage wasn't a happy one from the start. Hank would come home at any hour of the night drunk and bitter. He'd rage to his unwilling audience about how he was being looked over for a promotion due to his damaged hearing and he'd snap at anyone who got in his way. Her mother wore a plastic smile that became her real one and always looked the other way as he would go off on her son and daughter. That resulted in bruises that weren't easy to hide away and went untreated by a woman who ignored their occurrence. By the time Edna turned eleven she knew more about makeup than an Avon lady and wore it often to hide the bruises to her face. Her brother took it all stoically but started to take it out on the neighborhood kids. By thirteen he was doing three to six month stints in juvenile hall to where he might as well stayed there. That left Edna alone with a simpering mother and a stepfather who started to stare at her more and more often and never in a way that she liked.

At the age of eleven Edna was the tallest girl in her class with red hair that would catch the sun and the bluest eyes and had a face that garnered compliments whenever she went out with her mother anywhere. Boys two, even three, years older would walk her home. That summer she received her first kiss from a boy in the seventh grade and was the toast of her school. For that short amount of time she felt rather happy about herself. It wasn't long before Hank noticed the beauty that was blossoming in his house. She would catch him staring at her and on more than one occasion he would enter her room without knocking, or "forget" that she was taking a bath. On her twelfth birthday, after the cake and ice cream were had and the presents unwrapped, he raped her.

It didn't take long, in the grand scheme of things. She hadn't been asleep for long and she had no clue who she was dreaming of or what. He came into her room, locked the door, ripped off the covers and tore at her clothes. Despite her screams and failing arms he got what he wanted. Years later she couldn't remember the pain but she could remember the whispered threats to her and her mother, the feel of his heavy body on hers, and the stench of alcohol and pomade. She laid there shaking after he was done. She wanted to throw up and did so as soon as she was certain Hank went back to bed. She then took a shower and scrubbed her skin raw. She threw away her nightgown and looked at herself in the mirror. In the light of the bathroom her skin was pale, her eyes were red, and her hair was a mess. Hank used to corner her in the kitchen and play with her hair, calling it silken fire. She stopped looking into mirrors after that.

By the time her brother came off of a six month stint in juvenile hall Edna was a changed little girl. She got to where she couldn't sleep any more than a few hours a night in fear of Hank coming to her again. During meals she would stare at her mother, screaming with her eyes to notice that there was something wrong, but she never did. Her brother kept looking her in a strange way and Hank could sit at the dinner table looking like an angel while he was fingering his twelve-year-old step-daughter under the table. She started to wear baggy clothes and shied away from the boys who used to turn her head. She began smoking and sneaking liquor from the liquor cabinet and made a point to stay out all night to avoid being at her. Her mother would cry about her behavior but soon Edna didn't care.

Her brother was pulling a year stint back in juvenile hall for breaking and entering when she was thirteen. She became good at staying out all hours of the night and was able to avoid being around her stepfather. When she couldn't avoid him she got good at lying there, letting him finish his business and get off without a sound or movement. She fainted while out shopping with her mother one month before her fourteenth birthday. She never had her period and her mother was suspicious about it. The doctor confirmed that she was at least two months pregnant and not even in high school yet. Her mother cried some more and kept asking herself where things went wrong. Hank would sneer at her for opening her legs like a whore and how he bet she didn't even know who the father was. Even with all that said there was a fear in his eyes that gave Edna some sort of satisfaction.

They shipped her off five towns away to a convent where "girls in trouble" went to have their babies and not bring shame to their family. In a surreal way it was one of the best and worst times of her life. Her mother abandoned her, she didn't even ask her who got her that way; she just accepted Hank's view of things. The nuns would look at her with pity laced with a self-righteous disgust that made her skin prickle. The baby was growing and taking over her body and she began to resent it and its intrusion into her body. However, for Edna it was at least peaceful; she didn't have to watch out for Hank at night and she didn't have to be around a mother oblivious to what was going on. As the seasons changed and her belly grew she made a few friends there, some who even shared her story. Sometimes she could even forget that she was pregnant and just was just happy to be away.

The baby came early on June 19th, 1952. There wasn't enough time to give her anything and she had to go through four hours of intense labor before she had the baby. Edna looked at the child that took over her body, taking in the little face that was a blend of her and the man she hated. For so long she had resented, even hated that baby. Staring into her daughter's face in its first day of freedom all she could feel was apathy. "Do you want to hold her for a while?" one of the nurses asked.

"No,"

"Are you sure?"

"I said no; get her away from me,"

Edna had to wait three months before she could go home. In the meantime her baby was adopted and sent God only knew where. Her mother was the only one there to pick her up and they didn't talk to each other for the entire ride down. Edna grew to loathe her mother in that drive. Home was different now. Hank would look at her with fear and the visits to her bedroom became more infrequent as he drank and strayed from home. Her mother wouldn't even look at her, much less talk to her. Rumors circulated around town about how Edna McCullough was a little slut who got in trouble. It was hard to fight that reputation and soon she gave into it. By the time her brother returned from juvenile hall she was fifteen and had at least three boyfriends and the only person upset about it was her brother.

Everything came to a head when Edna came home late for dinner smelling of booze, cigarettes, and sex. Her mother hardly looked at her and Hank just shrugged it off. After ten minutes her brother stood up and looked at their mother with contempt. "What's wrong with you?" he asked her.

"Watch your mouth," Hank said.

"No, to hell with you, Hank. Mama, your daughter's drunk,"

"Leave it alone," Edna begged.

"I have left it alone long enough. Mama, do you know what your husband did to me and your daughter? Do you really think it was some random boy who got her in trouble?"

Fiercely Hank threw his half-full beer bottle at the young man, causing him to stagger. Their mother choked out a scream and Edna flinched. "You shut your goddamn mouth," he hissed.

"Leave him alone," Edna cried.

"Hank…" their mother said.

Hank wasn't listening. While her brother was shaking off the hit from the bottle Hank lunged over and started beating his head against the Formica table. Edna couldn't stop screaming and her mother just sat there, staring at her husband beating up her only son with shining eyes. That night they were having fried chicken, and like a good cook Edna's mother used a cast iron pan to heat the oil. She usually had Hank to lift the pan, laughing about how 

skinny she was and using it as a good opportunity to flirt with her husband. It seemed like Hank was wailing on Edna's brother for a while when he stopped abruptly. Edna stopped screaming and looked at Hank in fascination. All expression seemed to leave him as a thick rivet of blood escaped to his chin. With a groan he collapsed, a dent of hair, skull, and other in the back of his head. Behind him stood Edna's mother, shaking like a leaf, holding that heavy frying pan like a prize baseball player. Edna couldn't take her eyes off her mother as she stood over her husband's dead body, her weapon dripping blood and chicken grease. Her brother sat up with a groan, his face coloring in deep bruises. "Go," their mother had whispered.

Never had Edna been scared of her mother, but the look in her eyes and the makeshift weapon in her hand made her reconsider her view of that tiny woman. "Mama," Edna breathed.

"Go!"

Edna stood up and helped her brother to his feet. They ran out of the house, her brother staggering as they went. They hid out at a friend of her brother's and slept in their basement. Later they heard that the neighbors called the police about the screaming. Their mother had been found sitting at the table, Hank's face buried in the fried chicken and mashed potatoes. They shipped her off to a mental institution and so they had to add crazy on top of their bad reputations. Their house was in Hank's name and neither of them were left in his will so all they were left with was nothing. Edna's brother started working at a garage in another county and Edna pulled a job as a waitress. Neither of them wanted to be shipped off to a home. Instead, they pooled together their money and got a run-down house in Point Place and ignored the rumors that swirled around them.

It wasn't an easy life, but they had each other and Edna could at least sleep for more than eight hours at night. The first year was rough; they had no money and her brother's hellion reputation made getting things from their neighbors difficult. Still, they survived and that was better than either of them had ever expected. However, Edna's brother was a proud young man, ashamed that he had not and could not protect and provide for his wayward sister. Two years later her brother joined the Army, telling Edna that it was the best way to provide for the both of them. A year later he was killed in a training exercise leaving Edna alone at eighteen with a house she could hardly afford without a family. At that time she had graduated from high school and her brother had told her to save the money she was given to continue her schooling. But that was over.

Nothing mattered any more.