This part was inspired by "By The Skin of Her Teeth" by the Jennifer Nettles Band

Oh just ask, 'cause she is a giver

oh just ask, she'll stand and deliver

(just ask) she'll be here much longer, and she will be stronger than you'll know.

Stronger than you'll ever know.

To Pogurl for the beta-work and suggestions and edwardzukorocks/angel for the encouragement and input: Thank you.

As ever, if it's copyrighted by someone already then it does not belong to me. Twilight and the Twilight characters belong to Stephanie Meyer and Little, Brown.

May I present to you part two of Snapshots.


Rising

I was alone for a long time. People were in my life, certainly—my parents, my cousins, our neighbors, my husband, my girlfriends—but after I married, I was alone. The friends of my youth were married, too, our weddings were occasions for family and friends to gather in shared community, for our parents to lament on how quickly daughters grow up to leave their parents for a husband, for them to collectively look forward to grandchildren and the next generation.

My wedding wasn't a particularly joyous occasion for me. I was a pretty bride. My father gave me away, my mother cried.

I did, too.

My tears weren't tears of joy. I was not in love with my husband, but I hoped that I would come to find love in him as my mother had come to love my father as they had grown together in marriage. They provided a positive example of what could happen when two people worked together in the age-old dance of man and woman. I looked forward to a time when I was excited to see my husband come home from a hard day's work and not afraid to see him, as I was on my wedding night.

My hopes came crashing down around me within months. My husband was not my father. My father had, on very, very rare occasion, raised his hand to my mother. He had lived by the rule, with his children, of "spare the rod and spoil the child." In every instance of disciplinary violence his punishment was earned; we knew it was coming, and what infraction had garnered it.

My husband was not my father. I never knew what would cause him to hit me, how I could please him. Dinner was too hot, too spicy, not as good as his mother's had been. I missed a spot on the baseboards when I scrubbed them. I let my eyes linger on one of the men in town. I didn't please him in bed. I was worthless.

There came a time when I stopped talking to my mother or my old friends about what was happening. At the time I thought they just did not understand. I realize, with the clarity of perfect hindsight and greater maturity, they willfully would not see what was plain as day, would not challenge the sanctity of marriage because my husband was heavier with his hand than was strictly sanctioned. I saw them less and less.

My friends became pregnant. Babies became all anyone could talk about. I was both envious of my friend's families, their children, and grateful I was not yet pregnant myself. Would my husband treat his child as he treated his wife? Would my son or daughter also learn that he or she was not worth the food he bought for us?

I hoped a child would change him.

I hoped I was barren.

I hoped for escape. But I was not foolish enough to believe it would come. This was my life, the trials I was to endure.

When I realized I was pregnant, it took me a week to process the information. Did I tell my husband so that he would direct his blows to other parts of my body, to protect the life inside of me? Did I keep it to myself and let him bruise my abdomen in hopes that he'd force my body to abandon this new life?

I told him.

He kept his hands, his belt, his fists, off of my middle. He bragged to all who would listen that his son was growing within me, and he'd teach his son to be just like him.

And my choice was made for me. I would not raise a child in a home such as this. I would run. I would lie to my child. Tell him or her that I was a widow; give a good reason for being a mother on her own. Run to someplace where no one knew me.

I wound up in Ashland, far from what had been home.

My son died. That tiny life, new to the world, died. The one good thing in my life, gone.

Living was a burden I could not bear. The cliffs were an easy option. Surely they could not hurt me any more than my husband had. Already I'd suffered broken bones, bruises, beatings. What were the cliffs when compared to my husband's tender ministrations?

I did not die from the cliffs. Though I was not quite conscious when they brought my battered body to the morgue, though they mistook me for dead, I knew enough to realize I'd failed in my attempt, and to think I must indeed be pathetic if I failed to end my life. My husband was right. I truly was incompetent and unworthy.

Then I was saved from myself.

Carlisle taught me that Love, capital "L" love, the kind I read about in story books as child, does indeed exist.

I went to my husband's funeral.

Carlisle and Edward offered to come with me. They were the first members of my family. They had seen me as I had been, conditioned by my husband, thinking I was worthless. Of course they would offer. But it was something I needed to do for myself.

If I had aged naturally, I would have been in my mid seventies. But I had been frozen at twenty-six for almost fifty years, perpetually looking like the woman who had jumped off the cliffs.

Though my body was frozen in time, my mind and heart were not. How could they remain as they were? I learned so much from Carlisle's great compassion and control; our mutual desire to leave gentle, kind footprints in the world served as a foundation in my endeavors. Rosalie's inner fire reminded me of my own; I reconnected to the girl I'd been, the girl who had wanted to move West in an adventure of teaching on the newly tamed frontier. Emmett's jovial hugs, games, and joy of life had me climbing trees again. Edward was my brother/son, with a special place in my heart that no one else could touch. Jasper's courage in changing so completely from the violent life he had known for over a century gave me inspiration. In Alice, I learned to appreciate the present. Her gift of foresight reminded me to cherish the time I currently lived in. She seemed always to live in the future, my dancing sister/daughter, while our Edward and Jasper lived so much in the guilt of the past. From them, too, I learned the value of now.

It was in a talk with Edward, shortly before Rosalie joined our family, that I forgave myself for wishing my husband would die on the front during the Great War.

Jasper and I were outside of St. Louis, walking along the Mississippi, talking about Maria and his experiences in the human and vampire wars, when I forgave myself for the death of my baby.

I learned that the loss of a child never goes away, but that with time and love the loss becomes something you can live through.

I learned that a husband never need raise his hand to his wife. I learned that the joy found in family comes in many forms, as does family. My true family, they who love me for me and not for who I might have been or who they wish I would be is the family I have chosen. We are not tied together by blood but by something far greater.

I learned that I am, indeed, worthy of the love of my incredible husband, and of those who I call my siblings and children.

The six members of my family, my family of choice and love, molded me, challenged me, encouraged me to rise up to my potential.

And I live.


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