Sleepy Fox Hollow [m] nomajoka

finally; he was splitting, a chrysallis allowing grief to unfurl wet wings on the stone of his heart. he insinuated she made this choice in ignorance of what it would cost her girls, not comprehending the depths of misery through which she had already put them and herself. 
if dinah ever knew that her mother had married within a year of her father's death to a man who had split her lip, terrorized her with cruel words, and then put children inside her: what sort of model might that be, for how to be treated? for how to love?
he was right about etienne; he had saved ava's life. she couldn't keep dragging them back and forth. yet this —!
but heda had not expected anselm's tears; she stood helplessly by until she was roused to go near him, to pull bits of greenery and ice from the pelt that had only just been so warm over her own. "god never gives you more than you can bear," the widow murmured in a sigh which questioned her own beliefs.
"you are stubborn and mean, anselm. but you choose to be those things. stop making that choice." voice resolute, heda pulling upon the preachering she had done so often on the island.
"i want to be married because now we have sinned in the eyes of god, and in yours too." i want them to have a father, was the unspoken part, for his emotion was now catching at her own gaze, her own throat; "who raised you to be like this?" and therein, another part; they knew nothing about one another, an additional and terrifying thought in the face of everything else.