#//[hitting salvatore over the head with an oversized rubber mallet labeled MOMMY ISSUES]

[troublewithvampires-a]

//stealing a page out of dani's book a bit here, but i'd like to share some headcanons about sal's mom to celebrate mother's day <3 a holiday sal is always more than happy to pretend doesn't exist.

sal's mother was a woman named anna burke (formerly anna o'malley), a third-generation irish-american immigrant whose family had strong mob ties.

her parents expected her to marry a family friend's son and be part of the family business--the family business in this case being organized crime, even if anna wouldn't be working in a very direct capacity.

instead, though, anna eloped with sal's father, westley, a man she'd met while out and about with friends. her family never approved of westley for a variety of reasons, but she hardly cared--he was a way for her to escape from the expectations her family had placed on her. so, the moment she was 18, she and westley got married and ran away together.

anna and westley had four children together in total: jesse (born when anna was 21 and westley was 25), beth (born when anna was 25 and westley was 29), martin (born when anna was 30 and westley was 34), and finally, salvatore (born when anna was 35 and westley was 39).

(salvatore obviously isn't the name he was given at birth, but i'm not gonna mention his deadname in this particular post.)

(putting the rest under the cut b/c this got long)

anna and westley always wanted a big family, and they were happy with the children they were able to have, but anna did struggle quite a bit to actually conceive and suffered frequent miscarriages in her attempts to have children. she was never properly diagnosed, but she did suffer from pcos, which sal would inherit from her.

sal does look a lot more like his mother than he does his father--he has anna's hair texture and eyes, for example, and when he was younger he had the same freckles. his hair color is very much westley's, though.

westley died when salvatore was young, far too young to have much memory of him.

anna tried her best to be a good mother to her children, but the family's financial struggles after westley's death meant that she had to spend much of her time away from home and at work. feeding and caring for four growing children is expensive, after all, and anna's family wasn't exactly willing to help out at this point after she'd turned on them.

eventually, anna figured out a solution. it wasn't one she was particularly excited about, but she reasoned she had no other choice if she wanted to keep them all afloat: her kids had to pull their weight and cover their own expenses as much as possible.

by the time anna had children, child labor had already been outlawed in the united states. but anna was able to secure a few under-the-table jobs for them to help make ends meet. it was still tough, though, and over time, anna came to resent her situation, and at times she even resented her children by extension, though she forced herself not to let that show.

not that she always succeeded. salvatore best remembers his childhood as a time of constantly walking on eggshells where his mother was concerned, because one wrong step could spiral into a screaming match before he knew it.

eventually, though, anna's family reached out to her again. her brother clarence, older than her by quite a few years, came to visit her, and he told her that her family had chosen to forgive her for running away and turning her back on them. not only that, but they would be willing to help her out of the situation she'd found herself in (she chose not to think about how they knew so much).

it took quite a bit of time and discussion, but anna was given a way out of the situation she'd found herself trapped in. if she was willing, clarence could take her youngest, a scrappy and disobedient girl who always looked and acted more like a boy anyhow, and have her run jobs for some of his contacts in local gangs. nothing official just yet, considering the girl's age, but enough to lessen the financial strain on the family.

young salvatore, of course, wasn't given any say in the matter or even really told the full details of what his new position would entail. he was taken out of school and given a new life working for strange men under a new name. all the while, it was made very clear to him that his family was depending on him.

anna wasn't particularly keen on the idea, but eventually she came around. a small, terrible part of her reasoned that, if the worst were to happen, at least she would have one less mouth to feed. and until then, at least the family's financial troubles would be lessened.