Chapter 1

Beth had always liked things in a proper order. Everything in their perfect little slots, from her books and cds to her relationships and her schooling and her future. Life needed order.

She chooses to be a kept woman; She chooses Dean. She liked him. She liked his confidence. He was cute. He played baseball and football. She likes the picture he paints of a pretty white house in a safe neighborhood and a whole slew of kids. Of marble backsplashes, trips to Cedar Point and their parent's cabins up north (they'll go to the Boland's more often; theirs is in Traverse City and there will more for the kids to do). They can get a golden retriever and take him with them when they go to the orchard in the fall for cider and donuts and the dog will growl at the goats and chickens. They might even get an in-ground pool, maybe move up a little to a town with a lake to live on. She'll be on the PTA and he'll sell cars. I'll be so successful, he jokes, since Michigan roads force us to replace our cars so often. He is predictable, reliable, and so easily controlled. He promises her a life of secured happiness.

Her choice, quite happily, leads to a lot of scheduling and budgeting the monthly allowance her husband gives her. She's good at it. She likes it, likes the color coordinated sticky notes and the coded pens and the sting of paper cuts and the lists and stickers and control.

But then her marriage, her life, and their perfect order crumble, and Dean holds the sledgehammer in one had and a bony little blonde's A cup in his other hand.

She's losing control, most of which she seemingly never had in the first place, and she needs to do something to fix it. Something that will give her some semblance of authority.

She decides to rob a grocery store.

The thought scares her a little, because it's like she's forsaking everything she had ever stood for. Beth was a good girl. She liked being a good girl. She cleaned up her toys and came in before the street lights turned on. She waited five months before she even let her high school boyfriend get under bra, and telling her parents when she found Annie behind their shed with a lighter in her hand and a joint between her lips had been out of genuine concern for her baby sister. She waited until her sophomore year of college to even try it herself. She had been faithful to her husband despite the four year dry spell and his tea spoon sized emotional capacity. She always put everyone else's needs before her own.

She does what she's supposed to.

But she's supposed to take care of her kids. That is the number one thing as a mother she is supposed to be able to do.

So she does what she has to. Once she sits down and figures it out, it's not so different from making her calendars. She has to make sure everyone (see: Annie) knows what they're doing and when they're doing it. She has to make a plan and know her openings and know and prepare for every possible thing that could go wrong.

She does what she has to to keep things in order.