A/N: This is an attempt to delve more into Norma's backstory; from her childhood to her adulthood, her hopes and dreams, and how she became to be the woman she is. It may do that or it may not, you be the judge, but I wanted to write it. Trigger warnings: physical and domestic violence, rape and murder. Those events are only mentioned though, not described in detail, but they're there. A hint of Normero towards the end. Hope you like it. And as always, thanks for reading.

Six

Norma is trying to learn how to ride a bike. She wobbles and balances precariously on the old used red bike, no money in the Calhoun family for a new one, as she goes down the road with a fearless attitude and a determined expression on her face, her dark blond hair tied in two long braids.

Caleb is watching her movement's closely, proud of his little sister's achievement, always cheering her on. She manages to ride for a minute, maybe two, when suddenly she falls. He waits for a few seconds and when he sees she doesn't stand up he starts running towards her.

Reaching her, he can see she's crying. She has a scraped knee that is bleeding, not badly, just the dirt and the rough texture of the sidewalk having scratched the surface of her white, bony, skinny leg.

"Are you okay, Norma Louise? Come on, get up." He says as he offers his 10 year old arms, just a little bit stronger than hers, and helps her to her feet. She limps a little, afraid to put her foot on the ground and relax her leg completely.

"Can you walk or do you want me to give you a piggy back ride?"

"I can walk." She answers in a defiant tone, even though her knee still hurts.

"Alright Norma Louise, don't say I never did anything for you."

She wipes her tears with the back of her dirty small hands as Caleb takes the bike and maneuvers it in a straight position with one hand while helping her up with his other. He picks a wild daisy from the ground and gives it to her. She looks up and smiles at her big brother, her best friend and her savior. Her front two teeth are missing and her blue eyes are so big they take almost all the space on her childish pretty face. They walk back to the house.

Thirteen

Norma is a teenager now. Her birthday was yesterday and there was no big celebration. Today, after school, her brother buys her an ice cream cone from the corner store. She is walking back from school, Caleb has already dropped out and is working at a nearby construction site, but when he's off early he likes to walk his sister home. Today he waited in front of the school and gave her a small batch of lupines. It can't be called a bouquet. They're not aesthetically arranged or color coordinated; he just saw them at someone's garden and picked a few for his sister because he knows she likes them.

"If you had all the money in the world, what would you buy Norma Louise?" He asks as they walk under the warm spring sun.

"Umm, right now? I want to get my ears pierced!" Norma shrieks excitedly and keeps licking the ice cream that is melting fast.

"What? Why? I hear that hurts!"

"It can't hurt that much! Besides, all the girls at school have theirs pierced. I'm the only one left and I want to be able to wear pretty earrings. I have $20 from that babysitting job I did two weeks ago. I think I'm going to get it done soon. Tomorrow, in fact!"

"Okay. But I asked if you had all the money in the world…"

"I'd buy a house." She interrupts him. "And I'd plant lots of trees and flowers around it so it looks pretty. I'd buy lots of cute dresses and a piano! What would you like me to buy you with all my money?" She suddenly turns her face to look at him. His breath is caught in his throat because he loves his sister so much and she looks so pretty today in her blue skirt and white shirt, with her long hair loose down her back.

"Eh, a truck." He replies shrugging. "What is your birthday wish? Something you don't need money to buy?"

She purses her lips and her eyes go sad. "I want mom and dad to be happy. I want dad to stop…" He knows what she means. Hitting us. Yeah, that's what he wants too. But he's getting bigger and stronger. He's 17 now. If their dad ever lays a hand on Norma again he'll fight him. Nobody is hurting his little sister ever again.

Seventeen

Norma just wants this to be over. She's in so much pain. She's also terrified of the moment when her baby is born. Will he look like her? Or will he look like him, his real father? John, her boyfriend from just a year ago and now her husband, is also blue eyed but his hair is dark and his features are gentle. He's tall and athletic but not bulky. He doesn't resemble Caleb at all.

In the end, after long hours of excruciating pain, Dylan is born. She had already chosen the name, nothing too special; she just wanted a name that sounded well with Massett. If the baby was a girl, she had decided to name it Lily in honor of her current favorite flower, but then she learned it was a boy. Change of plans. She's good at dealing with life's unexpected turns. Now she looks at the baby in her arms; he's so small, with a head of blonde hair, and blue eyes; like hers, like Caleb's, like John's. It doesn't really matter anyway. She left. She's far away from her brother. As soon as she found out she was pregnant and made John believe it was his, they left Ohio forever. She doesn't plan to ever go back.

The child didn't cry when he was born. Doctors and nurses checked him up. He was perfectly fine, that was another one of her fears; that he would not. They had to massage his chest and tiny body strongly so he would cry, and when he did, it sounded more like an annoyed cry than anything else. He just didn't want to cry, the doctor had said. He was stubborn since birth.

He did cry after that though, after they brought him home. Every day and every night. Especially when Norma holds him. She's going insane. She's sure the child doesn't love her; and she can't blame him because it's strange for her too. She wants to love him; she cares for him, feeds him from her own breast and sings him to sleep. But every time she looks into his eyes she sees Caleb.

Dylan is eight months old now and he cries less, which has made her feel less anxious and less tired. The first months were exhausting; even for her young body. John works every day, comes home late, and brings her flowers for her birthday. They seem happy.

Twenty

The idea of a happy little family does not last. Nothing good in her life ever does. At least that's what Norma thinks. One day John pushes Norma out of his way. He's angry with his job, with not having enough money, with his kid (it's not his kid but he believes he is anyway) and his marriage that makes him feel trapped. He takes his frustration on her and she lands hard against the wall. She cries. Every man in her life has hurt her at one point or another. Things with John keep going downwards.

She remembers her brother. The once child then man, who protected her against everyone, including their own father, who loved her dearly until the day he betrayed her and raped her. She hates him now, has hated him ever since that horrific day.

She's working now. She's been a waitress at a diner for over a year. She had no experience and she explained she couldn't work evenings because she had a small child to take care of but she would work hard, she promised. Her appearance got her the job. She knows it. She's learning her looks earn her a lot of attention, especially from men.

One day she's cleaning the counter, deep in thought, when she hears a male voice. She raises her head to see where the words are coming from.

"How is such a pretty girl looking so lonely and sad?"

She smiles. The man is handsome, maybe a few years older than her, his blue eyes and dark brown hair catching her attention immediately.

"What's your name?"

"Norma."

They make easy conversation. The diner is almost empty, the lunch rush hour long gone. He compliments her, tells her how beautiful she is. She even flirts with him a little. He mentions he has a job offer in Arizona which makes him sound even more interesting. She tells him she has a small child.

"Can I take you out?"

"Hmm, I don't even know your name."

"Sam."

"I'm married, Sam."

"So?" He replies with a glint in his eye.

Norma ponders her answer, and after a while, she declines. But he's insistent and keeps coming back to the diner several times a week, week after week. One day when he asks her out again, she says yes.

Twenty-eight

Sam gives her roses. Norma loves flowers but she hates roses. And the fact that Sam knows it or should know it by now, but still gives her these flowers makes her angry. She doesn't complain or say anything of course. They're not a happy couple anymore, but her husband likes to keep up appearances and so this Valentine's Day he brings her a dozen of red roses.

Red. The color of love and blood. Their marriage is scarce in the former and plenty in the latter. Bruised arms, cut lips…they hurt less than her broken heart and her crushed dreams.

Norman arrived from school today with a card made for her with his tiny child hands. It has stickers of hearts and flowers and teddy bears on it. In his big, shaky, bold six year old handwriting reads: I Love You, Mommy. Her heart swells with motherly love and her eyes cloud with tears. Her little perfect boy, all brown hair and blue eyes, is the only good thing she has gotten out of this marriage.

She plays the piano; the only thing she has that's hers, aside from Norman that is. She learned to play when she was very young; a kind neighbor who took pity on her had taught her. Norma was talented and disciplined so the lessons were not wasted on her. There was a very old piano at her parents' house, some family hand me down that was missing a few keys, and that nobody used until she learned how to play it. She enjoyed the rare moments of joy that music would afford her. Now, she has a small piano in the living room, one she saved for years to be able to buy. She plays and sings to Norman; he's the only one in the house who pays attention to her love of music, Dylan does not care much for her talent and Sam is oblivious to her feelings. Norman listens and sings with her. It becomes the sound that soothes away the pains of a woman's sad and lonely heart. She cheated on her first husband with Sam, so maybe this is her karma, she thinks. She was sure she loved Sam, and at the beginning that might have been true. Not anymore.

Thirty-four

One more bruise, one more black eye. It doesn't hurt that much anymore. She's used to the pain, or so she tries to convince herself. Sometimes her body likes to remind her that physical hurting is not something you can just wish away. She hates him but she's terrified of him. She tried to leave him once, years ago, but he found her before she could disappear and he put a gun to her head, to Norman's head too. He told her he would kill her. She believed him. She always believes him.

She keeps taking good care of the house, of her sons that are teenagers now, even though Dylan lives mostly out of the house and their relationship is tense and distant. She washes her husband's clothes, puts a hot meal in front of him at the table every day, and lies in bed every night next to him wishing he won't touch her, or that if he does, he's quick and it's painless. She doesn't get her wish every night.

She puts on a smile every morning for Norman because he's the light of her life and she doesn't want to worry him, although both he and her eldest son have been witness to many fights and scream matches between her and Sam. She also puts on a brave front and walks with her head held high because if she doesn't, if she doesn't tell herself that one day she'll get away, that one day her tears won't have the same culprit, then she doesn't know if she'll survive.

She needs to survive, not only for herself, but for her son too. He needs her.

Thirty-nine

She became a widow, she moved houses and states, she's about to open a new business and she's finally free. She can't believe that at this point in her life is when she is learning and enjoying what freedom is. For the first time since she was seventeen she has no husband at her side. She's her own woman. She will build a new life for herself and her son. Yes, there's the matter of her husband's accidental death but she will keep on with the charade. She has to protect Norman who really did nothing wrong, just defended her from her abusive husband. He doesn't even know he killed his dad, she saw it happen with her own eyes, but she will keep it secret.

So she starts making plans; getting her house and business ready, settling for a new normal life when the unthinkable happens. Another man; another abuse, another insult to her womanhood. But this time she retaliates; she's tired of every goddamn man in her life using her as a doormat, so she lashes out in anger at the injustice of it all. She kills him. His blood spills on her hands and her blouse and skirt, just like it had happened many times before, when it had been her own blood staining her clothes. Not again. Never again.

All she wanted was to start over.

The same night she meets two men. Not any two men; policemen. She thought that somehow they knew about her crime already and were coming to arrest her but it turns out they were just passing by. The lights at the motel and the house that were until recently empty catching their attention. These two men are interesting; both in their own different ways. There's the cute deputy, eager and clearly taken by her charms; she knows how to read and seduce men easily now. She was never unfaithful to Sam; she wouldn't have dared. He would've killed her if he found out, so she resigned herself to a brute for a husband and a lover. But now she's a widow, technically single. She could still have fun, or fall in love, or just use her feminine powers to get what she wants. The Sheriff is handsome too but is crystal clear he loathes her so she is ignores him. Better to put her efforts on the deputy.

What she thought was going to be a hot romance was not. She got entangled by necessity and fear with a man who turned out to be another monster. It all ended atrociously of course; the deputy dead and her with another disappointment. But that's all over now and her motel will re-open. Norman is happy at his new school, and Dylan; her firstborn found a job and is staying. Maybe she'll have the life she wanted after all.

It's going to be spring soon.

Forty-two

Sometimes Norma starts gazing at Alex when he's not aware of it and she gets lost in her thoughts. She sometimes wishes he had met her when she was a teenager, all bright and full of dreams. Or when she was in her 20s; perfect body and perfect face, young and agile, ready to run anywhere. What if he had met her when she was in her 30s; not yet a single line on her face, stronger and less beat up by life? But then, she wouldn't be the woman she is today, wouldn't she?

She was sure Alex found her deeply annoying at the beginning of their acquaintance; in fairness she thought the same thing about him. How dared he not succumb to her flirting and feminine wiles right away, like every man before him had?

Later on, she learned to trust him, and to seek out his friendship when the weight of the world on her shoulders seemed too much for her to bear. She also learned to love him.

Maybe she was always destined to be a wife, just as she was destined to be the mother of sons, never of daughters. Maybe her brief time of singlehood was meant to be short because that was all the time she needed to stand on her own, not fearing that a man, any man, would resent her for doing so. She was always strong and powerful; she just needed to be allowed to be. A flower needs air, water and earth to grow. Too much or too little of any of those and it will die. She was being suffocated in her youth. She now has air to breathe.

Alex is different. He lets her fight her own battles and only stands next to her for support if she ever needs it. He is also ready to protect her at all cost. Sometimes the intensity of his love for her scares her. It's a different fear, instead of being scared of being mistreated or abused; she's scared of what would happen to him if she's not around. Till death do you part. That's what they promised each other two years ago and what they both intend to do. She hopes death is far away, and when it comes it finds them both with gray hair and a million wrinkles on their skin. They will die happily holding hands on the swing in their front porch, with satisfied smiles on their old happy faces and the knowledge that they each found ultimate love.

Norma shakes her head. She's been staring at Alex for God knows how long. Not too much time has passed. He is still young, she is too. Well, ok, they're middle aged but they're young at heart. They feel invincible as only two people in love can.

Alex gives her peonies, learning by observation those are her favorite flowers, and always listens when she plays the piano. He loves to lie on the sofa while she plays romantic old songs meant for him on lazy Sunday afternoons. He also sits nearby and watches her, like a sentinel guarding her from sadness, when she feels the need to play soft melancholic songs after they've come back from visiting Norman at the institution. Alex is her fierce protector, her devoted husband, her best friend, her eager lover, and her personal salvation.

This world of men destroyed her innocence but never her indomitable will. It tried to crush her dreams for happiness but it didn't succeed. So what if she had to wait four decades to find real love? Or the confirmation that love is acceptance, trust and mutual respect; not pain and abuse? She learned the hard lessons and suffered great injustices along the way. Life is like that. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

It's spring. The flowers are in bloom.

The end.