Life with Delia Hill wasn't always easy for Maria but there were a few hazy, happy memories of life before the Event. The Event of course was Delia meeting her mate, a man who didn't want his one and only to have evidence of previous relationships. Five year old Maria did not learn to cope with significantly less attention from her mother gracefully; at six Maria took apart the lawn mower that moved in with her new step-father and rebuilt it without the blade, at seven she added hot sauce to his tooth paste but by the time Maria had turned nine she realized that the pranking was only making her mother more angry and thus a tense cease fire was achieved. Maria accepted less attention from her mother, faded into the background of the family and avoided her mother's mate.
At twelve "No, Don't" appeared, scrawled behind Maria's left ear in messy print. Her mother of course took the words as confirmation that Maria was completely incorrigible and shipped the pre-teen off to her biological father, Mark Sawer. Living with her previously unknown father was possibly the best thing that happened to Maria since her mother's mate was discovered. Curfew was non-existent; homework was optional and reckless behavior was encouraged. Mark did everything he could to bring Maria out of the shell that Delia Hill created and Maria thrived. The one thing Maria resented was her fathers fixation on her words, he didn't have words, not even a banal "hi" and seemed determined to convince her how wonderful it would be to have a mate. Eventually Maria took to covering her words and by the time she graduated high school and enlisted "No, Don't" was easily ignored.
