Marcella Birch was trouble before, during, and after her life. Her mother had never bothered to pretend she'd wanted to have her, or that it had been easy or in any way pleasant to be her mother.
While many children were growing up with warnings to get in before the street lights and the occasional reprimand or week of being grounded, Marcella was being raised on such gems as, "You're the reason only drunk men like Mommy!" and "I'm so excited about your first day of kindergarten! It'll be the first time in five years I've had you out from up my ass!" and "You tell them you fell down the front steps!" and "When was you gonna tell me you was dropped out of school and getting passed around the whole fucking football team, ya goddamn little whore?"
Ages sixteen through twenty-eight were pretty much an alcohol-induced haze punctuated by the occasional crack or meth binge and a handful of abortions.
She would never know who her father was, and she couldn't remember her mother's funeral when she was twenty-six, though the few people who'd been in attendance would never forget the way she'd stumbled over to the the coffin and spat right into her mother's face. An uncle who hadn't seen her since she was three was kind enough to remove her before anyone called the police and drop her off at one of her boyfriends' houses.
At twenty-nine, she finally wrecked the 1980 Firebird she'd been stealing from her mother for joyrides since she was fourteen and was bequeathed upon her mother's death. She was wasted out of her mind and ran a stop sign, plowing into a family in a minivan. The mom and one kid needed stitches. One of the other kids had a broken leg or something, she wasn't even sure.
Whatever the case, she'd cleaned up a bit during her year in jail, and a bit more still during her parole. Her original parole officer had noticed her improvement and, hoping to get her out of a bad situation and away from all her bad memories, he'd set her up with a job working in her sister's boutique in Wilkinson County, where she became known as nothing worse than a somewhat slutty party-girl.
She'd met Sean Brooks in a bar. She'd liked his heartfelt smile and the shine in his eyes. He'd liked her long black hair and slender, creamy legs...
She didn't drink enough to get too sloppy anymore, and she was frequently drug-tested by her new parole officer. Going out to bars was just because she felt right in them. She'd order herself a drink and just wait. For a man to buy her another one, for a game of pool or darts, for a piece of ass to bring home, for a new friend or an invite to a good party, for the kinds of things she liked to do.
He'd tried asking her out on real dates: movies; dinners; plays; picnics. But she only ever wanted to have a couple of drinks and go back to the motel. He thought she didn't think he was good enough for him, and she would never have a chance to clarify that it was just the opposite.
He was making her nervous. She was terrified that this would be the night he dropped the l-bomb on her. Love meant dates, soft kisses for no reason, gifts, walks, laughing together, and no more wild nights with strangers. No more drugs, probably ever, even after parole. She was doing better. She was doing well at her job. When she woke up in the mornings she knew where she was and could clearly recall at least a majority of the previous day, week, even month now. But she wasn't quite ready to think about truly settling down. She didn't even know if she ever wanted to be.
She knew she was attractive to men. She knew if she ever wanted a permanent home or a family, it was just a matter of flashing her best smile in the right one's direction. She could have been married a dozen times over by now, if she'd wanted it. Something in her liked to be free, something in her loved going to a bar and not knowing who she'd leave it with. She was just learning to enjoy spending her money on hair and nails and shoes and the note on her Honda – all equally selfish but far less dangerous than drugs. All far more interesting drains on one's finances than diapers and conservative dresses.
She wanted Sean... at a distance. At least for now. And she didn't know what to say to him. She didn't know how to respond if he ever uttered the dreaded l-word in her direction. She preferred not to hurt good men in the process of having her fun. She had more than her average two drinks that night.
She'd calculated correctly that this was the night Sean would tell her he loved her. What she hadn't calculated was that his shining eyes and heartfelt smile, while genuine, were fickle things at best.
They met at the motel, walked hip-to-hip to the bar for drinks and back to the motel again. On the same floral bedspread pattern they'd seen at least two dozen times, he took her hand. "I don't want to just be a fixture in your favorite motel room, Marci. I want to see you in full sunlight, in the daytime. I want to hear what your laugh sounds like in the park. I want to see how you swim. I want to know how you make love in a camping tent. I love you, Marci."
She had a protocol for situations like this, for those rare occasions when she met someone she really liked and let herself spend too much time with them. First was the smile. She thought it was a bittersweet smile, and maybe to some men's eyes it was. It had never caused her any trouble before. But to Sean Brooks, the smile said, "Awww, how pathetic. What a loser. You fool. You idiot. You pussy whipped fucking moron. How amusing."
Second was the squeeze. They were invariably holding her hand when in situations that required use of her protocol, and at this point, after the smile, she would squeeze their hands, holding them tight in her own. I am here, I am with you, I am hearing you and feeling you. But to Sean, the squeeze was condescending and forced.
He broke the protocol. He squeezed back, hard. Harder. Was he doing this on purpose. "Sean? Sean, that hurts -"
"Nooo!" Sean roared right into her face, squeezing harder still, his face turning instantly beet-red. One of her fingers popped loudly, but she couldn't wrangle her hand away to see if it was broken. It hurt too much, and he wouldn't loosen that grip. "Do you know what fucking hurts, Marcella? Do you?"
"Yes, my fucking hand! Let me go, you fucking creep!"
"Big mistake, Marci!" He gave her a hard yank in his direction. Her wrist ached, sudden and intense.
He'd ranted and raved like that, slapping her, hitting her, shouting vileness and droplets of spit directly into her face. She fought back at first, being as loud as she could be, sure that someone would hear and help her. She underestimated the other tenants' devotion to privacy. Sean had blacked both her eyes and raped her before the first complaint to the front desk was made.
He hadn't meant to kill her. A hard punch to her temple, and he thought she was knocked out. He'd paced the floor, trying to think of what to say, feeling horribly guilty, knowing he should leave before she woke up but not willing to let go. He was thinking of cleaning up the blood, buckling her into his front seat, and bringing her to his house so he could think... when she sprang up and startled him. She stared at him, her eyes somehow blank and wild all at once. Slowly, almost mechanically, she'd approached him in a strange crawl-climb-slip combination across the smooth bedspread.
He'd backed away, stammering her name until he'd run into the TV and dresser behind him. "Marci, are you OK, honey? Listen, I..."
She fell off the end of the bed, but it didn't matter. He was only about sixteen inches away and she took bites out of him from feet to face as she used his body to pull herself up and stand. He managed to push her away, confused and in pain and absolutely terrified, and made his way as far as the door, which he opened and promptly fainted halfway out of, where he bled profusely from the neck until help arrived.
Marcella stumbled over the fallen Sean and caught sight of a homeless man in the wooded area across the parking lot, who seemed to consume all her attention. She hobbled after him, though he never knew anything but that he thought he heard something behind him a couple of times. She fell into a well that was haphazardly covered with sheet-metal next to the burned remains of a very old and nearly forgotten house that had once belonged to the motel owner's great-great-grandmother, and was never of any consequence to anyone again.