Norma never believed she was a good mother. All of her talk about "I'm not going to be that mother that [fill in the blank]" was her way of fighting back against the inner voice.

Sam was abusive. Well, you stayed with him.

John left you. Well, you cheated on him and before that, you lied to him to get him to marry you because you couldn't get a man to marry you any other way. Who would marry you? You're trash. You were born trash and you will always be trash, no matter how you try to dress yourself up.

The pushback was testament to her strength.

Well, I'm not going to be that person.

I'm not going to be that mother. Not again. Not this time.

We came here to start a new life. We're starting over. This is our chance.

Maybe this time.

Norma was the sun. Sometimes, life eclipsed her, but eclipses come and go. This too shall pass and the sun shall rise again. That was Norma Louise Calhoun all the way. You can beat her, you can rape her, you can tell her she's trash, but she's the goddamn sun, so screw off, shithead.

When Alex asked her if she wanted to make a baby, the inner voice wasted no time in rearing its ugly head.

Poor schmuck. You got him wrapped around your finger, don't you? You've been lying to him from day one and he finally started believing you. He actually buys your poor me act. He has no idea how you screwed up Dylan and Norman.

He saw his cousin's little girls, sees them living in Hawaii, where the sun always prevails, and he thinks he can have that with you. He hasn't seen the real you yet. The dark side of the moon. He doesn't know that you still let Norman sleep in your bed at the age of 17. He doesn't know so many things, but when he finds out he's going to leave you.

That's not true, shithead, the sun retorts. He knows about Caleb, the whole story. He's still with me.

Yeah, but that's a story where you can still be the victim. Good, sweet Norma. He just feels sorry for you.


"Norma, come on. Let me in. Let's talk about it."

Alex continuously rapped on the door to the bedroom, to which Norma had run seconds after his question about having a baby. She had locked the door.

"Baby, please."

Little did he know that his kindness was making it worse for her. His kindness made her feel even shittier.

She was curled up on the bed, hugging her knees, crying uncontrollably, because she couldn't bear her own inadequacies in the face of his perfection. This was just another way that she was a constant disappointment to him. He could not have picked a worse person, so she thought, to ask to be the mother of his child. A person who failed to get help for her son until it was too late. A person who sacrificed the needs of both sons to the tyranny of her abusive husband. A person who lies to cover up her own shame.

And yet that was the irony. That she, so awful, had "tricked" so clever and so perfect a person as Alex Romero into loving her... Now she had to disappoint him again because there was no chance in hell she would allow herself to screw up another life.


He heard her crying and it was killing him. After awhile, he gave up knocking and leaned his back against the door. His body felt weak. He let it slide to the floor, buried his face in his hands, and began to weep himself. He had his own inner voice to remind him relentlessly of his shortcomings.

Selfish man!

After everything she's been through...

You took her today to a waterfall in order to bring closure to the torment of her childhood, and you bring up babies now? She's still healing from a forced separation from Norman, and you bring up babies now? Idiot!


Alex didn't know how long he had been sleeping there, lying on the floor outside the bedroom, but as he came to, he found Norma sitting against the opposite wall, starring at him. She stood up and put her hand down for him to take. He silently did so as he stood up, not daring to break eye contact. He followed her, hand in hand, into the living area.

"Norma?"

"Ssh." She turned to face him, smiling. Empty smile. Not reaching the eyes. She put her hands on his chest and gently pushed him back until he fell on the couch. She climbed onto him and started kissing him, hard and full of lust. He kissed her back even though what he really wanted was to know what she was thinking. He kept trying to stop and to look at her eyes, but she was forcing her tongue into mouth. She wasn't taking no for an answer.

Finally, he grabbed her wrists and pushed her away from him with just enough force to separate their lips. "Norma," he panted. "Norma, what's going on?"

She looked at him with that horrible empty smile. It broke his heart. "I want to make a baby with you, Alex."

He stared at her. Was she telling the truth?

"Really?"

Double down on the horrible empty smile. "Yes."

"I don't believe you."

Her eyes hooded over. Her jaw became taut. "Fine."

She stood up and walked past him.

"Norma, wait, what is this?" He caught up to her and forced her to turn around and face him. "What's going on? Please talk to me."

"Why, what's the point if you're not going to believe me?"

He sighed, looking away briefly in exasperation. "Norma, if you want me to believe you you're gonna have to explain to me why me asking you about having babies led to you slamming the bedroom door in my face, and then you're shoving your tongue my throat and telling me you want to make a baby? Excuse me for thinking you might not be giving me the full picture. Honey, just talk to me. Give me Norma. Don't give me this..." He gestured toward her, failing to find the word to describe this shell of Norma, this hollow smile that never reached her eyes. "Just give me Norma. Just give me the truth. That's all I want. That's all I will ever ask of you."

"You want the truth, baby. OK, I'll give you truth. You married a horrible person. The worst. And now you want to have a child with me, to let me mess him or her up the same way I messed up Dylan and Norman, because you think I'm something that I'm not. You want to know the full picture? You want to know the full picture of the mother you'd be giving your child? Are you sure? Because, baby, you don't know the half of it. You don't even know a fraction of the things I've done. The things I've let happen, because I was stupid enough to think that's how you be a good mother. Look where it got Norman!"

He shut his eyes. "It's not your fault."

"Your delusional!" she screamed. "It's all my fault, Alex!"

He opened his eyes in shock. "No," he said desperately, shaking his head. "Baby, no."

"Of course it is! You think Norman would be where he is now if I didn't raise him in a house where his mother let his father treat her like shit? You think Dylan calls me Norma because, what, he just likes the name Norma? No, he calls me Norma because I was a shit mother. Because I don't deserve the name Mom. And that's the garbage you want to pass onto your child? You sure, Alex? You sure you don't want to rethink that?"

"Stop it!" He grabbed her, more roughly than he intended, but he didn't retract. He shook her. He had to make her stop. She was talking shit about herself and he couldn't hear anymore of it. She was wrong. He had to make her see how wrong she was. In response, she grabbed his arms and pushed, but since her arms were restrained by his hands, all she could do was push against him with her body. She pushed against with her body while he pulled her body more tightly into his and moved them to the wall, where he might gain some leverage. She collapsed into tears of frustration and anger, shaking violently. He pressed his lips against her temple, but, his soothing incoherencies and kisses proving inadequate, he moved his lips southward, along her jaw. They were hovering just over her own, but she was crying and shaking so hard, in desperation, he held her face in his hands and pressed his forehead to hers. "Norma, stop. Please. Remember what you said, just over there, on the couch, not two minutes before I asked you about having a baby. You were telling me about how you always had the right instincts, but that inner voice makes you distrust yourself. You're letting it win. Don't let it win, baby. Trust your instinct. You know how much you love your sons. You know everything you did to try to protect them. Jesus, Norma, you were doing it alone. No one helped you. No one ever lifted a finger to help you. You had to figure out everything on your own. Remember when you said to me, I wouldn't last a week in your shoes? You were right. That's why I want a baby with you, Norma. Because our kid will be the biggest badass. Your killer instincts..." He smirked. "And my good looks."

She laughed in spite of the tears still pouring from her eyes. "You have killer instincts too."

"And you're gorgeous, so do you see my point? We may as well just name our kid Badass."

"Alex, I love you, but we're not naming our child Badass."

"What are we going to name our child, Norma?" He delighted in watching the real Norma, his Norma, reemerge.

"Grace for a girl. Grace Elizabeth Romero."

His heart skipped and then did a double beat at her words. "A boy?"

"Nicholas. Nicholas Alexander."

He couldn't hold back anymore. He pressed his lips to hers and kissed her with more passion, love, and lust than ever before.