SHINE A BRIGHT LIGHT IN THE CORNERS

Then

Sutton at thirteen: a stunner in the making. Long colt legs, flowing strawberry hair that grazed budding breasts, eyes the color of summer skies. She became a woman overnight, it seemed, one day a gawky, bespectacled geek who got along with everyone; the next, in contacts and a new outfit, a glorious creature who struck awe in the eyes of everyone around her.

This sudden transition made her a very unpopular girl. It seems contradictory: teenage beauty should be the golden ticket to love and popularity, but on Sutton it worked the opposite way. She kept a few friends, though even they wandered away soon after, not wanting to be in her shadow.

There was Joe, too. Joe was Siobhan’s third husband. He was a metalworker of some sort, held down a good, steady second-shift job at the plant in Smyrna. They met at a bar on the outskirts of town. He drove her home and never left.

Sutton knew the timing of her losses had more to do with Joe’s arrival in their lives than with her budding beauty. He wasn’t bad at first. Brought Sutton candy, treated her mother well. Was entranced by their hard-luck backstory, humored Maude’s name change to the more glamorous Siobhan. He liked the idea of glamour, Joe did.

After a couple of months he asked Siobhan to marry him, and she saw a good paycheck and a warm body for cold nights, so the ring went on her finger, and then he started turning...skeevy.

He hung around Sutton’s room too much for her liking. She yearned for real privacy, but they were living in Joe’s house, and it was the first time in a long time that she had a room with an actual door instead of a curtain drape, so she couldn’t complain too much. Joe would stop by when he got home from work. Knock, knock. He wanted to hear about school. He wanted to hear about her friends. He suggested they have a sleepover party. He even provided the booze.

Seven hungover twelve-and thirteen-year-olds draped around the kitchen table made the parents quite angry, and of course, Sutton took the fall, almost willingly. After all, she now had a cool stepdad. She had a room with a door. She didn’t want to jeopardize things. Didn’t want to rock the boat. The newly bribed sleepover friends peeled away, one by one, until Sutton was left alone in the microcosm with Siobhan and Joe.

Soon after the disastrous sleepover, Joe came home from second shift, knock, knock, sat next to her on the bed with the pink princess comforter, put his hand on her knee, and explained the birds and the bees to her.

Sutton, aghast, complained to Siobhan, and a huge fight ensued.

Joe, though, was nonplussed. “Look at her. She’s beautiful. There’s gonna be boys hanging around her like wasps to sugar water, and she needs to know how to protect herself. She needs to know what to expect. That’s all I was trying to do, explain the ways of the world.”

Still, it felt wrong to everyone, and the household was filled with tension. Siobhan, instead of getting them out of there, was jealous, unhappy that her catch was eyeing her kid.

Sutton was forever aware of how Joe looked at her, his eyes sliding over her nubile form like he was taking stock. Sutton decided a room of her own wasn’t worth what was surely about to come, and began acting out. It was logical to her. If she became a bad kid, he’d get mad and ask them to leave.

She started hanging out with a crowd of tattered boys who kept rolling papers in the glove box and fifths of Jack under the front seat, and the fights started almost immediately. She was grounded. She snuck out. Her phone privileges were taken away. They forced her to ride the bus, but she cut school anyway.

Her actions worked wonders. As her home life (happily) deteriorated, her street cred rose. She was willing to do most anything she thought would piss Joe off, and soon she had herself a you can call me your boyfriend, if you want.

His name was Hayden. He was seventeen. She thought she might even love him.

She’d had her eye on him from the start of her rebellion, certain he could help her on her path to fury. Hayden did his own tattoos, and they weren’t bad, considering. Secondhand Doc Martens, too-long black hair falling in his eyes, teeth as askew as scattered dominoes. A fog of cigarette smoke clung to him, and sometimes patchouli, just so everyone could know what he was really doing when he cut class.

He had a beat-up Jeep Wrangler and a certain way of talking about Kerouac and Proust that made her crazy with longing. She rode in his Jeep without a seat belt, drinking beer out of brown paper bags and smoking cigarettes. They made out in the cramped back seat, squirming around, taking things almost too far.

She didn’t want to live a biscuit-colored life. She wanted excitement and joy, pain and exhilaration. She wanted it all.

So when Hayden suggested she come to a party at his friend’s house, she jumped at the chance. Accepted the upperclassman-only party invitation with sheer delight and excitement coursing through her teenage veins. She knew exactly what was going to happen. She’d been planning this for a while. Finally, they would have the proper privacy to do all the things she’d been dying to try.

God bless that little idiot.

She was thirteen, angry at her parents, trying hard to be popular by taking risks—no, not taking, throwing herself against them like waves against a rock—seeing a boy who cared nothing for her and knew exactly how to take advantage of her. What happened next was almost inevitable.

* * *

When Sutton missed her period, she didn’t think anything of it.

The second month without one she blamed on jogging, which she’d taken up with a vengeance in lieu of throwing herself at bad choices. She might even go out for track. Wouldn’t that be fun?

The third month, when she was feeling sick and sore, she bought a test. Two pink lines. Her first thought: I’m going to die. The second: They’re going to kill me.

Once she couldn’t deny it anymore, she did her best not to panic. She knew exactly what had happened that night, even though she couldn’t remember it all in detail. She’d gone in wanting to be the cool party girl, and wow, had she ever gotten her wish. And now she was going to pay the price.

But she was going to handle things herself. She knew what she needed to do. Get rid of it, and fast. There was no way in hell she was going to face any of the boys who’d been there that night, especially Hayden, that prick, and tell them she was in trouble. Hell, no.

But Joe Schmo kept a purple Crown Royal bag full of cash in a barrel in the garage. She’d seen him sneaking bills into and from it plenty of times. He’d catch her eventually, notice the missing money—$300 was a lot, even to a man who had a good job—and she’d be punished, badly, but at least she’d be in the clear. Her life wouldn’t be ruined. No more than it already was, of course.

The day she threw up for the first time, she skipped seventh period, the first time she’d cut since the party, and snuck out to the parking deck where the kids assembled to smoke or make out or catch a quick high. The sun was blasting, the day so hot and humid that she felt like she was going to melt into the pavement and die.

She’d been feeling like she might die a lot, lately. She was such an idiot. What a huge, stupid mistake.

She borrowed a cell phone from a guy who was in her chemistry class. She’d looked the number up last night, memorized it. Dialed while she walked to a shady corner of the deck. The Planned Parenthood office answered on the first ring. She made an appointment for the next day. Deleted the call from the cell and gave it back. Took a nice, long toke from a joint passing through the crowd, which made her feel better than she had in a couple of months, then hurried to the house to get the money.

No cars in the drive. Siobhan wasn’t home, which meant Joe was off somewhere with her. Sutton’s ploy had worked well. He had become so disgusted and fed up with Sutton’s bad behavior he’d left her alone, and Siobhan got all his attention, which her mother didn’t like but put up with because free rent was worth a black eye here and there, wasn’t it?

So when Joe came home early, alone, and caught Sutton opening the lid of the barrel, a fight ensued.

He’d threatened to call the police. She’d told him to fuck off. He’d slapped her, hard enough to send her head backward into the wall.

Something inside her had snapped, a taut line breaking, and she attacked. The lid of the barrel was heavy in her hands, and she slammed it into Joe’s head with all the force she could muster. He went down, and that was it. Legs, nails, teeth, everything she had that could hurt, she used. And like all bullies, Joe the Schmo proved to be weak. Her fury and frustration and fear overwhelmed him, and she beat him until he was crawling on the floor, trailing blood, moaning for her to stop.

She finally did. Her hands were bruised; one finger was definitely broken. She had skin and hair under her nails. Joe was in bad shape; she could hardly believe the damage she wrought.

She went for the Crown Royal bag. She’d need all the money now, some for the abortion and the rest to get out of town. She took the wad without counting, threw a few things in a ragged backpack, and ran.

She slept in a field on the outskirts of town. She was hungry and thirsty and cold and desperate. The police caught up with her the next morning, trying to keep her appointment at Planned Parenthood.

They arrested her for assault. The irony—and yes, she knew the meaning of the word by now—was not lost on her.

Elizabeth Sutton Wilson gave birth to the baby in juvenile hall, three months before she was released.

All she knew was its sex. It was a girl.