"If you want to understand me," the woman with the sad eyes said to the tired police officer, "you're going to have to be me."
--
Your name is Pauletta 'Paulie' Robertson-Reid. You've made some mistakes.
You're the first one in your family to make something of yourself, which is great, but it isn't much. You're still lower-middle class, still married to a no-good alcoholic. You're well-adjusted to the cycle of jail time and disappointment, even before you're forced to take up crime for yourself. You don't have much good going for you.
You have a little girl, though. She's sweet. Headstrong. Good.
Your husband, Jack, he's the one who starts it. He has his plans and schemes and he makes the hits and you sit at home and drink in the dark. You try to take on more and more shifts, but there's only so much your boss can do. You know what Jack's doing for money now and you want it to stop, but what can you do?
Jack gets caught a few times. He's in-and-out of jail now and you can't decide which is worse (neither is good), but it doesn't matter because it's not like anything's going to stick. He always comes back. And he always leaves again. He wants you to help him, but you refuse- what will happen to your sweet baby girl if both of her parents are in jail? You don't want this for your daughter, don't want this for yourself, but what can you do? You can't afford a lawyer to divorce him, can't sue for the house. You can't take care of her on your own, anyway. It's inescapable- your life, your marriage. You're stuck.
And suddenly, she's eleven. Your daughter is eleven, and you don't even know her. But even though you don't know her so well anymore, you still love her more than anything. You don't have a lot, and Jack's never given you much to be grateful for, but your baby is one of your only bright, good things.
Sometimes you feel like you've failed her. She's had to half raise herself, after all. She resents you for it too, you can tell, and you don't know whether to blame your selfishness or your fear or your husband. You haven't been there for her, and it shows. So you try to make up for it now, by providing for the two of you once Jack ends up in jail again. For good. Again.
You start small- convenience stores, fast-food restaurants, the little places that typically get robbed by desperate people. And you're desperate- don't kid yourself. You've had your hours slashed at work recently and it's starting to show when you go shopping. You sit at the table and drink cheap liquor and try to figure out which bills can go unpaid for how long. It's a sad, tiring, pathetic game, and it reminds you only too well that you're sad, tired, and pathetic. You're only human, and you've made some mistakes, and it's starting to cost you. But what can you do?
You met some people- tired, desperate people. People like you. But they have something you don't: anger. It's not us who've done wrong. They've done us wrong. They make your mistakes seem smaller. It's your circumstance, really. You're a victim, to them. They want to help you get even with the world. They feed you their anger. It's the world who's at fault. The world made you like this. You can make it better- you can make them hurt as badly as you do. You'll feel better, they say, if you can make the world at large pay for letting people like you happen. It's only fair, they say.
You know the truth, though, you know there's no fairness in the universe.
And at the center of it all, your daughter, your one bright thing, is growing up. You want to give her everything, you want her to have so much more than you did, you want her to be so much more than you are. What can you do?
Those people you met, they help you. They help you make hits and it's awful, but it works. You do it to pay your bills. You do it for revenge on the world. But mostly, you do it for your daughter. You do it to make up for all of the mistakes you've made, all the heartache you've caused her. You can at least give her something this way, and maybe that'll be enough. Maybe you can bridge the gap that's growing steadily between you.
One day, something goes wrong in a bank. The police are moving faster than expected and the teller won't give you anything. The others have been threatening to shoot hostages, but he doesn't believe you'll do it. You begin to accumulate a list of all the reasons that this plan sucks. Number One: someone needs to shoot an innocent person. No one wants to do it, but you think, Well, it's not as if we aren't all going to hell anyway.
You love your daughter very much. You level your gun at the hostage's head and pull the trigger. You just want her to be happy. You just want what's best for her.
That's what all mothers want, really.
