character :: April Marks
Anyone who claims they “have a plan” are fucking liars. Or they’ve been born rich enough, which is just as bad – and April is the perfect example of this truth.
April had a humble upbringing; spending many mind-numbing afternoons hanging around the small family operated butcher shop that her mother and father ran in tandem. They were a close-knit family and April didn’t begrudge her “volunteered” summer vacations and after-school hours; after all, she quite liked the art of butchery. She got an allowance, but most importantly she got all the fresh steaks and bacon she wanted. That’s the real perk of butchery, her father would joke, and her mother had added that meat would make her grow taller. Someone was lying!
She was aiming higher than a little corner shop and a small three bedroom house just so inconveniently rural as to drive the cost down; she wanted the high life. So, all throughout high school, she schemed and planned with her best friend how they’d flee the rural town and move to a big city to find their riches. It didn’t matter where – “somewhere big” was a fuzzy, ill-defined someplace that would be the key to her future. Really, everything was fuzzy and ill-defined. Monica and April claimed that business degrees would help them find their way, but the truth is that April had no idea what she wanted to do with her life.
go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail.
The movies made it sound like a soulmate, this one thing that would come and sweep her off her feet and every day would feel like a fairy tale as she floated off to work her dream job. She could go to university just like everyone else her age and make it work, god knows she had the tenacity. She just had to find the thing, right? The one thing? It sounded simple enough.
Well, as dreams typically go, the beginning had her gasping for air on the sidelines before she even got to start running. University, or what she had been conditioned to feel was a “real university”, was so far out of reach for her it was a joke. So off she fled with Monica to a little shitty community college, convinced that getting the first two years out of the way for a fraction of the cost would save them in the long run. Unfortunately for April, she met her Prince Charming here – a man attending school for chemistry – who promised her the world. She fell head over heels for him, and by the time she had herself a little shotgun wedding before she started to show, he dropped the nice guy act entirely. He was mentally and physically abusive to her, pregnant or not, which was entirely not necessary considering he towered over her and could subdue her quite easily without throwing a single punch. He severs her every tie with friends and family by dragging her to Houston so that he could persue his dreams and she could live in the house, a bird with clipped wings.
After May was born, April had her hands full. Her grades slipped as she stressed herself nearly to death, walking to her car after class with her head down for fear someone might stop her to talk about coursework and hold her up from cooking dinner. She promised Monica that everything was going just fine – but it wasn’t. And when April came home to another screaming match that would eventually have her running for her life with nothing in tow but a crying baby, well, it was time to throw in the towel. She dropped out of school and returned to her family’s home a defeated woman, and the combined attorney bills on top of the student debt she had accumulated assured that her hopes of any semblance of a future were dashed. It didn't help that Dave had a constant choke-hold on her life, leaving threatening presents and voicemails by the thousands. He tormented the family with his threats of torture and death, but under many of the stalking laws in Texas: he'd done nothing wrong. It was a hard-earned victory when April eventually won full custody of her daughter; only after Dave kidnapped her during one of his supervised visits that summer. She was happy to see that the black eyes and bruises in the shape of his handprints eventually faded…but the mental scars were forever.
So, April, under the protection of her mountain-man father who was far too old to have to lord over his adult daughter (but he did so with a smile on his face), began working the butcher shop during the day. At first it felt like a frigid meat prison, but over some weeks, the feeling of failure started to slip away. She was fiery, and with a lot of help from Monica, the two modernized the little mom-and-pop outfit to look pretty darn sleek. Money started coming in just a little easier, and Monica had a fantastic idea while she watched April hack away at a half-carcass in the back: what if we opened a restaurant? A steakhouse even? The idea sounded just as half-baked as any of the others, but something felt tingly and magical about the moment.
can bring greatness.
You can find fullfillment
in every circumstance.
When Monica went to Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, April couldn’t be more apprehensive. After all, Monica had already flunked out of college once because of dis-interest, how could this work out in their favor? But Monica came back home triumphant, a fire in her belly, and the two girls both took out personal loans to open what would become Monica’s baby: the steakhouse. April’s butchery became a mainstay at the steakhouse, and the little butcher shop suddenly had more business than she could handle. May was around five years old, and for the first time in her life, April hoped she could be proud of her mother. Debt was slowly being repaid, her father had to work less and less as he aged, and honestly things were starting to settle down.
Yeah, maybe it wasn’t her dream. Maybe all of this turned out vastly different than she had hoped for – but it wasn’t bad, just different. All things in April’s life buffeted her around like a storm, a hurricane, a wind that couldn’t be controlled: and far before she were ready to trust again it would happen once more. A handsome man with kind eyes and an easy laugh just so happened to stop by her shop one afternoon, and someone that flawless doesn’t just fall into April’s path without reason. The whole time April feels herself blown into yet another new chapter, she’s asking herself…oh great, what could possibly be the catch to this one? Too bad for April, she had no idea what was in store for her; Dave wasn't done just yet. She'd spend the rest of her life paying for the crime of loving a man, and she'd be dragging everyone she knew with her.
