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Renee Goodchild

In 1971, Renee Goodchild yearns for what any sixteen-year-old girl might want: approval, acceptance, love and a positive future. But when she meets eighteen-year-old Kenny Ray Murphy, he enlists her to meet his needs for possession, control, dominance and power. In their rural Texas shotgun house, he isolates her from family and friends, refuses to let her drive, forbids her to find employment, and destines her to a life of poverty. The only problem is -- he’s miscalculated Renee’s resolve.

Renee’s father, Jessie Goodchild, sets out to shoot his son-in-law after he’s learned of Renee’s abuse. But his conscience won’t let him break the Fifth Commandment. He has no problem, however, violating the one about adultery. He decides to have an affair with his minister’s wife to relieve his mind of the painful family issues he can’t control.

Granny Henderson, Renee’s elderly neighbor (whose sole goal in life is to outlive her husband), encourages Renee to drive and to seek employment. Kenny rages, physically attacks Renee, and then finally concedes to let her work.

At her Dallas Electronics workplace, Renee meets a cast of characters, one who wants to save her, one who’d like to knife her and one who’d just like to get laid. On the night shift, she assembles calculators with a bunch of foul-talking, hardened women.

Renee befriends a thirty-five-year-old lady named Pearly who thinks Renee is dire need of life instructions. Pearly helps Renee plot her escape from Kenny.

Coworker Anthony Salazar manages to further unravel Renee’s life by seducing her. She thinks he’s in line to be her next husband, but he’s not the kind to dodge bullets or confront a madman. So that pretty well takes him out of the running, given Kenny’s reaction to Renee’s request for a divorce.

Before it’s all over, Renee is plotting to shoot Kenny because she can see no other way to rid herself of him. But soon she realizes that she doesn’t have sufficient killer instincts to follow through.

Renee eventually escapes Kenny. And then he torments her by first stalking her and then causing her to lose her job. Through a series of twists and turns, Kenny, with help from his mother, obtains custody of Renee’s only child. But Renee doesn’t give up. She takes the damage inflicted upon her and keeps moving forward.

Six years after her divorce, Kenny’s death brings Divine Order. At his funeral, she’s reunited with her former mother-in-law. The two share an ironic connection. Now both know what it’s like to have a son torn away from them. Possibly now the healing can begin.