40’s maybe

Female

Maddie

Side character (mother of deutragonist)

Baby blue

180

5'7

Blonde

Cut short, most likely by herself. It's rather unfortunately uneven, but it's hard to tell whether it was deliberate or accidental.

None

Human

Pale

She's too thin to be considered 'stout', but her shape is that of a woman slowly approaching stoutness, assumedly starting after the birth of Gregory.

Various cat scratches and pecks on her fingers from her bird. She wears wiry glasses because her eyes worsened from her years as a schoolbus driver.

She fears that figures of authority are constantly suspicious of her because she left her baby son for dead, despite him never having any legal record of existing. She also holds mild contempt for young mothers, simmilarly because she wasted her opportunity to be like them.

Scrap-booking
[see NOTES]

N/A

None

Drives school bus

Pink

Her Scrap-book

Cats

Madeline was born in Oak Woods next door to Karen. They were close in their childhood, but separated in Middle and High school when their friend groups became more differentiated. Madeline was always very emotionally fragile, not able to handle intense change or emotional turmoil with a stable head. Madeline stays close to home for college, meeting her future husband at the University of Alabama, while Karen moves north to complete her college education elsewhere. Madeline leaves college early when she falls pregnant with Gregory, and she and her then boyfriend are pressured into marrying by their religious families. He dies in an accident weeks before Greg is born, and she seems to mentally snap. When he's born, Madeline leaves Gregory in the woods for dead, becoming wracked with guilt soon after. It's too late, however, and the boy is gone when she returns. She winds up driving the school bus for Ellie's school.

sophomore year of college (dropped out)

same year as Karen Lipscomb

1 cat and 1 bird

[from HOBBIES]- she and Karen bond over their respective scrap-books, although Karen is admittedly a small bit unnerved by Madeline's portions about Gregory.