nerida summers . d4. fin

Mother of a victor. It’s not what I expected, but perhaps I truly should have expected it for a long time. I’m beyond proud of Nixie. Her training with her sister Marina certainly paid off. In reality, I’m proud of them both. Marina taught Nixie so much of what she knows. It makes me wonder if both of my girls could’ve ended up victors, but I’m glad that I don’t have to find out. Marina is safe from the reaping now, too.

While the girls were growing up, I tried my best to teach them to be the best and most respectful people they could be. Even if sometimes they weren’t perfect at it, I feel like I’ve raised a pair of rather well-behaved young women. Of course, Nixie had to kill five people in the arena to come back home to us alive, but she did what she had to. There’s not much room for respect in the Hunger Games.

Now, I've kind of been forced into the public eye. Many people know who I am, at least after they hear my name. It's a strange feeling, being known by people. I've always lived such a quiet life, working in an office near the mayor's office, ever since I was eighteen, doing work that's not all that different. I do government work, but people don't typically know that about me. I'm not loud and showy with it. I just keep track of files and paperwork all day, making sure the proper amount of imports and exports are moved in and out of the district.

My husband and I met through our work. He helps with the actual loading and unloading of imports and exports onto the trains and vehicles. There was a day he came into my office to confirm the inventory counts with me, and we really hit it off. He asked me on a date that night, and not long after, we were together. I love him with all of my heart, and although he's quite stubborn (which is a trait that our daughters have picked up as well), he's the best thing that's ever happened to me.

If one were to look behind the curtain of our family, they'd see it's a bit all over the place. My husband, Arno, is hardly ever home nowadays. He travels so much for work now that the district borders have opened up that it's hard for him to get time to himself. When the girls were younger, I was doing most of the work raising them. As Marina got older, she started to help look after Nixie, but it was still a lot for both of us.

Nixie was always a trouble-maker as a kid, and even into her early teen years. I suppose she hasn't completely grown out of it, either. Now that she's in the public eye so much as a victor, though, that's something she might have to work on.

We let Nixie move into the home in Victor's Village by herself. She'd been wanting to live alone for a while now, and we told her she could once she turned eighteen. The Games just happened to get in the way of her getting her own place right away. Now, though, she's got one we don't even have to pay for.

Arno, Marina and I wouldn't let Nixie take Pixie, our dog, with her, though. She wasn't very happy about that, but we weren't going to let the dog go with her unless we all went with her. Marina thinks Nixie is selfish for taking the home in Victor's Village by herself, but I don't think that's correct. I think Nixie is doing what she wants with her life, and if she wants to live by herself? Well, she's an adult. She can do that.

I wish I'd had a nice sibling dynamic like what my daughters have. Sure, there are certainly times that they argue. It's quite frequent, actually, but they also have each other in the good, happy times. I'd always felt so alone, growing up. My birth parents couldn't afford to take care of me. They were young. Too young, and they certainly didn't have the money. So, I was adopted by another family. They took me in, and I was their only child. Except, they treated me like I wasn't there.

Arno and I got together when I was eighteen and he was nineteen. We were quite young to be working the jobs we were working, but we both had families who insisted that we get 'proper jobs' at a young age. As soon as I was old enough to work in that office, I got a job there. They were understaffed at the time, which is probably the only reason that they hired someone as young as I was.

My adoptive parents never really paid much notice to me until I got pregnant with Marina when I was eighteen. Arno and I had only been together for a couple of months when that happened. It was an accident, but my parents and his father helped support us through the beginning of our time raising her, so that she didn't end up without the things she needed.

Arno's parents are divorced. His mother left many years ago, and growing up, he pretty much just had his father. His dad is one of the kindest people you'll ever meet. Arno's father remarried a couple of years ago, and I'm quite happy for him.

Now, most of my days are focused on myself, since Nixie and Marina both mostly do their own things, and Arno is often not home. Although, I certainly think about them all a lot. Marina works late nights at a diner, so I don't get to see her as much as I'd like, but I still wonder how she's doing on those days where we don't get to talk much. I wonder how Arno is doing while he travels, hoping that everything is going okay, and that he actually will make it home when he's supposed to.

I especially worry about Nixie. Sure, she won the Games, but that can't be all just glory and joy. Surely there's a lot of trauma to it. She killed five people. She almost died on her way out of the arena. There was no way she was doing perfectly fine. I just needed to check in on her. I needed to make sure she was okay. Nixie Summers was still my baby girl, victor or not.