Selena Cross

Selena Cross is a fictional character in the novel Peyton Place, as well as its sequel, Return to Peyton Place and the films based on the novels.

Selena was born on the wrong side of the tracks; the more respectable people in Peyton Place consider her a "shack dweller". Her biological father, Curtis Chamberlain, was killed in a lumber mill accident; and her mother, Nellie Cross, a housekeeper, had married a man named Lucas Cross. Lucas and Nellie had a younger son, Joey, of whom, Selena was very protective.

She was best friends with Allison MacKenzie, which often distressed her extremely proper mother, Constance MacKenzie. However, Constance eventually saw something good in Selena, and she hired her to assist her at the Thrifty Corner Apparel Shoppe, the store that she owned. However, Selena hid a tragic secret: Lucas physically and sexually abused her.

When she went in for a check-up with Dr. Matthew Swain, Peyton Place's local physician, she was told that she was pregnant. Dr. Swain pressed her for the father's name, and she revealed through tears that it was Lucas. Later, he performed an illegal (at that time) abortion to end Selena's suffering.

Then Dr. Swain angrily confronted Lucas about the situation. Lucas vehemently denied it at first, thinking he had done nothing wrong, to his mind. (He paid his bills and minded his own business, to him, that expiated all other sins, including beating his wife and abusing his children) He eventually confessed that he did molest Selena since she was aged fourteen. Dr. Swain, so sickened by the recitation of Lucas, forced Lucas to sign a confession and then ordered him to leave Peyton Place and never come back, which he did.

Upon discovery of Lucas' crime, Nellie committed suicide by hanging herself in Allison's bedroom closet. This set off a religious skirmish in Peyton Place, when the Catholic priest, Father O'Brien, refused to bury Nellie in the Catholic Cemetery's consecrated ground; then the supposedly "Congregational" minister, Reverend Francis Joseph Fitzgerald refused to bury Nellie. This led to his resignation from the church, and his wife, Margaret, leaving him to return to her family in the nearby town of White River. Eventually, her mother was buried by a man named Oliver Rank who headed a Pentecostal church in town.

Years passed, and Selena had long become manager of the Thrifty Corner, (Constance had a lot of faith and trust in her, because she ran the store just as well as she herself had done) and she and Joey had scraped together a decent life for themselves, (Joey's loyalty to his half-sister was unmatched and equal to a son's loyalty to his mother and the two were close) until Lucas, (who had mysteriously gotten inducted in the Navy) showed up at Christmas. When he tried to molest and rape Selena again, as he had done in years past, she hit him with a pair of fireplace tongs and killed him instantly. She and Joey buried him in the adjoining sheep pen.

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