Margene Heffman

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Margene Heffman is a character on the HBO series Big Love^[1], played by Ginnifer Goodwin. Margene is Bill Henrickson's third wife and the mother of two of his sons, Aaron and Lester.

Before marrying into the polygamous Henrickson family, Margene worked at Henrickson Home Plus and served as a babysitter for the Henricksons. She is currently pregnant with her third child, a girl, by Bill. Margene is much closer in age to the eldest Henrickson children than she is to her husband and sister-wives, and therefore is very close to sixteen-year-old Ben, the eldest boy. It is insinuated in two episodes that Ben has a one-sided crush on Margene: he prefers to sleep on her couch rather than his own bed in his mother's house, which disturbs his mother, and becomes jealous after meeting Margene's ex-boyfriend.

In Season Two, her mother comes to visit. At first Margene wanted her to believe that she alone was married to Bill and that she was not in a polygamous relationship. Nicki, however, tells Margene's mother, leading to further conflict. It is revealed that Margene's mother has been competing with Margene her entire life for attention and even boys. Margene also tells the new neighbor Pam that she is a surrogate mother, after becoming pregnant for the third time, because she didn't want to be seen as an unwed mother. She had previously told Pam that she was a widow.

In episode 9 of Season Two it is revealed that she had a relationship with one of Bill's employees before the two were married and is the deciding vote for him to buy into the gaming machine business. Bill is comfortable with the fact Margene had relationships before him, but his son Ben isn't, which leads to him pushing Margene's ex-boyfriend to the ground and later yelling at Margene, calling her "a big spanker" (in reference to when the ex-boyfriend tells Ben, with spirited body language, that he and Margene used to engage in erotic spanking). Margene accepts the gaming business, because, as she explains, Barb's children are nearly grown but Margene still has two babies and another on the way, and she wants a financially stable future for them just in case Home Plus falls through.

In the finale of Season 2, she tells her neighbor Pam that she will be a surrogate mother after being backed into corner. While Pam sobs that her husband will leave her if she doesn't produce a child, Margene frantically agrees. She then decides that after the third baby, she will truly be a surrogate for Pam. This idea is rejected by Nikki, Bill, and Barb. Barb later reveals the family to be polygamist so Margene wouldn't have to continue with her lie of being a surrogate.