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Each time her mother criticized her it chipped another piece from Martha until she felt less and less like herself.
“It’s over.”
Her mother tensed. “All men have frailties. And urges. Sometimes it’s best to turn a blind eye. If you’d—”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“All I’m saying is that blame is never all on one side.”
“It is in this case.”
“Is it? You’ve put on a lot of weight since you lost your job. Too much sitting around moping. You might think that’s harsh, but I’m your mother and it’s my job to speak the truth.” Her mother scrubbed at a stubborn mark on the mirror. “At your age I could fit into the same clothes I wore when I was sixteen. Never put on an ounce of weight.”
Chip, chip, chip.
How did famous sculptors know exactly when to stop chiseling? At what point did they turn a masterpiece into a ruin?
“It’s kilograms now, Mum.”
“In your case, maybe. You’re beyond being measured in ounces, that’s for sure. You’re eating because you’re bored and unhappy, and that’s your own fault for giving everything up so easily. First college, and now Steven. You should have stuck it out and graduated like your sister instead of throwing it all away. At least then you’d stand a chance of finding a job. You’re paying the price for your bad decisions.”
Her mother, whose own life had been a disappointment, had hoped for more from her two daughters. She’d wanted to live vicariously through their business lunches, international travel or endless promotions. Martha’s older sister, Pippa, had gained favor by qualifying as a physiotherapist and securing a very glamorous job at a swanky private gym where a few famous names trained, thus giving her mother plenty to boast about over the garden fence.
Martha, unfortunately, had provided her with nothing but embarrassment.
“I didn’t graduate because I wanted to take care of Nanna.” And she missed her grandmother as much now as she had in the beginning. There was a corner of her heart that felt numb and lonely. “After she had her stroke I didn’t want to miss a single moment of being with her. I couldn’t concentrate on lectures or essays thinking of her all on her own. It didn’t seem important.”
“But now you’re realizing it was important.”
“Nothing is more important than the people you love.” She didn’t say family. Her family drove her to distraction. Whatever she did, she seemed unable to gain their approval. Her opinion seemed worth nothing. Her wishes even less. She wasn’t sure she would have given up her degree to care for any of them. But her grandmother—“I will never regret the time I spent with her.”
She’d always had a special relationship with her grandmother. When Martha was eight years old and bullied in school, she’d run away to her grandmother’s house. Her grandmother had held her and listened, something her mother never did. Her mother’s advice had been to “ignore them,” but that wasn’t so easy when they’d wrapped the strap of your school bag around your neck and were trying to hang you from a fence.
Martha had started going to her grandmother’s for tea every day after school. There had been comfort in the routine. The cheerful teapot covered in red cherries. The delicate cups that had belonged to her great-grandmother. But the biggest comfort came from being with someone who was interested in her. It was a routine that had continued until she’d left for college to study English literature.
She’d been starting her third and final year when her mother had called to tell her about her grandmother’s stroke. Martha had packed her things and returned home to care for her. How could she concentrate on Tolstoy or Hardy when her Nanna was sick? Her mother had been appalled, but Martha had ignored her disapproval and slept on the sofa in the living room. Her grandmother had made a surprisingly good recovery. She and Martha had played cards, discussed books and giggled over racy TV shows. They’d even managed to take short strolls in the garden. It had been precious time that Martha would never forget.
And then one night her grandmother had suffered another stroke and that had been it.
Numb with grief, Martha had ignored her mother’s advice that she should return to college and instead taken a job in a coffee shop a short walk from the house.
There was something comforting about making a good cappuccino, creating patterns in the foam. She could cope with it even when she was ambushed by sadness. She liked the fact that she often saw the same people every day. There was the woman with the laptop who made one coffee last all day while she wrote her novel, and the elderly man whose wife had died who could no longer stand being in the house on his own all day.
She’d enjoyed chatting to people and liked the fact that when she left the café she didn’t have to take her work with her.
But then the coffee shop had closed, along with many others, and suddenly what little work there was to be had was being chased by what seemed like thousands of people. She’d worked in the local animal shelter for six months before they’d run low on funds and had to stop paying her.
Her mother never missed an opportunity to remind her that she had no one to blame but herself. Her father, who liked a quiet life, chose to agree with her mother on every topic.
“If you hadn’t thrown everything in, you wouldn’t be in this situation now.”
“Being a graduate isn’t everything, you know. There are thousands of graduates who can’t get jobs.”
“Exactly. So why would an employer pick someone like you? You have to give yourself an edge, Martha, and you just don’t have that much going for you.”
She had no edges.
That sounded uncannily like the insult Steven had just thrown at her.
