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She took her notepad out of her pocket and stared at the green ticks, amber stars and red dots. They were a constant reminder that her only worth was in helping others.
She had already made a fool of herself in front of people she knew. Does it really matter if I do it again, in front of ones I don’t know?
Doing things for others no longer gave her the rush of satisfaction she looked for. Instead she found herself wanting to explore the unusual feeling of freedom that she’d experienced in the arcade.
Martha mused upon this. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo wouldn’t sit on her backside and do nothing. She wouldn’t let Lilian dictate what she did. She wouldn’t offer to wash chandeliers or water potted plants. “She’d take matters into her own hands,” she said. “She’d move things along.”
“People only see my chair, or a woman who looks like a bloody walnut. In my head, I’m still a young woman. My body just lets things down.”
But when she started to look after her parents, she seemed to fade out of sight. She was no longer Martha in her own right, but Thomas and Betty’s caring daughter. Her pretty, colorful exterior faded like a magazine left in the sun.
And the puppet maker’s wife knew that even though Mary was free from her strings, staying at home was like being tied to her crisscross of wood, forever.
She never bothered to apply makeup these days. It was supposed to enhance what you already had, but what if you didn’t have anything in the first place?
she didn’t feel like Martha Storm, Volunteer Librarian any longer. The skirt gave her more of a Martha Storm, Wonder Woman feeling.
“But what about love?” Martha asked desperately. “It’s not always enough. Life’s not a fairy story.”
The past was in the past, and she had to accept it and lay it to rest, so she could look to the future.
