Mara

Chapter Two

Everyone usually went their separate ways after breakfast, regardless of wether or not my father was around. We would of course head off to school, but we lived in a rather small town with rather small expectations. Therefore school was only really there to make sure you weren't entirely illiterate and could communicate with others if necessary.
A higher education was really out of the question, but nobody seemed to mind. If someone did, they could always go to other towns that had more to offer on that front. But me and my family were very content living here and getting an education here.
For those in primary classes, up until the ages of ten, school would last only until midday whereupon the children would all hurriedly rush home to help their parents with any farm work or house work necessary.
For those ages eleven to seventeen, school lasted a few hours longer. But not by much. It was more important to help out at home.
The main income for most families was farming crops and livestock. My father had done a bit better for us and himself, he worked for a company in the city and helped pitch products and new ideas to business clients.
Despite that even we had a cow and a few chickens, it was just part of the culture, it was part of who we were.

My eldest sister was my senior by one year, this meant that she had already finished school. It was tradition for her to stay at home and aid my mother.
But Jemimah wasn't like that. She dreamed big. She wanted something more for herself than to just be a housewife.
"Why the hell would I stay home all day Mara? It's even worse than being in school!", she would tell me as she thumbed through page after page of various fashion catalogues. Jen always loved clothes and fashion, but I don't think she ever wanted to be a model or anything like that. She wanted to design clothes. "I could have my own label and everything, can you imagine? Celebrities would queue up for months, maybe even years, just so they could ask me to design clothes for them."
But work as a young designer didn't pay here, which was why Jemimah went and got a job at a factory in one of the towns a bit closer to the city. She would leave at the same time as us, but come home much later.
Her job involved sewing clothes amongst many other men and women who probably also wanted to become a part of the fashion world. The hours were long and the pay was average, but Jemimah seemed happy with it.
"Just because I'm not working in a high end boutique doesn't mean I'm not moving forward, you can't climb a mountain in a day. And if you can then I don't think that's a mountain even worth climbing honestly", she would say after a particularly bad shift at work.
I admired that in a way. She was prepared to not reach immediate success.
I looked up to her for the patience she had, because I though that she would need a lot of it to reach her goal.

If she ever did.

This would be my last year of school, then I would be able to do whatever I wanted with my life. The trouble being I didn't know exactly what that was.
I lived in acute fear of that moment. The day I had to choose my fate.
I guess it wasn't really that dramatic.
And I knew deep down that there was no real need for me to make a decision. But I guess I just couldn't fully except that.
As I dragged myself into the classroom and towards the desk I usually sat at, a sudden realisation dawned on me that we had a test today. I sighed deeply and prepared for my inevitable failure.

To my surprise I didn't fail, completely. I guess I would have failed totally but to my great relief nobody had really bothered with revision. So it turned out that I actually had one of the best percentages in the class. However the highest, as always, was Sam's.
I had known Sam for quite a few years now, and I suppose we had a few things in common. I think we became friends mostly because we tolerated each other more than we tolerated any one else in our year.
It was a small year and everyone was friendly enough, save a few assholes. But it just seemed to me that everybody was already living their own lives. No one really needed to make friends.
This wasn't to imply that everyone was inept at socialising. You could talk to everyone, and they would answer.
You could ask them about what they watched on to yesterday, or what they thought about the food in the cafeteria, or what they did during the weekend.
But there would never be any real connection between you, just small talk, a smile and maybe a laugh.

In the end, after the bell rang and school was over, everybody would walk away in separate directions. Leaving just me and Sam.

Sam and his parents moved here from a small city.
They wanted to be in the country air and live a simpler life. As well as come to terms with the death of their daughter.

Sam rarely talked about Abbey. Not because it made him sad, but because there was just nothing to say about it. She was a few years younger than Maisy. A disease of some sort that they couldn't cure. I never really found out which one, but I was ok with not knowing.
When Same first told me about it I tried my best to comfort him, but he said it was ok, and that he was ok.
I don't really know if he was, but I don't really think I could have done anything at the time to make him feel any different.
"It was Abbeys birthday yesterday", he said as we were walking down the school stairs.
"What did you do?"
"Well we went down to the lake to feed the ducks there, it was nice actually. For once they didn't seem like complete strangers to me. It was like, wow, these people that I share a house with are really my parents!" He gasped theatrically and put his hands over his mouth. I laughed in response.
It wasn't like Sam's parents were bad people, they really cared about him and about Abbey. But for some unbeknown reason to me Sam refused to see it.
I really don't know why he did it, or what point he proved by purposefully turning them into his enemies.
Maybe he just needed someone to blame for her death, maybe he couldn't except that it wasn't all so black and white.
There isn't a bad guy or a villain behind every problem, but Same refused to accept that.
He was a very cynical individual, who's best friends were books rather than people. In a way it made me feel special, that he allowed me into his life.
Sure we weren't really "best buddies", but we were, in a way, friends. And that was good enough for me.