Martha's Last Day

Martha’s Last Day

1784 words

It is so-o-o cold! It’s miserable standing out here. I should close my eyes to keep my tears from freezing. I can hardly breathe, it’s so cold. Maybe if I cover my nose and mouth with my mittens it will be better. The snow is coming down so hard I can’t even see to the next corner to know if the bus is coming. Maybe it’s late because of the storm. Maybe it’s not even coming. Maybe I should just go back to the office. Not my –ha!--office, but the one next door. No, I don’t even want to go in there, not with this box. I don’t know why I took so much. I should have just left it all. But I want this coffee cup, and the pictures.

The mug was her favorite, painted with Van Gogh’s Starry Starry Night. She’d gotten it in the Christmas gift exchange from her cubicle mate who knew how much she liked the Impressionists. Would she ever see any of those people again? They felt like her closest friends, but they really hadn’t anything but work in common. Not enough to sustain a friendship, Martha thought, not when they’re still at their jobs and I’m–-somewhere else.

A sob escaped her. Not yet, Martha prayed silently, not yet. Help me keep from crying till I get home and am alone. She picked up her box from the bus stop bench and sat down, holding it in her lap, bent over, her face touching the rough cardboard that was already crusting with snow. It was good to have something to hang onto.

The day had started badly: she had been late. Still, the summons to HR that afternoon had blind-sided her. She should have known it was coming. She’d been telling her friends that “they” had been trying to get rid of her all year, but somehow she hadn’t really believed it.

“Use as much of your sick leave as you can,” her boss had said when she was getting over the flu. “Otherwise you’ll just lose it.”

“Here’s the list of job expectations I just wrote up,” he said. “Maybe they’ll help clarify some things for you; and if a new person were to come in, they’d know exactly what to do.”

All these waving red flags flooded her memory now. Why hadn’t she noticed them, really noticed them? Now it was done. She could hardly take it all in.

The sound of the bus’s brakes startled Martha, and she struggled to her feet clutching her box. She wiped her damp cheek against the collar of her coat. Making way for the passengers getting out, she waited at the side of the door. Not much longer now, she told herself. These folks will be out of the way, and I’ll be in the warm and headed home. Then I can fall apart. Not yet.

“Martha?”

She heard his voice and looked up into his face as he came down the last step. Joe, her ex-husband, dressed in his nice overcoat and leather gloves, put out his hand to touch her shoulder. He was certainly not the person she wanted to have see her in her misery, but there he was. She leaned into his arm and let the bus door close. It was all she could do.

He held her, box and all, until her her body became still. Her sobbing ended, she straightened, not moving away from him but away from his touch. She was once again in charge of herself, for the moment.

“What are you doing here,” she asked.

His question came out at the same time. “What happened to you?”

There was an awkward silence, then Joe offered, “ I rented a little place over here, a loft, so I could be near work.”

“That sounds like you,” she said. She sniffled and looked away, avoiding his gaze.

“Then the company moved over to Midtown, got a bigger space for much less, I heard. Ironic, isn’t it? I like it here though, so I’ve just stayed. Now, tell me what’s going on. Something bad must have happened.”

Pulling her old barriers into place to guard against the concern in his voice, she said defensively, “Oh, not much. Lost my job today, but I guess I should have seen that coming.” Tears came into her eyes despite her bantering tone. Why couldn’t she hold them back? It was so maddening.

“Still at Holmes and Wright? Dang! You’ve been there forever. What in the world got into them?” Joe asked.

Martha pulled away. “I don’t think I can talk about it. Not here, I mean. It’s too cold. I need to get going.”

“It’ll be half and hour before the next bus. Would you want to come up to my place for a few minutes?”

Was that a come on? she wondered.

“No,” she answered, too loudly, too quickly. “I mean, I don’t think that’s a good idea. How about the coffee shop? At least I could get warmed up.” He looked relieved.

“Carry your box for you?” She gave it up thankfully. They headed the other way down the block.

“This will sound crazy, but I honestly don’t know why I got fired,” Martha said as she adjusted her coat on the back of the chair. She looked at him directly.

“What do you mean you don’t know? They must have said why. What did they say?”

“They said it was because I’d given out the name of a client, but I hadn’t. They just wanted to get rid of me, that’s all, and I don’t know why.” She watched him warily, trying to discern if he believed her.

“Why would they say that then?” He sounded almost angry.

Reflexively she barked, “I don’t know.” She had thought, momentarily, that it would feel good to talk about it, to figure it out, and this was a neutral place. But he wasn’t the right person, not any more. The anger in his voice, how she still reacted to it! She felt accused.

“Right now I don’t even want to think about it. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

She turned away from him and called to the waitress, “Please. Could I just have a cup of coffee?”

It doesn’t make sense that I’m feeling the same way today that I did the day you walked out on me either, she thought. There was a similarity though. Joe had tested the limits over and over again until he finally realized she didn’t have any limits. She wouldn’t give up, so he left her. The same thing had happened with the job. The Boss, as she always thought of him, had pushed her all year. Trying to get her to quit? But why?

“Did you piss somebody off?” he continued.

He knew her all right, she thought. I’m the same old person, lost in the fog, thinking everything will come out all right.

“Well, yes, my boss, but he didn’t know what he was doing. Somebody had to tell him. The managers didn’t notice, but he was hurting business. I couldn’t just let that go on. That was his responsibility. ”

Joe was quiet.

Oh, no, what made me say that! Little Miss Know-It-All, the Responsible Person, patiently pointing out another’s mistakes—is that what he thinks happened before?

“Why does it feel like I’m talking about us instead of my job,” Martha blurted out. She could even hear the whine in her voice.

Joe looked grim. “I didn’t know it did.”

“No thanks,” he said, as the waitress started to turn over his cup as well as Martha’s. “Here, this’ll take care of it.” He pulled a five dollar bill from his wallet and put it on the table as he started to rise.

She thought she could read his mind right then. He didn’t want a rehash of their failed marriage, but neither did she.

“Wait. I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about ‘us’ either. I really don’t know what happened today. I don’t know if I’ve been walking around with a sack over my head or what, but I …well, I thought I did a good enough job for the company to want to keep me. At first I thought I could help the new boss catch on, but that didn’t work. He didn’t want my opinion. Then I thought I could outlast him. I thought he’d finally make too big a mistake for everyone to ignore, and then he’d be out. Maybe I’d even get his job. “ She was crying in earnest now. “I thought I was good enough.”

Joe sat back down, looking at her for a long time in silence.

“Thank you for trying to help. There just isn’t anything…I feel like such a fool,” she ended lamely.

He studied her, objectively. “Well, you aren’t one. You never were. And you were always good enough. The people with the power don’t always see things that way, that’s all. Especially if it means admitting their own mistakes.” He put his hand on top of hers.

After a long moment she took her hand away and finished her coffee. “Thanks, Joe,” she said softly. “It really was good to see you.” Pulling her coat on, she got to her feet. “I’ll be okay.” Sooner or later, I will be, she thought, and she walked out the door into the cold.

Maybe that hadn’t been an apology. Maybe it had just been smooth words, but Martha didn’t care. To her it had sounded like an affirmation, that his leaving hadn’t been all her fault. She’d known it hadn’t, but it felt good to have him admit it, if that’s what he had done. If not, oh well. She’d never know about it.

He had been the one with all the power, she thought. I let him have it. I didn’t have much choice with the boss. RHIP and all that: rank does have its privileges.

Only later, when she was safely on the bus headed home, did she remember her box. Her coffee cup, her pictures of her husband Bill and kids—she could replace those. The little picture of Joe—she didn’t need it any more. She’d let go of him finally, and it felt good.

There, she thought, I’ve got some of my power back. Now, what am I going to do with the rest of my life?