Forgive and Forget by Patricia Scanlan

Author:Patricia Scanlan [Scanlan, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

‘Debbie, there are three mistakes in the sick-leave entitlements, and Maurice Henderson is on half pay not full pay. This is a serious error. Your mind is obviously elsewhere and this is just not good enough.’ Judith Baxter glowered down at Debbie.

‘Oh . . . oh sorry, Judith.’

‘For goodness’ sake, get your mind on your job and do it properly, or I’ll be suggesting that your increment be withheld for a full year and not six months,’ Judith snapped, before walking over to Gina Andrews’ desk to remonstrate with her for making an error in overtime payments.

‘Incompetent idiots,’ Judith muttered as she closed the door of her office and walked over to the window. She knew what was wrong with her. She’d got her period when she woke up and a very small part of her was disappointed. The irrational, dissatisfied part of her had hoped that she might be pregnant. Even though it was a very faint expectation, a pregnancy might have given her an excuse to change her life. Move out and set up a home of her own with her child.

She stared out over the skyline and wished she was anywhere but where she was right now. She knew, too, why she was angry, and it was all over a damn letter she’d read in an agony aunt’s column from a woman who had her own house but whose boyfriend only stayed with her one night a week because he was looking after his elderly mother and he felt guilty if he wasn’t at home with her.

Judith went to her bag and took out the letter, which she’d torn out of the magazine. And read it again, frowning where the woman said her boyfriend felt responsible for, and had a huge commitment to, his mother.

The agony aunt hadn’t given the answer Judith had been expecting. Not at all. There was no Poor you, this is difficult and you have made a huge sacrifice and so has he. No He’s a wonderful man to be minding his mother. No indeed. The agony aunt had briskly suggested that the boyfriend, now in his forties, was not sacrificing his life for his mother at the expense of his patient girlfriend but had made a conscious choice very decisively to stay with his mother and live his life around her needs. It was a set-up that suited him. The hard-hearted agony aunt went on to suggest that the boyfriend was not a victim, that there was recompense, clear advantages, in it for him, and that was why he was choosing not to be with his girlfriend. Deal with it was her attitude, more or less.

Judith had read the letter three times, with a growing sense of despair. Putting herself in the boyfriend’s position. Yes, she had sacrificed her life for her mother. Yes, she felt guilt and a sense of responsibility for her but, when she had had the chance to reclaim her life after her father’s death, she’d chickened out and come back for more of her mother’s emotional blackmail.

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