She had, though subconsciously, accepted the fact that neither Matthew nor her grandmother would now be available for her to listen to what she had to tell them about all fateful events she had encountered the entire day.
She had to deal with everything by herself only.
Martha kept on sobbing to the point when her body summoned some water to soothe herself.
She had tightly held on to the seat through her hands.
She looked for water. While sitting in the same posture, she looked to her right and then to her left but to no avail.
She couldn't find her water bottle. Finally, she looked nearby her feet and saw the water bottle with its cap open and all the water inside it now spilled on the floor of the car. She still didn't lose her grip of her hand from the soft seat.
She chose to withstand her thirst for a while. Almost after making this decision internally within her own self, a hand extended to her face with a water bottle in her hand.
It was Cindy who offered her own water bottle to her daughter as she had noticed Martha searching for her daughter and then looking at the floor where she had spilled all the water she had kept with her.
Though Martha herself wasn't willing to take any help from her parents now, her body forced her to drink some water so to revitalize a bit and therefore feel physically better.
Martha was hastily gulping down the water as if her body was in much need of some fluid.
Seeing this, Cindy bent the bottle slightly horizontally so to not stop the flow of water and let her daughter have as much water as she wants.
A tear or two escaped from Cindy's eyes as she observed how innocently her daughter becoming so helpless few seconds ago upon realizing that the water was spilled on the floor and now, when she got a chance to have some water, she is trying to make the best out of this chance and quenching her thirst.
Martha finally withdrew herself from the bottle and took a deep breath since when she was drinking water from the bottle, she didn't care for anything less and had barely breathed.
She took a sigh and hence felt better.
Cindy too quickly turned around after ensuring her daughter wasn't parched anymore and put the bottle cap back on the top of the bottle. Martha, after coming back to the state of normal breathing, was expecting her mother to say something, to convince her again just like she had been doing the entire day. She didn't want her daughter to be exposed to the dark truth and thought it better to just protect her through a shield of false promises that everything is going to be okay.
She opposed this response of her mother all this while, sometimes openly by criticizing her mother and sometimes internally in her mind. But now she understood the true meaning of those false promises. They were not meant to answer her questions but were told by her mother to give her strength, to believe that everything is going to be okay, to believe in something good. Had her mother revealed the truth before they were either revealed by Martha herself or by some external force, Martha would have been in much more distress than she was in right now. She didn't seek the truth from her mother now.
She just cared to listen to those reassuring lines from her mother because this is what would help her gain some strength in these hard times.
Much to Martha's relentless expectations from her mother, Cindy did spoke, "Your father doesn't have much role to play in this deed Martha. Everything is happening predominantly on my will.
I have made the big decisions here. Because I believed doing a little harm would result in a greater good. Even if now everything goes as it was planned, the result would not be much of a greater good as I had expected earlier since my theory of good is now changed.
Leave that, there's one thing you must know. There's no going back now. We must face whatever comes now with as much valor as we can.
We have no other choices left" Benjamin felt deeply saddened when Cindy spoke everything that was going in his mind for so long.
Along with that, he cursed himself for not back off when he had the chance to do so.
Yet he refused to utter a word. Cindy continued, "But the most effective thing all of us can do at this time is not let these external forces influence our mood.
I know it is better said than done but try as much as you can to not get susceptible to the forces from the outside and listen to your inner gut that will always send you a message to believe in yourself more than anybody else"
Martha listened wholeheartedly to what her mother said.
Though it was bitter to Martha when her mother said there's nothing that can be done to undo what has now been done, yet she didn't stress herself on the fact.
She just kept her focus on what she wanted to hear from her, what she needed to revitalize her energies.
She did get to hear from her mother what she'd been longing to hear. She believed in her mother more than anybody else in this world.
But she now believed in herself more as that is what her mother had asked her to do so and that's what she will do in order to adhere to her mother's advice. She pledged to have faith in herself in the difficult times.
A sense of calmness again found its way to Martha's mind and she began to take things again on a lighter note even after so many fateful events having daunted her in the entire day.
She just didn't care what her mother had planned to do and simply accepted this day as a bad phase of her life which she had to endure with a positive attitude.