A woman experiences a rude awakening in a cafe and decides to do something about it. The first person to leave was her husband, but did he deserve it?
Debra was a 52-year-old woman who was very young at heart. Although she was in her fifties, she didn’t consider herself an old woman – not that she had much time to think about it, since she had to work three jobs to support her family.
Her husband, Austin, gradually became a financial burden after he lost his job more than two decades ago.
At first he spent all his time unsuccessfully looking for a new job, but after a while he stopped looking. Austin gradually got used to a dependent life without any responsibilities, and gradually his hobby became lying on the sofa in front of the TV, drinking beer and eating crisps.
His body was the first to change, and then everything else. He was fed and clothed despite no longer working.
It was a dream come true for a man who had always been lazy at heart. Thanks to Debra working various jobs, he had enough of everything, but he didn’t seem to notice how hard she worked.
They married when they were barely old enough: Debra was 19 and he was 20, and they were completely in love with each other.
It was this love that Debra thought about as she continued to hope that Austin would start looking for work again. She didn’t even stop to support him in those moments when their relatives were making friendly fun of him.
They got married so early because she was pregnant with their daughter Kayla. Of course, there would have been consequences if they hadn’t married, but their love made it an easy and even natural decision.
Their daughter, like them, also married early and had a child who grew up without a father because he divorced Kayla.
Left alone with the child and unable to go out to work because of the minor child in her care, Kayla needed help and Debra was the one she asked for.
Being a reliable mother, Debra decided to help her financially by giving Kayla a steady allowance to support herself and the child.
Not once did the steady cash allowance ever change, and it made Kayla complacent about finding her own source of income. She stopped looking for a suitable job and began to rely solely on the allowance she was receiving.
It went on like this for a long time, until one day a painful realisation hit Debra. It was a day like any other: the woman left the house early and walked into Starbucks for a coffee.
Once inside the cafe, she joined the three-person queue and stood patiently waiting for her turn, keeping her eyes on the clock.
‘Gordon will eat me alive if I’m late today,’ she thought to herself.
Her boss knew how many jobs she worked and usually gave her a break, but Debra realised she’d been out of luck the last few days. As she tapped her feet impatiently, several teenagers brazenly entered the café and cut into the queue just as it was her turn.
The cashier, a young man with a bored expression, said nothing and just started serving them. Debra couldn’t believe her eyes.
‘Excuse me?’ – She said through clenched teeth. ‘Can’t you see I’m standing here? It was my turn!’
‘Excuse me, ma’am, but babies will be babies, right?’ – said the man behind the counter, smiling awkwardly.
‘What are you doing anyway?’ – One of the teenagers asked.
‘Yeah, do you have somewhere to go?’ – said the other mockingly.
‘I don’t think pensioners need to go anywhere in a hurry,’ said a third teenager.
‘You can queue all day if you want,’ they said with glee as they moved to the other end to pick up their orders. Debra had never encountered such unruly kids before, and it shocked her, but not as much as what they were saying.
When she got back to the car, she took a long look at herself in the mirror. The woman she saw looked very tired. There were many wrinkles on her face, and her dark hair was gradually turning grey. Debra couldn’t remember when the grey strands had first appeared, and it reminded her of how much she had neglected herself.
‘I can’t even remember the last time I was at the hairdresser’s,’ she thought in despair.
That thought made her wonder what she had been doing all this time, and the answer immediately appeared – working out.
It really upset her, and she realised that all she had done all her life was trying to please her family to the detriment of her own well-being. ‘This has to end,’ she told herself.
The first thing Debra did was to call her daughter to inform her of her decision.
‘Hi Mum, I was just about to call you,’ Kayla said as soon as she picked up the phone. ‘I was hoping you could send me my allowance before Friday?’
‘No, Kayla, I won’t do that,’ Debra said, annoyed that her daughter wouldn’t even let her get a word in edgewise.
‘What, Mum, why?’ complained Kayla.
‘Because you’ve become too content with your position in life. It’s time for you to wake up.’