Chapter 15: Friction

Chapter 15: Friction

4 November 2025

The afternoon sun filtered through the Crittall windows of the Edwardses’ townhouse, leaving Mary bathed in warm rays of light. Rather than enjoying them, though, she was frustrated by how the beams served to highlight the few motes of dust the cleaner had failed to detect.

For the past two months, the house felt cavernous and empty. Bob worked longer hours at the bank, and Olivia resisted coming home unless she needed her washing done or Bob expressed a desire to see her.

Having her daughter home for Reading Week should have made Mary happy, and in a sense it did. She loved her daughter and yearned for every opportunity to share moments with her. But however much she tried, Mary found Olivia to be a mystery she couldn’t solve.

The latest instance was the night Olivia arrived home from university. Bob carried her suitcase and backpack first, and Olivia followed. As Mary approached her daughter to hug her and welcome her home, she stopped short when Olivia pulled her hood down to reveal her newly coloured hair. What had once been a uniform mane of chocolate brown in a blunt collarbone cut was now marred by slashes of electric blue and acid green.

“Hey, Mum,” Olivia said softly. “I’m home.” She offered a slight smile as she stood and waited for her mother.

Mary couldn’t hide her feelings. She felt her face tighten up as the thoughts flooded her. What the devil had she done to herself?

She resisted the urge to say it. She avoided saying anything.

But from Olivia’s expression, Mary’s face had said plenty.

Mary watched her daughter’s faint smile turn down and her eyes drop to the floor. The girl bent down to get her bags before she wordlessly slid past Mary to head upstairs to her room.

Mary watched Olivia go, yet all she could see were the uneven lines of colour on the back of her daughter’s head.

Bob shook his head sadly. “I had hoped we could have at least welcomed Livy home before…”

He didn’t finish the statement. He didn’t have to.

“How was this my fault?” Mary challenged. “I didn’t say anything. And did you see what she did to her hair? Now it’s a proper mess.”

The cycle was all too familiar to Mary. She had high expectations for Olivia, and when she failed to get close to reaching them, Bob took Olivia’s side. Just once, she wanted him to acknowledge that she might be right.

And this wasn’t even something big, like when Olivia passed up an opportunity to interview for a place at Cambridge and opted instead for a more comfortable education at UCL. Bob couldn’t even imagine pushing Olivia to take a risk. So Mary was, as ever, cast as the harsh and demanding parent.

“Yes, I saw it,” Bob said curtly. “I saw that she did something different and noticeable.” He stopped at that, even though Mary was sure her husband had many more things to say. And yet, as ever, he didn’t say them.

He just went silent and walked past her to the sitting room.

Leaving her alone.

She had grown used to alone. She never preferred it, but she made the best of it. With Bob able to afford full-time help for the house, they added to Gretchen’s hours. Rather than three days a week, now she was working for them five days one week, and six the next.

This freed Mary to spend more time out of the house. She went to the health club nearly every day for exercise and wellness training. And she had committed herself to various charity organisations which welcomed her time and her financial support.

All of those things helped to fill the time. Mary was passionate about her charity work, as she felt a need to give back. When she had been younger, her family relied more than she cared to admit on the help of others. So she never looked down on those less fortunate than her.

Still, filling time wasn’t the same thing as filling her heart. And being in the same room with someone from whom she was so estranged only highlighted the chasm between her and her daughter.

Today, it was the kitchen. She stood at the island, warmed by the sinking sun, as she prepared a superfood salad for Wednesday’s planning luncheon. Her knife struck the chopping board with the rhythmic precision of a metronome.

Chop. Chop. Chop.

Her knife skills had been developed over years of training and experience. And each movement asserted her will over something which couldn’t fight back.

It didn’t help.

"Olivia, could you fetch me the pine nuts? The ones from Waitrose," Mary asked without looking up.

Her daughter looked up from her Sociology textbook at the breakfast bar. She didn’t say anything, but she did move.

Olivia stood up quickly and her chair scraped against the floor. The feet of the chair registered a jarring, discordant note that made Mary’s shoulders tighten.

The knife stopped.

"Sorry," Olivia whispered.

Mary heard Olivia fumbling in the pantry, rummaging through the tins and boxes to find the requested ingredient. The jar had been hidden on the top shelf, no doubt hurriedly unpacked by Gretchen so she didn’t have to be cornered by Mary.

Olivia returned to the kitchen and delivered the pine nuts to her mother. As she handed over the jar, her hand brushed Mary’s. Mary flinched, as if she had an involuntary reaction to the unexpected human contact.

Olivia sighed softly, after one more interaction with Mum went so horribly awry.

Mary looked up, unsure of how to even talk with her daughter.

"Um, are you cold, Olivia?” she asked half-heartedly. “Maybe you should put on a jumper.”

Nothing.

Mary tried to keep her mind focused on her food preparation as a distraction, but she couldn’t get over the two elephants in the room. She had no connection with her daughter, for one. And then the other one.

That hair.

So Mary tried again to mother, a habit which she knew wasn’t going to go over well. “And your posture... you’re slouching again. I wish you would stand up straight once in a while, Olivia. You have such lovely lines when you let yourself be seen."

Olivia shrugged and grabbed her oversized UCL hoodie. She pulled it over her head, hood up, and retreated back into her seat. "I'm fine, Mum. You don’t need to worry about me. I’m just focused on researching an essay for a seminar."

“That’s great, dear, but what about the rest of uni life?” Mary knew this bordered on futility, since Olivia was like Bob when she dug her heels in. The two of them had been having this argument… no, conversation… for the past several weeks. But Mary had to try, for her daughter’s own good. “Thinking is good, Olivia, but doing is better."

Mary hoped that the brightness in her voice would cover up the unmistakable Mum edge. When she got no response, though, Mary set down her knife and looked at her daughter.

"I was looking at the photos from your university’s Freshers’ Week on Facebook. Were you in any of them? I even looked at the background of the rowing club's social."

"I wasn't there," Olivia said, her voice barely audible. "I told you, I stayed in the library."

Mary sighed, the sound of a woman tired of managing a project that refused to get on schedule. "I know you weren’t there. I would have been able to pick out your ridiculous hair if you had been.”

Olivia winced at the biting comment. Mary considered apologising, but she didn’t see the point. Since the relationship already felt like a lost cause, what did one more grievance matter?

Instead, Mary returned her focus to her chopping board and reduced the leafy greens to a pathetic chiffonade. Seeing what she had done in her anger, she dropped the knife. The metal clattered loudly on the marble worktop.

“The library won't get you a seat on a board, Olivia,” she snapped. “It won't help you find a partner who matches your ambition. You have so much potential, but you’re... you're flickering. You lack presence. You need to turn up your volume and get yourself noticed."

Olivia’s head dropped another millimetre, and Mary saw multi-coloured strands dangling down. They were a neon reminder of her failure as a mother.

"I just don't think I have the same... signal as you," Olivia offered, a rare moment of verbal resistance. “I can’t be as loud as you.”

This time, it was Mary’s turn to wince. Loud. The critique she had been cursed with for years, when she wouldn’t sit down and shut up and wait her turn.

But she knew Olivia didn’t mean it like that. She would never tell her mother to shut up. This was an opening.

An opportunity.

"Everyone has a signal," Mary answered softly while she collected the green slivers and scraped them into a crystal serving bowl. "It’s a matter of willpower. I wasn't born this organised, Olivia. I built myself. I maintain myself.”

She started tapping the board with her knife to knock the final bits of kale into the dish.

“Every.” Tap. “Single.” Tap. “Day."

Tap.

Olivia didn’t answer. Instead, she picked up her book and stuffed it into her backpack. Then she slung the bag over her shoulder and stood up.

"I’m going to go to the park. I need some air."

That was the closest Olivia would come to telling her to fuck off. Mary bit back a retort. There was nothing to be gained from yelling.

"Don't stay out too late," Mary said, not bothering to look up from the next part of her meal prep. "We need to discuss your outfit for the dinner party before your father gets home."

The door clicked shut behind Olivia, leaving a vacuum in the room. Mary put the salad into the fridge and slammed the door harder than she intended. She saw her reflection in the polished stainless steel.

Was she really just a bitch? That’s how Olivia’s reactions made her feel. She wanted her daughter to have it better than she had it growing up. Olivia would never have to wonder if she would have a meal on the table, or clothes without holes.

Mary would damn well see to that.

So why couldn’t Olivia show just a little more appreciation? Would it be so awful to try one of her ideas, instead of always looking to Bob for guidance? Or worse, doing it on her own and having it blow up.

Like that bloody hair.

Mary blew out the breath she was holding, and she noticed her fringe bouncing in the self-made breeze. She grabbed the errant strand and tucked it back into place.

“Gretchen,” she called through the empty kitchen, “call my hairdresser and see about making an appointment for Olivia. I want to see if she can fix that cock-up.”