Chapter 4 – “Look What You’re Doing to Your Mother”
Matteo asked Sara to move out.
Not with him.
Into a room with two female university students he knew through a friend.
“You don’t have to come to me,” he said.
“I know.”
“You can just get space.”
“If I leave, they’ll say you took me.”
“Then don’t tell them about me.”
“They already know.”
Matteo became frustrated.
“Sara, this isn’t normal.”
She snapped back.
“Stop saying that.”
He went quiet.
She immediately regretted it.
“What?”
“Every time you say that, you make me feel stupid.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“Then stop acting like I don’t know my own family.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Nothing.”
They sat outside a café for nearly a minute without speaking.
Then Sara said:
“My mother hasn’t eaten properly for three days.”
Matteo looked at her.
“Because of you?”
“Because she’s upset.”
“No. Because she wants you to feel responsible.”
Sara stood.
“Don’t talk about her like that.”
“Sara.”
“No.”
“She is making you responsible for her health.”
“She is my mother.”
“And you’re her daughter.”
Sara walked away.
That evening, when she returned home, Leyla was lying on the sofa.
A blanket covered her legs.
Her father sat beside her.
Murat stood by the window.
Nobody said hello.
Sara put down her bag.
“What happened?”
Her father looked at her.
“Your mother has been crying all day.”
Leyla covered her face.
Sara’s anger disappeared immediately.
“Mama.”
Her mother shook her head.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“I raised you.”
“Mama.”
“I defended you when people said girls become difficult if you give them too much freedom.”
Sara went still.
Her father said nothing.
Leyla continued.
“You studied.”
“You worked.”
“We trusted you.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Her mother sat up.
“Look at me.”
Sara did.
“Look what you’re doing to me.”
Sara cried that night.
Not because she had changed her mind about Matteo.
Because she had started wondering whether wanting him made her selfish.
That was the part nobody outside the family understood.
They did not need to convince Sara that Emre was wonderful.
They only needed to convince her that refusing him made her cruel.
