Stronghold

“I don’t want to do any of this anymore, Mummy!  I can’t do any of this anymore.  I just don’t want to do this anymore” (41).
At High Mowing, Meredith has moments of happiness, when being there is helping her but at the end of it all, she's still struggling emotionally, she's still lonely. She calls her mother again, begging her for help and her mother barely provides her any emotional support. She tells Meredith that she has to keep going. She commands, “You need to pull yourself together. You are going to make it through this because you are a survivor” (Hall 41). Sometimes there is. a time and place for tough love or “mother love” as in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but this is not what Meredith needs, especially at this point.