Echoes Of The Heart

Episode 34

Two weeks had past since Ted and Sibu’s passionate kiss. Ted had expected her to avoid him at all cost after that but Sibu surprised him by doing the opposite; she had become friendlier than usual and talked a lot…she talked about everything except what happened that day.

Fearing that he might scare her away if he pressured her any further, Ted la!d back and patiently waited for her. She still had a lot more months remaining of her stay in the country. Eventually, she was going to have to talk to him about it. He hoped that when that time came, it would be by her initiative and that it would be something worth waiting for.

Fortunately for Ted, he didn’t have to wait that long.

Ted had stayed up in his study working on one of the biggest cases he had been assigned that year when he heard little Jake calling out his name. He sounded desperate and Ted suspected he was crying too. That night he had been in a very bad mood so his mother had suggested that they sleep together instead of Ted’s room where they usually slept together.

Ted quickly ran up the stairs and found Jacob standing outside his bedroom.
“What’s wrong little man?” Ted got down on one knee and quizzed the crying boy.
“It’s mum,” he said in between sobs. “She is crying in her sleep and she wont wake up…no matter how much I shake her.”

Ted was up on his feet and running to Sibu’s room.

He found her sweating and turning and tossing in pain in her sleep.

“No…no…no…no,” she kept saying, her whole body convulsing in what appeared to Ted to be either pain or fear.

“Sibu, Sibu,” Ted kept calling out her name whilst shaking her.

She finally jolted up and was wide awake, but still writhing in pain against Ted’s embrace. He tightened his hold around her and kept repeating soothing words to her to calm her down.

“Are you okay mum?” Jacob’s little voice asked. It was only then when her son spoke that Sibu realized he was in the room and immediately, she calmed down. She then moved to hold her son in her arms instead.
“I am okay my love,” she assured him, stroking his hair as she tried to soothe him. “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just having a bad dream. Don’t be scared, okay? Mummy is very sorry.”
“I am sorry I couldn’t protect you from the monster mummy.” Little Jacob told his mother as he returned her hug.

“You did my son, of course you did,” Sibu said. “I got completely better the moment I la!d eyes on you.”

“I did?” he asked with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“Yes you did.” Sibu released him from the embrace and held him away from her before planting a kiss on his forehead. “I love you so much my baby,” she said and then hugged him again.

“I love you too mum,” Jacob replied.
And holding him slightly away from her she said, “Why don’t you go to Uncle Ted’s room for a little bit while I talk to him about something?”

Jacob turned to look at Ted. “You won’t take long, right?” the five year old asked his potential step-father.

“No I won’t buddy,” Ted stroked his hair playfully.

Both Sibu and Ted watched as Jacob disappeared from the room. Ted got up and went to sit next to her.

“What’s going on with you Sibu?” he asked her. “Jake told me you’ve been having these nightmares quite a lot these past two weeks. What scared you this much and keeps you awake?” Rather than look around the room for something to use, Ted took off his vest instead and used it to wipe away the sweat covering her whole face.
“You asked me last time why I can’t remarry,” Sibu said, her voice a little slowed and pained from the horrors she had just been fighting. “This,” she was pointing to her wet hair. “This is the reason I don’t have the luxury to date anyone.”

Ted looked confused. “What do you mean by that?”
“The nightmares always start whenever I do something that makes me really happy. I saw a shrink once and she told me it’s a psychological issue…that I let my fears take over because of the guilt I’ve been holding on to.”
“What guilt Sibu?” Ted asked.

Sibu had lived with Martin for years but she had never gotten the strength to open up to him. Before, it had been because of his weak health, she had given the excuse that her problems might only add more pressure to him. And then later it was because she feared he would not be able to understand. He was not the type of person to deal with such great emotional issues. He had told her numerous times that he was not a touchy-feely kind of guy so how was he ever going to understand such complex feelings that she too could not understand even though they were happening to her?

But with Ted, she did not need to think twice. She was not sure whether it was the look in his eyes or the warmth of his embrace every time he held her in his arms…but with him she felt safe…she wanted to open up to him. For the first time in her life, Sibu felt like relying on someone, and so she confided in Ted.

“I was about fourteen years old when I lost my mother.” She started. “My aunt says I killed her…. According to her, I used to be very stubborn and wild. She says I gave my mother a lot of pain. I don’t know if it’s true or not since I can’t remember much from around that period of time. I lost my memory immediately after the accident.”
“Accident?” Ted asked.

Sibu nodded, “Yes, I was told that my mother was killed in an accident while she was chasing me with some boy I was fooling around with. My aunt says I was so infatuated with that boy who was older than me that on the day my mother died, we were planning on running away together but she caught us…and…and…” she shut her eyes and sighed heavily, tears welling up in her eyes. Ted moved even closer to her and held her hand while she narrated.

“We were at the bus stop that day with my boyfriend, desperately trying to get away from my mother who was chasing us. I was the the first one to step foot on the bus but before my boyfriend could get on, my mother had caught him and was pulling him and hitting him, trying to keep him from following me.

“In anger, I stormed out of the bus and pushed my mother away from him but there was a car coming from the other direction and it went over my mother, killing her instantly.”

It wasn’t the kind of story Ted had been expecting to hear. When she had first mentioned killing her mother, he had thought it was metaphorical…and not so literal.
He was petrified.

Sibu was watching him the whole time. “You are afraid of me now, aren’t you? Suddenly, I am this strange women you wish you had never met isn’t it?” She was saying the words with a smile on her face but the tears in her eyes told a whole different story.

Wasn’t that the same look she had never wanted to see in Martin’s eyes if he ever discovered the truth? Had he known the truth, she would have never had a chance with him. He had liked her because he thought she was different…innocent, he had told her. There was completely nothing innocent about her life.

Immediately, she regretted having opened up to Ted. Now she was going to lose the one person she thought she could count on without being judged.

With a grim expression on his face, Ted asked, “Did the police ever get involved?”
“They did,” Sibu replied. “My aunt said that she convinced them that it was my boyfriend that had pushed my mother. Many times I tried to get her to tell me which jail he is serving in but she says she has no idea where they took him. She warned me never to go searching because it might draw attention to me and that would be a problem for her because she had lied to protect me. But why do you ask?”

“Because I don’t buy any of it,” Ted spoke with such conviction it caught Sibu by surprise. That was not the reaction she had been expecting.

“You don’t believe it happened like that or you just don’t want to believe that the woman you like killed her own mother so she could run away with her older boyfriend?”
Ted was now up on his feet, Sibu could hear his mind thinking and making mental calculations. He was pacing back and forth, his face slightly tilted with his middle finger tapping the center of his forehead like he always did whenever he was working on a very hard case.

And suddenly, he moved closer to the bed and knelt down before her, taking her hands into his. “Sibu, don’t you know yourself?” he asked her.

“Huh?” Was all Sibu could say in return, wondering where this was going.
“When I first met you, I remember thinking how different you were from girls your age. I was greatly impressed by how well grounded and mature you seemed. I was not the only one in that room that day who had been impressed.”

“What has that got to do with what I just told you Ted?” Sibu asked, visibly confused by what was going on.

Ted was shaking his head slowly, a dampened and irritating look playing on his face. How could Sibu not have seen through something so obvious? He wanted to lash out at her for being so gullible but managed to keep his cool about him. Taking a deep breath, he swallowed hard and heaved heavily;
“I do not think you did any of the things your aunt said you did,” he said.

She flashed him a puzzled look. He had not expected less.

“I am saying that your aunt must have taken advantage of your loss of memory and lied to you about what happened that day,” he explained.

“Why would my aunt make up such a big lie? What would she gain from making me believe that… I had killed my own mother?” Even before she had finished the sentence, she grasped exactly what Ted was trying to say to her.

“No, it can’t be….” she was trying to convince herself more than she needed to convince him. “She can’t be that cruel,” she was slowly shaking her head in horror.
“One time when I was fifteen, she even dragged me to the place where the accident had taken place and dared me to ask anyone working around there about what had transpired. I was so petrified I couldn’t dare ask anyone. I was so afraid of what I might hear. Why would she risk taking me there if she knew those people might tell me the truth if they saw something?”

“Because she knew from the very beginning that you would not ask,” Ted said. “You were young and naive and she played you to your fears. Everything you know about that day is according to what she told you. Do you think that if we go to the police right now they would have records of that accident?”
Sibu was looking at him wearily, every muscle in her body gripped in terror. “Are you saying that there was no accident?” she asked. “I don’t think that’s something she would have made up. I know she is an evil person, but I don’t think she would go to such extremes to lie to me about how my mother died. This is her sister we are talking about after all. I really want to believe everything you are telling me…but this is just too good to be true…it’s just too easy.

“I have lived with this guilt for so many years,” Sibu lamented. “…and not once did I bother to question my aunt because it didn’t seem possible that she could fabricate details of her own sister’s death.