Echoes Of The Heart

Episode 38

THE CONCLUSION

The morning before he was to travel back home, Martin asked to meet Sibusiswe at a restaurant close to Ted’s place.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you and him were now seeing each other?” Was the first question Martin fired at her before she could even sit down.

For a man that usually carried himself like an Emperor of the Universe, Martin was looking a little worse for wear that day. His eyes were sunken deep and had huge circles around them like a man deprived of sleep for too long a time. There had only been one time when Martin had looked like that and that was the day after his surgery.

Something inside Sibu broke. She wanted to reach out across the table and hold his hand but she also knew that doing so would only complicate things further. And so she sat back and opened her ears to listen.

“Why did it have to be Ted Sibu? Of all men in the world…why him? Was I really that bad to you that you would do me like this?” Martin was on the verge of crying but he kept fighting away the urge. The last thing he needed was to appear like a weakling in front of the woman who already thought the worst about him.

“Martin,” Sibu slowly started. “My relationship with Ted has nothing to do with you.”

Martin knotted his hand into a fist upon hearing her words…

My relationship with Ted.

All along he had prayed and hoped that despite everything he had heard and seen…that perhaps it had simply been a bad dream…that nothing was really going on between them and just like she had done in the past, Sibu would tell him that nothing will ever happen between her and Ted.

But the ease with which she delivered the confirmation threatened to tear his insides to pieces. He was suddenly awakened to the reality of just how much power lay in words because in just those few words, Sibu had managed to break his heart and shutter whatever little hope he had desperately clung onto ever since their divorce.

Somehow, Martin had convinced himself that if he truly changed for the better and became the kind of man that would be good enough for Sibu, he thought that without a doubt she would take him back.
For the first time in his life he had made a commitment to become a better man and he had stuck to it. He might not have been perfect, but he had done his very best to make up for all those times he had made an already lonely woman even lonelier. He had worked on his weaknesses and did eventually become a good man so why did things turn out this way?

Why could Sibu not give him a second chance?
“All those times I hurt you,” Martin’s voice was shaking and his lips were quivering. He took a deep breath, raised his hand to cover his mouth but immediately realized it too was shaking and so he quickly lowered it and hid both hands under the table.
Sibu’s eyes too became watery.

“I apologized,” Martin continued, forcing his voice to sound firm but despite his effort, he could not hide the huskiness.
“I have spent the past years doing everything I can to make up for having been a bad husband to you. I changed for you Sibu…so why…I don’t understand….”
“That’s the problem Martin,” Sibu interjected him. “You changed for me, not for yourself and certainly not because you felt you needed to change. There was never a time I asked you to change. All those times we fought over your wild behavior, it was only because I cared about your health, not about me. It was for your own good.”

Something she had said lit Martin up into full attention. “Was there even a single time you genuinely cared about me Sibu?” He asked her.

“What is that supposed to mean? After everything you and I went through, can you honestly ask me such a question?”
“I said genuinely….” Martin explained himself. “Yes, on the surface it appeared as though you cared but I can count the number of times I felt real genuine care from you. It was during those first few months after our marriage and then you completely gave up on me.”
“Martin,” Sibu had started.
“Let me talk Sibu,” Martin sat up straight in his chair. “All these years I solely accepted responsibility for how things ended between us but you know what Sibu, you are not innocent in all this. It’s like from the moment you agreed to marry me, you had already set a deadline in your head.
“You entered into marriage with such a mindset and you sat and patiently waited for the walls to come crumbling down. And when they finally did, you did not hesitate to raise your white flag. You had already given up on me even before I had started to fail so I never stood a chance with you. I know that you are stronger than the average woman out there but I have never seen a woman embrace pain as well as you did Sibu.”
Sibu looked upset, not because he was throwing accusations at her but because there was truth in what he was saying. She had indeed given up on him even before he had started failing their marriage. But how was she to explain to him that she had a lot going on in her life at that time?
“What, you don’t have anything to say now?” Martin asked sarcastically. “I don’t get you Sibu, I guess I never will. I tried so many times to get you to open up to me but you never gave me a chance. I am intelligent enough to know that a woman does not turn out to be like you just from genes. I was attracted to you because I knew you were different…but whenever I tried to discover just what made you different, you would shut me out completely.”

Sibu slowly raised her eyes to look at him. “Even if I had opened up to you, do you think you would have understood?”
“How about giving me the chance to fail first instead of failing me before giving me the test?” Martin returned. “That was always the problem with you Sibu; you made assumptions about me in your head and you convinced yourself that there was no redemption for me. I trusted you with my life but you on the other hand were more than ready to turn your back on me the moment a chance presented itself to you.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Sibu picked up her hand bag from the floor and was about to get up but Martin gripped her hand and looking up at her he sternly whispered, “If you want to see just how mad a man on the verge of collapse can get, I dare you to walk away from me Sibu.”

Sibu looked around and noticed they had become the center of attention in the sparsely populated restaurant.

“Let go of me Martin, you are hurting me,” she muttered.

“Say you will remain seated until we are done talking that’s when I will let go,” he negotiated.

Sibu put her bag back down and Martin released her hand immediately.

“You still haven’t changed,” he commented once she was settled down again. “Always walking away whenever you are forced to confront your weaknesses. I was the fool for always letting you have your way back then. I thought I was being supportive by not pushing you harder to confide in me. Ted was right, how can I call myself your husband when I hardly even know you? In just these few months you’ve been together, you managed to open up to him more than you ever did all those years we were together.”

“What did Ted tell you exactly?” Sibu asked.
“Are you really worried about me finding out your secrets?” Martin looked even more broken.