Echoes Of The Heart

Episode 6

Aunt Tafadzwa came down from her stool and stood resting her hands on her waist defiantly. “I never forced you to marry Martin!” she yelled, pointing an accusing finger at her twenty-nine year old niece. “I made you a proposition and you made the choice yourself. You could have refused and we could have gone on with our lives.”

Sibusiswe couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You call it a proposition I call it a threat,” she thundered. “But I am not here to argue semantics with you. What happened, happened…nothing can ever change the past…but I certainly intend to change the future.” She la!d it thick for her aunt.
“What do you mean by that?” Aunt Tafadzwa asked.

Putting her white fur clutch on her laps, Sibu leaned back against the shelves behind her, not caring for a second abbout the products she was probably crushing. She crossed her arms over her chest and crossed one leg over the other.

“I am done catering to your every whim and demand aunty,” Sibu barked. “The deal we made was that if I marry Martin, I get to see Henry through high school and Tammy through college. I did that. I kept my end of the deal and now it’s time for you to keep yours. You promised you would leave me the hell alone and stop making crazy demands if I sent your children to school. But that text you sent me last night and the manner in which you commanded me to prepare funds for Henry’s college fees infuriated me.”
“Do you think you have any right to get upset?” her aunt asked.
“Stop it!” Sibu got up from the stool so fast she dropped her clutch to the floor. “This is exactly what I am talking about,” she remarked. “…you guilting me into making decisions every chance you get. The only reason I went through that tumultuous marriage was to free myself from your malice. Yes it was a decision i made but only because you left me no choice! I understand you are mad about what happened to your sister but I am done paying the price for something I had no control over. Every day and night I beat myself over it…I don’t need you to constantly remind me of my sins. You claim my mother would have taken care of you and your children if she were alive but do you think she would have wanted you abusing her only child in this manner?”
“Abusing you?” Aunt Tafadzwa’s small eyes danced in furry. “You call marrying a handsome and impossibly rich man like Martin abuse?” She laughed bemusedly.
“Yes, making a fourteen year old do all those things you made me do for your family is what the law calls child abuse. And there’s a word they use to describe forcing someone to marry someone they didn’t want to just so it can benefit you.”
“You act as if you didn’t benefit from the marriage,” her aunt fired back. “Just look at you,” she said, running her and up and down in Sibu’s direction. “…looking all high and mighty like you are better than everybody else. If I told Martin what you did, do you think he would have insisted on marrying you in the first place? Thanks to me you got to enjoy such a high class life and married the most sought after man in the country. Any normal person would be grateful, but not you. You have always been a selfish ungrateful wench ever since you were little. And thanks to that selfishness of yours, my sister is now six feet under!” She was furiously pointing and digging at the floor with her feet.”
“Do not bring my mother into this,” Sibusiswe told her aunt. “I promised myself that I will not let your emotional blackmail get to me today. I did what I promised to do; I sent your children to school. Tammy is the same age as me and she is now working. It is now her time to send her brother to college. I will be leaving the country in a few days and there is nothing you will say to me that will stop me. I just don’t care anymore…I just don’t give a dame any more. Seek a witch doctor to deal with me like you’ve always threatened to do or kill me yourself with your bare hands, I don’t care. I know that as long as I am alive, there is no getting out of this hell I set up for myself and you polished for my comfort. But I am done with you…so either you let me go in peace or I drag you down into this hell with me.”

“You think it’s easy to just walk away from your family just like that?” Aunt Tafadzwa asked, seeming much unperturbed by her niece’s threats.

Sibu scoffed. “Has there ever been a time you considered or treated me like family? If what you and your children are to me is family, then I will gladly embrace being alone in this world.” She bent down to pick up her clutch, and taking a deep breath she said, “I came here to say goodbye, not to fight. My walking away from you does not mean I have forgotten about my sins. I just think I have paid you enough and I would like to battle my own demons on my own terms. You take care of yourself and your family.” And with that, she turned to leave.

“You think running away will absolute you from everything? What do you think your husband’s family will do when they find out that you only married into their family for money?” Her aunt’s voice roared from behind.

Sibu stopped. “I never said I was running away,” she said with her back still turned. “I am simply removing some weeds from my hell. It is my hell after all, only I get to decide the company I keep while I await my pending doom,” and turning around, “you no longer get to call the shots.” She declared. “You are done. You and I are over. You can say whatever you want to Martin’s family, see if I care.” With that, she walked out of the shop, leaving her aunt reeling in bridled rage.

Putting on her invisible triumphant shoulder pads, Sibusiswe walked out of the store with her head held high. She was busy busking in her glory over putting her aunt in her place when something blocked her path right outside the store.

It was her former mother-in-law, Mrs Temwani Mwewa.

To say she was looking unpleased would be an understatement. With her brows arched upwards going all the way and stopping only a few inches short of her hairline, and with her lips parsed into a long thin line, the fifty-five year old woman was a vision only found in children’s nightmares.

“Fancy finding you here Sibu,” Mrs Mwewa said, arching one eyebrow further into her hair.

All Sibu could do in that instant was stare in disbelief at the woman who had made it her hobby to make her marriage life unbearable.

Why did she have to be there at that particular moment? And how much of the conversation with her aunt did she hear?
“Bana Martin, mwaiseni !” A very cheerful Aunt Tafadzwa came out of the store to gleefully welcome her former in-law and seemingly good friend.

Since when did the two become so close? Sibusiswe wondered as the two women shared a hug.

A cold streak of chagrin ran down Sibusiswe’s spine as flashes from her past threatened to crush her head into little pieces.