Why don't you listen? (part 2)

Read Part 1 first.

Mental health trigger warning. Read at your own discretion.

Before she could come to her senses, Pavel had already gotten in his car to drive me away. I shrank in the seat and watched the figure of my mother fade away. And then I closed my eyes, unsure whether I should feel relieved or nervous. What if this man wasn't as gentlemanly or safe as I thought?

Pavel didn't speak during the drive and I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up, I was being laid on a bed. My shoes and coat were taken off and I was tucked in under fresh smelling blankets. A warm kiss brushed my forehead.

"Sleep well, my Honey. Don't you worry about anything. I'll take care of it all. I'll be here when you wake up."

*****

My mobile phone blew up overnight under the bombardment of messages and missed calls from all the various members of my family, lambasting me for my bad behaviour, for disrespecting my mother in front of strangers and demanding that I come home to answer to them all. Pavel, seeing how unsettled my sleep was from all the messages and phone calls, helped me to put my phone on silent, allowing me to finally get a few hours of blessed quiet and sleep.

By morning though, things had blown up such that Pavel's superior had called him to ask what was going on and why he was being harassed by my mother's phone calls. And then, the police turned up at Pavel's door, mostly to check on me and make sure I was ok.

I sat in Pavel's lounge feeling awkward, embarrassed and ashamed at the fuss my family was making. And also slightly confused. Did my family actually care about me, or were they just acting up so that I could be brought back home and brought back under heel. Just the thought of what I was going to face upon going home made me shiver and my vision go dark.

Hands patted my face and I was helped back up into sitting while Pavel seemed to have finished telling his side of the story. Now it was my turn to tell mine. I stuttered and stammered. Started and stopped, greatly reluctant to share what was making me so worried that I kept fainting.

"We're calling the ambulance," the police finally said after I had blacked out for the fifth time. "Passing out so frequently, whether due to panic attacks or something else, it is better to get things checked out."

While waiting for the ambulance, the police and Pavel, somehow managed to drag out of me how my family treated me at home and why I had moved out to live by myself and how my mother had come to stay with me the past few days and how I felt about all of it. I was a right confused and teary mess.

They even managed to get me to confess what would likely await me if I did go home.

"Even so, your family are concerned about you, Honey," the policewoman told me. "It would be best if you talked to them to help calm them down. If it makes you feel better, why don't you talk to them while we are here with you? Or would you prefer to do it privately?"

"Here is fine," I stammered, looking at my phone that was lit up with my brother's name.

"Who's this?"

"My eldest brother," I shivered and hiccuped, picking up the call, not even daring to bring the phone to my ear.

What came out was a furious tirade, telling me off for disrespecting my mother, being disobedient, flirting and taking off with random men and telling me the whole family were at my parents' house, waiting for me to come home. After demanding I go home immediately, the phone was hung up.

I hadn't needed to put the phone on loudspeaker. Everyone had heard it. I swallowed and my phone lit up with my second brother's name.

"What's wrong with you? When did my sister turn into a…" my second brother called me a list of derogatory names and told me off for making everyone worry and not answering the phone. And then he took, demanded I return home immediately.

Once more, the phone was hung up before without giving me the chance to even squeak.

All my brothers called me one after the other, with similar messages presented in various ways, scolding me and hanging up on me, without giving me the chance to make a sound.

The youngest of my elder brothers was the harshest, directly telling me how he was going to beat me up and teach me a lesson when I got back. He flat out swore at me for making our mother cry.

My mother's 131st phone call came through and she wasn't much better than my brothers, crying and wailing, complaining and scolding me. Telling me that her daughter shouldn't be a bunch of dirty names that I had clearly become and that she was clearly going to have to teach me how to be a person until she found me a proper man to marry. A man who would be able to teach me my place and how to behave. She was guilt tripping and telling me what I was feeling and thinking when I had not said a word to her since picking up the call. And when she didn't hear anything from my end, the phone had been hung up by the sound of the phone being smashed or thrown or something.

Finally, my father called. By this time, I was feeling faint and nauseous. My guts had twisted up into a painfully tight ball and I had shrunk myself to make myself as small as possible, holding my hands over my ears. The worst was almost over. I just had to get through this last call.

"Honey, my daughter," he said in a heavy voice. "I'm very disappointed in you. Everyone is home now. Come home and explain yourself. We need to talk."

When I didn't reply to him, there was a long silence.

"Honey? Are you there?"

I was holding my chest, struggling for breath. I reached out a shaky hand to drop the phone onto the coffee table and Pavel was already lying me down, while the police helped to elevate my legs.

"Are the ambulance here yet?" asked the policewoman in a tight voice.

"They're just around the corner," said the policeman, the policewoman's partner.

"Don't panic," Pavel's voice told me. "You're ok. You're going to be ok."

"Dad," I gestured at the phone, gasping through a strained and strangled throat, feeling like my body was trying to kill me with its overactivity. "My dad."

My father was still waiting for me to answer him, but I couldn't talk to him right then.

"Shall I help you talk to your father, Honey?" the policeman asked me. "Do you want me to tell him what is going on? It might be a good idea to have some family support in the hospital."

I nodded and shook my head, trying to calm myself down enough to take a deep breath and talk. I sat up to say something and explain myself but passed out again to a flurry of exclamations.

When I woke up, we were already on the way to the hospital. Surprisingly, it was the same paramedic pair who had come to see me yesterday.

"My family," I gasped to the paramedic by my side, trying to sit up, only to be stopped by the straps on the stretcher.

"Honey," the paramedic by my side took my hand. "Calm down. It's ok. You're fine. You're in the ambulance."

"The police. What did they tell my father?" I asked after the paramedics had introduced themselves and completed filling in my basic information.

"We're not very sure," the paramedics told me. "We were concentrating on making sure you were ok, but I heard the police say that they weren't at liberty to disclose your private information, especially after hearing so many threatening phone calls from your brothers and mother, one after another and after seeing the state you were in. The police feel like you have been a victim of domestic abuse and Pavel agreed. Can you tell us? Are you a victim of domestic abuse?"

I shut my eyes and ears at that, no longer responding to the paramedic when he tried to talk to me again. Even after he had changed topics.

In the hospital, I had a bunch of tests done. While I was lying there waiting for test results to come back, Pavel came to find me with my phone and the police officers who had a good talk to me about my rights. What it boiled down to was that I could request assistance or try to make peace with my family, knowing what assistance and services were available and where the closest womens' safe houses were. The police couldn't do much more than that unless I wanted to charge my parents or family.

I couldn't do that.

So… make peace it was. They got my permission to tell my worried father where I was so that he could see me and so that they could talk to him properly.

I agreed. As long as he came alone. If any of the others came with him, I was out of here. I didn't think I could handle facing any other member of my double faced and biased family right now. I still had some hope for my father though.

As long as he didn't have his eyes glued to his phone or computer screen, he was usually mostly reasonable. And although he was not reliable in emergencies or for anything I felt was important, he could sometimes see the bigger picture and would occasionally stand up for me. But that was only if he wasn't being disturbed, his screen time wasn't being interrupted, and he wasn't in a bad mood.

When my father arrived, he looked awkward and uncomfortable. The police took him aside for a chat and when they were done, they wished me the best and told me to call if I needed help. Then dad looked at Pavel and Pavel looked at him. And then they both walked out to have a private chat.

It was a very long chat.

Before they were done, the doctor returned with all my test results, told me I was fine. Perfectly healthy. They suggested I see my GP to get a referral for counselling or Psychology if I needed it to help me manage my stress levels and that my mental health might be leaning towards anxiety, but that I wasn't depressed. Otherwise, I should take a good break and get more rest.

Nothing I hadn't expected.

When my father and Pavel came back in, the discharge summary had been completed. The doctors told them to take good care of me and to make sure I could get more rest and not be exposed to too much stress. Then I was packed up and shown the door.

Pavel supported me while my father looked slightly confused and bemused. Once outside the hospital, the two men looked at each other and me, as if silently trying to lay claim on me.

"Honey, my daughter," Dad cleared his throat. "Sit in your father's car. Let Dad have a good talk with you. If you're feeling alright, let's go out with Pavel to eat something. It's past lunchtime and you haven't eaten anything since yesterday afternoon."

Pavel looked concerned and nervous, but stayed silent, watching me carefully. I glanced at him and then lowered my head, stepping closer to my father, nodding my head.

Pavel's forehead crinkled for a moment and then smoothed back out.

"Then I'll see the two of you at the café. It's the Duck Tureen," Pavel told me. "On Geiger Street, next to the Sofar Cushion Hotel. Do you know it?"

I nodded.

"I know it."

"Good, then you can be Dad's navigator again," my father said.

"I'll see you there," Pavel said, leaving me with my father reluctantly.

"See you there," my father said, taking my hand from Pavel's, and placing it on his arm, while I nodded my head at Pavel.

And then we parted ways. My father silently taking me to where he had parked his car in a free parking zone two streets away, while Pavel walked to his car in the hospital car park alone.

After walking silently for a while, my father heaved a heavy sigh.

"You've really messed things up," he told me in a low voice.

"I messed things up?" I choked. "What did I do wrong?"

My father was silent for another long moment.

"Tell me everything that happened yesterday then. Tell me clearly, without exaggeration. I've only heard your mother and Pavel's points of view. Let me hear yours before I say anymore."

So I told him, but when I began complaining about how my mother made too many demands of me and didn't listen to me, he cut me short.

"I asked you to tell me what happened. Not to listen to you complaining about your mother," he said in an icy voice that made my blood run cold.

It was then that I realised that I might not have any place in his heart either and that he was biased toward my mother. But that was fine. That was expected. After all, my mother's word should rightfully carry more weight than mine. It's just that, where did that put me? What did that make me? A liar?

When I finished talking, we had almost arrived at the café and we're looking for parking.

My father didn't say anything to me and I didn't say anything more to him either. My heart had turned into a snowscape where a blizzard was moaning and freezing my heart solid. Whatever my father's conclusion was, I knew it wasn't going to bode well for me.

"Pavel and our family are from very different cultures," my father said suddenly after we had gotten out of the car, he had locked it and we were walking to the café. This time, I kept my distance from him. "If you really decide to be with him, it will be very difficult for you and you will often feel lonely and not understood. Other than that, I accept that he is a reasonable fellow. It's just that your mother has concerns about him and doesn't like him. Especially not after the way he kidnapped you from the car yesterday."

"Mum had been hitting me while she was driving. Do you know how many times we nearly crashed? He was trying to protect me."

"You know she's easily distracted and you let her drive?"

"I wasn't feeling well. I could barely stay awake, stand or sit at the time yesterday," I shot back. "You don't believe anything I said, do you? Mum told you I was a liar and so you don't believe me. After all these years, you of all people, should know what sort of a daughter and person I am," my eyes welled up with tears. "All these years, all this effort and everything has been turned into a lie? Because you all believe that Mum must always be right and I'm always the evil liar? I'm the conniving, manipulative one?"

"Aren't you?"

My heart broke.

"Fine," I sneered through my teeth and opened my banking app. "Come, look at what the rest of the family is doing to me. Let's go over past events. Look at my bank account. Look where all my money is going. You and Mum told me to save up, and you all beat me and scold me for being a spendthrift when I can't help to pay for anything you all ask me."

"You never even give your parents money and still say you're broke," my father scoffed. "If you're not a spendthrift, where is all your salary going?"

"Dad, look at this. Look at my bank transactions. Look where all my money is going and who is receiving it. Look who's names these are. This is the time we all argued at home and you beat me up, forcing me to send money to my brother to help him pay off his university fees. Look how much money I have. This is why I was trying to tell you I was broke. I have twenty dollars a fortnight that I save for my groceries. I don't even have that. I may as well starve. My bank account is in the negative. Do you know how high the overdraft interest rate is? It's higher than a credit card's interest rate. Do you know what my brother did with the money I sent him? He bought a new computer and a new computer game. I can't even pay my rent for the next two months."

"Then you should move back home," my father muttered, taking my phone and scrolling through the transactions that went to mostly my mother and then all my other brothers. "You aren't married yet. Good girls don't move out of their parents' home until they're married. I know society is different now, that's why I let you move out, but look what your so-called independence has turned you into. I don't even recognise my daughter anymore. Your mother said you never gave her any money and didn't care about the family," my father murmured, lecturing me while counting up how much my mother had demanded from me in just this past week. "Why do you have no savings at all?"

I couldn't help rolling my eyes at him.

"Just from the transactions there, you can count the number of beatings and canings and scoldings I got from you all," I said. "You were there when they forced me to transfer the money over, after all."

"I wasn't paying attention," Dad murmured, scrolling down through the previous month's transactions and the months before that. "Has it always been like this?"

"Yes," I said in a tight voice. "Ever since I started working. Why do you think I fought so hard to move out and live by myself?"

"I thought you were just being stubborn," Dad shook his head.

"Dad, tell me. Was I ever stubborn as a kid?"

"No. We made sure you weren't," Dad said, shaking his head and still looking at my bank account transaction history with a deepening frown. "You've always been a good kid. Until you finished university, started working and moved out."

"Really?" I asked in a plaintive tone. "Or is that just what somebody was telling you?"

My father's head snapped up and he glared at me.

"You will not talk about your mother in that way," he hissed.

"Then let's talk about you, Dad," I said, barely holding back my tears, voice thick. "Let's talk about how the time my car broke down and I was stranded in the middle of nowhere for an entire night because nobody was free or willing to help me. I slept in the cold in my car that night until a kind stranger stopped and found me in the early hours of the morning almost dead with hypothermia. I went to the hospital and another kind person dropped me off near the house on the way home so that I could walk home. What did you do when I walked in the door? You and Mum played mixed doubles on me for staying out all night, calling me names. What had you all been doing all night?" I counted the people off on my fingers. "Watching TV. Playing computer games, Watching dramas. At a bar with friends all night, blind drunk. Playing console games. Sleeping. And when I called all of you? You all told me to rack off and stop disturbing you."

Dad shrank his neck and gave me a guilty look.

"How about the time I was being harassed on the way home. I called you for help and what did you say? You said I was a nuisance and should just be dragged away by those men and done in if I didn't know how to protect myself and was so promiscuous to flirt or show myself off in the street. You said I should know how to come home earlier before it gets dark but how was I meant to leave work early? You didn't care how I survived. Do you even care to know how I escaped now? When I got home, you caned me bloody for coming home so late without listening to my explanation. You just listened to other people's instigation, accused me and called me names. I couldn't even talk back."

"I said that?" Dad asked in a small voice. "I did that?"

"You said it with even fouler language because you were in the middle of an online poker match with the computer and you were losing."

"Honey, I'm sorry."

"This time, I asked the police to let you come because I need you. I needed somebody from our family to help me out because nobody believes that I'm not feeling well. None of you care about me. Nobody loves me. You all just keep telling me I'm a liar and should go die. Am I even your daughter? Was I really picked up from the rubbish heap?"

Dad swallowed and looked down at my phone.

"You asked me to tell you what happened yesterday without exaggeration and I did. I tried to tell you what Mum did, but you shut me down. It's her word against mine and of course, she wins. I'm the one that has to be sacrificed even if you know it's not my fault and if I'm not in the wrong. She's never wrong. She's always in the right. I'm just a nuisance who should never have been born. So, you know what, Dad? I've had it. This is it. Goodbye."

And shaking my father's hand off, I ran across the busy street full of cars, hearing cars screech, horns blared and people screaming and swearing. I didn't get hit. More's the pity. I just ran and kept running, only glancing behind once to see my father looking at the mess on the road in a daze.

They wanted me to be a menace to society. Fine. I might as well fulfill their wish. I had gone and done it.

I heard the wail of police sirens in the distance and just kept running. I was going to run away and never come back. Run until I could run no more. Run until I died.

Where I was going, I didn't even know. I couldn't see. My vision was too blurred and spotty. I didn't care. I had had enough.

My heart had been frozen into ice and then dashed to the ground, shattered into pieces. I didn't want to even think about how I was going to pick up the pieces and put them back together again.

I ran across the city and not being able to see, ran myself into the dirty, sludgy river that ran through the city. Choking and spluttering and even more blinded than I was before, I swam. And although I wasn't a good swimmer, I was surprised when I crashed into a wall on the other side. The river wall was too high to reach the bank, and so I could only follow the current downstream looking for a way out of the river.

Somewhere downstream, I got caught in a litter trap. Thankfully, there was a structure to hold onto and so I could hold on and not drown. It took me most of the afternoon attempting and reattempting to disentangle myself from the fishing net in the litter trap that had caught me.

By the time I was free, the sun was setting, I was shivering and nearly out of energy. I needed to leave and go somewhere else. Somewhere where I could be rescued from the dirty river. This part of the river had too much trash and stuff that would make me near invisible amongst it all.

I managed to drape myself over a random tree branch and bunch of styrofoam that had somehow ended up in the litter trap. And knew no more.

In the dark night, my body benumbed with cold could no longer even shiver. I was turning into a cold and stiff corpse. And yet, I woke up. Somehow. I didn't know how. I didn't know why.

Knowing I would really die if I stayed there, I grabbed a block of polystyrene and used it to kick and swim myself free of the litter trap. Following which, I drifted downstream once more and once more lost consciousness.

This time when I woke up, I was in a bed in a little room, wrapped in multiple blankets with heat packs and other hot items packed tight all around me. It felt like I was being roasted alive and yet I still felt cold in my core. As if the centre of me had not yet been thawed.

My chest felt tight and itchy. When I coughed, it sounded bad. I choked on what I was coughing up which stimulated more coughing which made me cough and splutter more, until I felt like I was going to suffocate and die on whatever I was coughing up.

And then my stomach heaved and I turned over to throw up.

Up came mouthfuls and a whole bellyful of disgusting, dirty water. And then I was choking and coughing again sounding like a dying seal.

Uniformed people came rushing into the room. Somebody patted my back, somebody got an oxygen mask ready and somebody stuck a vomit bag into my hands to continue throwing and coughing up into.

When all the dirty water had been expelled and my lungs felt clear enough to breathe somewhat, my body shut itself down. Had there not been people standing near the bed, I believed I might have fallen out of it. I might even have fallen on my head and broken my neck and killed myself, but I didn't. More's the pity.

In my dreams, I was being chased, sworn at, scolded and told off. I was forced to do things I didn't want to. I screamed and cried and begged for mercy. I tried to explain but nobody ever listened. They never listened. It wasn't my fault. Why would nobody listen? They all turned their backs, convicted me of crimes I didn't commit and threw me in a deep pit in the ground. They buried me alive, one spadeful of dirt at a time, not even looking at me. They had cold, indifferent eyes.

I loved my family so much. So, so much. I had tried so hard. Tried really, really hard to earn their love, to make them happy, to do everything and sacrifice everything I had for them. Because I was the spoiled younger sister, I had to make it up to them. Give back what I had stolen from them. Return with interest all the good things they had brought me up with.

And now I had given everything. Even my life. What more could they ask for? Was it enough? Why wasn't it enough? There was nothing else to give.

I asked the questions to the dark dirt that was piling up and growing heavier and heavier on me. The air was being crushed from my chest.

"Do you all really want me dead?" I sobbed into the dirt settling around me. I could feel my heart beat slowing down. Fading. Growing weaker. "Why? What did I do wrong?"

Strangely, surprisingly, an answer pierced through the dark and earthy tomb. A stranger's voice that I didn't recognise.

"We don't want you dead. You did nothing wrong. Come back. Don't die. It's not your fault. It's ok. They may not want you, but we do."

Unsurprisingly, I found myself in a hospital when I woke up. Apparently I had been picked up by a Navy vessel that had been passing the city's bay area after I had been swept out to sea. Apparently, I was very, very lucky to be alive.

I had no idea which hospital I was in. When they asked my name, I gave no answer. When they asked for my date of birth, I just stared at them. Family? Friends? Address? If I didn't speak, they could only presume I was mute or my speech centres had been injured by the brain damage when I had nearly died.

I had really bad pneumonia which had turned into acute respiratory distress syndrome, which had sent me into ICU for a few days. I had been intubated and put on a ventilator until my lungs had been able to get over the trauma of breathing dirty water and nearly drowning. When I returned to the ward, I slept so deeply that I scared the medical staff who thought I had slipped into a coma again.

When I was awake, tears were constantly sliding down my face. I had a poor appetite and everything I did made me cough and then tired me out. Just breathing made me feel out of breath.

The staff came up with various nicknames for me. A different nickname for every shift, because they still didn't know who I was and couldn't identify me. It seemed this hospital ran on a different system from the hospital I had been in before. The police had to get involved to help investigate when I showed no sign of understanding their questions.

When they asked me too many questions and I got stressed, my body would just go into shutdown in order to protect me. I wondered how many days had passed and whether my leave was up. Had I lost my job yet?

The police only identified me after someone recognised my face from one of the new missing persons cases. The medical staff and police seemed to all heave a sigh of relief, but the moment I knew they had identified me, I had put on an extra hospital gown and walked out into the cold night when nobody was looking.

No clothes. No underwear. No shoes. Just two hospital gowns and a hospital blanket. This was an all new low.

I had nowhere to go. Nowhere I wanted to go. No one I dared to trouble. Even Pavel with his comfortable lap had been moved from my list of possibly safe people to the list of probably not safe people. Mostly because I barely knew the guy. I didn't feel safe with anyone anymore. I didn't want to talk and didn't dare to talk. If I did, they'd probably think I was a liar as well.

It was better to leave, but where would I go? I didn't even have money.

I walked along the cold and wet streets, sniffling in the cold. It began to drizzle and the hospital gowns and blankets only grew wetter and soggier. I began to cough. Just a little at first, but then harder.

In the end, I ended up back in hospital, because I had been found lying unconscious in the streets.

Familiar complaining and nagging pulled me back out from the relatively comfortable dark. Upon seeing my eyes open, the nagging, the complaining, the accusations started. My poor shattered heart shook and trembled but remained where it lay, in pieces, spilled every which way l over the ground. It was being trampled and like my delirium, I was being buried by the very people I had loved and trusted so much.

And because I couldn't do anything else, I covered my ears and screamed. Screamed all other sounds away. Screamed myself into oblivion. I felt people pulling at my hands, slapping and punching to try and pry them off my ears. Someone's hand covered my mouth. And then a pillow. And then somebody was beating me to get me to stop screaming. They were probably screaming themselves but my scream was better. I covered everything else up.

Relief. The silent dark was a wonderful relief. I was staying in the dark and never coming out. It was safe here. It was warm here. No expectations. No burden. Nobody else. Just me. Me and immense relief.

My heart had been stifled and trampled and hurt too much. Whatever was going on, I didn't care. Didn't want to care. I was out of here.

The medical staff kept trying to electric shock me. It hurt. It was uncomfortable. I didn't want to come back. I had to cling to the dark. Hide from the light of day so that nobody could call me names or accuse me of things that weren't true anymore.

In the end, I got woken up. Annoying. Sad, but true.

Next chance I got, I got out of bed.

The moment I did, an alarm went off, scaring me into fainting on the floor.

Whenever I had visitors, I became agitated. My stress levels would go through the roof. Thankfully, the hospital staff weren't stupid. They banned visitors from visiting me despite the visitors' complaints and nagging. The moment I heard and recognised those familiar voices, I would start screaming again. Screaming and choking and dying.

It was wonderful.

I didn't even want to contemplate how high the bills I had racked up were. I couldn't stand the thought or the stress.

There was that day when I crossed the road. There may have been a car accident or two. I wasn't sure.

Then there was when I was picked up by the Navy. I wasn't sure whether that would result in the family getting charged a few. But the police investigation and the medical fees since I had arrived in this hospital almost certainly would have. Just thinking about it and how the family had reacted to everything stressed me out enough that I passed out for three days and nights.

From the depths of unconsciousness, I rose back from the multiple layers to find what seemed to the world's most comfortable lap under my head. I nuzzled into that embrace and those warm, warm arms. He didn't make a sound and neither did I. When I slept this time, it wasn't the uncomfortable on/off of unconsciousness when unwell. It was more the settled, sweet and deep sort. Like a child with its parents.

No. Bad example.

What child? What parents?

I was no child. I had no parents. My parents didn't want me anymore and so I didn't want them either. I had no family.

Only the world's most comfortable lap and that gentle hand stroking my back.

When I woke up, I'd be in those warm arms. In that comfortable embrace. And then I would relax. Relax and nuzzle closer Where I felt safer. Waking up was a very nerve-wracking thing. I never knew whether those liars might be there, waiting to whack me another or bury me alive again. When I realised they weren't around, I wouldn't have to be so apprehensive and tentative.

I didn't like people talking to me or asking me questions. Demanding answers I would no longer give. My silence seemed to be accepted as my new norm. No demands were made of me other than resting and getting better.

It was great. Pleasant. Relieving.

Unfortunately, my work colleagues visited and realised there was something very wrong with me. My supervisor seemed to see the writing on the wall. He talked to Pavel and got me a very tidy resignation package. That amount would take my bank account back out of the red. Finally. I hoped.

And without my mobile phone or my family nagging me, that money would be able to stay in my bank account. It wouldn't be going anywhere. It could safely stay in the account and accrue interest. For the first time in many years. Thinking about that made me smile. Now, I had savings. Even if it was only a measly few thousand dollars that would be taxed.

Pavel stayed with me through my rehab and the ups and downs of recovery. Behind his thick shield of safety, I hid. I knew he was helping me fend off those sticky figures hovering constantly in the background and not seeming to understand why I could no longer accept them. It wasn't my problem anymore. I didn't have a heart. No heart. Heartless. And being heartless, I was protected from having the shattered pieces of my heart trampled on any further.

When I was discharged from the hospital, Pavel helped me change my address in all my important documentation, helped me get my passport renewed and then took me overseas. We saw sights, experienced new things, and I tried new kinds of food.

I met his parents and was quite happy until one night, when I was meant to be in bed, I had gotten up to get some water, only to hear his parents rejecting me because I was mute. Because I had mental health issues. They didn't want their son to be dragged down by a broken woman like me.

That hadn't been what I had meant to do. I didn't want that. I didn't mean it. I had gone and ruined somebody else's life. Ruined somebody else's family by causing conflicts.

Unwanted. Broken. Rejected. Alone.

I didn't hear the sound of the glass dropping and shattering.

I only heard the sirens of the ambulance and Pavel desperately calling my name, trying to bring me back from the dark where I felt like I had been banished to.

I wasn't wanted. I was a burden. Dragging him down.

I couldn't breathe. The fragile new heart that had just started reforming was torn apart again. Just like that.

Since when was I so fragile?

And now I was lost. Adrift in a foreign country that spoke something else as a first language. Misplaced. Misidentified. Unwanted.

Tears were useless. After crying a river and finding myself going nowhere, I got up and left. Who knew where I walked to. There was light. There was dark. There were people and cars. There was nowhere to stop. Nowhere to rest. Nowhere to call a home. Nowhere that wanted me.

Faintly, I heard someone shouting. Calling someone. A stranger calling another stranger. Nobody that I knew or recognised.

Arms enveloped me but they didn't feel warm. Only weary. This seemed to be the last person who still thought I was worth any effort. Would I one day wake up to find that this person too thought I was a waste of space, a liar and too much of a burden to bear? Would he one day reject me and abandon me as well?

Better to abandon myself first than to face being rejected and abandoned again.

"No!" shouted a voice in my ear and hugging my dirty and filthy body tight. I stank and was covered in grime. Even I didn't know where I had been or where I had gone. Other people were distancing themselves and gagging, but this one person wasn't. "Honey. You're my honey," he cried into my neck. "It's me. Pavel. Come back, Honey. Come back. Even if nobody else wants you, even if you think the world has abandoned you, I won't. Never. Remember, I told you. In sickness or health, you'll be mine. My woman. I won't accept anybody else. I love you. I care for you. Come back. Please. Come back to me."

And then I stopped resisting and trying to keep walking. Just rested in his embrace.

I was tired. So tired.

In the hospital, the nurses cut the grimy and encrusted clothes off me. I was carefully washed. My hair was shaved because it was too much of a mess to be dealt with slowly. All the wounds from who knew I had gotten where were treated. They stung. Stung to tell me I was alive. Stung to tell me that my freshly scrubbed body would be stepping into a new chapter of life.

And I slept. Slept like the dead, woke up to eat, go to the toilet and slept some more. I ate what I was given. Drank what was put in front of me. Did as I was told.

The wonderful lap pillow was still there and those wonderful arms still held me, but they sometimes squeezed tight as if afraid I would disappear. As if they were desperate and afraid.

When I opened my eyes, I would just stare at him and his ugly face and wonder why such a beautiful person could look so horrible. Why he would still want me after all this time, all this trouble and all this money. It would have been far cheaper and quite understandable for him to have given up on me. Why was he such a beautiful person that he made me cry?

I didn't dare to nuzzle into that embrace anymore. In case he didn't want me to. In case I didn't belong. In case somebody tore me away from him. I had to be careful. I had to protect myself. And so, the only thing left that I could do was look at him. Stare at him. I didn't get tired of looking at his less aesthetically pleasing face because the more I looked at him, the more his outward flaws fell away. The more I could only see the wonderful and beautiful parts of him. Until I could no longer see that ugly visage at all.

His parents complained that it wasn't proper for us to remain single if we were together. If Pavel really loved me and was unwilling to give me up, then they would accept me. So we went to the embassy and got married.

Pavel was kind. Really kind. The gentlest man there was. He didn't force intimacy on me. He just waited and respected my boundaries. He held me in his arms at night and chased away my nightmares for me. He soothed my lonely and weary heart by slowly infusing the darkness with a ray of sunshine.

With my poor health and fragile state being too stressful for his parents to handle, we moved out into a little unit with a small garden that had shockfuls of flowers when the seasons changed. I liked tending to them when I had nothing to do.

Pavel went to work during the day and when he came home, I'd be ready with a wonderful dinner for him. I did my part as a housewife reasonably well, even if I didn't talk. Sometimes Pavel would talk and share with me about what was on his mind and discuss his concerns with me. And being unable to do anything else to help him, I would just hug him. Hug him and listen and try to be there for him.

I say try, because I'm human. A more fragile human than I was when I had first met him and there were times when I was just unwell.

Bit by bit, I felt like we were drawing closer and closer. It seemed as if I blinked and there was a baby in my arms and Pavel's mother complaining.

"I can't nag at you. I can't complain about you. I can't scold you. What am I supposed to do with you? How can you be a mother like this? What will become of the child?"

I was shocked and surprised.

She was right. How could I be a qualified mother? What was the point of having me around? I wasn't even going to be able to do as good a job as my mother had with me. I may as well just hand the baby over and be done with it.

So I beckoned my mother-in-law over and handed the baby to her. I made it to the bedroom just in time to make it to the bed before I died. It was just like going to sleep, but quieter. There wasn't even a heartbeat.

It wasn't until Pavel came home and checked on me, and then called an ambulance that his mother realised that something had gone wrong again. If it weren't for the baby crying for me and Pavel calling me to come back, I might not have returned from the dark this time.

I was unwell for a long time and could do very little. My mind wasn't always present and so the next time I was aware, the curly haired child had grown up enough that she could speak. She had a little sister by her side and there was another in my arms.

"Daddy, why should we go back to visit Mummy's family if they were mean to her? If they don't like Mummy, then I don't like them either. Mummy is so nice. If she wasn't sick all the time, everything would be perfect."

"They don't hate your Mummy," Pavel told the toddler. "In fact they love your Mummy, but they didn't know how to show their love properly. Your Mummy loved them so much that when they broke her heart, a part of her died. That's why she's sick so often. People that should love her and make her feel safe keep hurting her. Her heart has been broken so many times that it's not working properly anymore. The only way we can help Mummy get better and to bring her back is to love her. Love her with everything we can, protect her and be good to her. And then one day, that love will help her heal and she will be whole again. She'll become just like any other mummy. Whole, happy and healthy."

"Then I'll love Mummy. I'll protect Mummy. I'll help to heal Mummy," the little girl declared in a loud voice. The even smaller child sitting by her side waved her arms and made noises in imitation of her older sister. "Even if nobody wants her, I do. She's my Mummy and always will be. Nobody can take her away or hurt her."

I had to say, Pavel knew me much better than I knew myself. My child seemed to also be more than I deserved.

Reaching out with trembling fingers, I tugged Pavel's sleeve.

His eyes lit up and he turned to me with a surprised and happy smile.

"Honey! You're awake!"

I looked down at the child in my arms and then at the two by his side and hesitated.

"Baby," I croaked in a rusty and disused voice, indicating the three children. "Name."

"Honey?" Pavel wrapped me and the baby in my arms up in his arms and nearly tossed my panicking body up in the air for joy. Seeing my distress, he quickly put me back down but gave me a big kiss. "I'm sorry. Sorry. I was just so happy. Honey, you talked," his voice cracked. "I thought I might never hear your beautiful voice again."

Tears streamed from his eyes and from the eldest girl's eyes. The smaller little girl started crying because they were crying, making the baby in my arms cry and my head ring with the noise, making me cry.

"Baby. Name of baby," I patted the child in my arms and indicated the three children.

"Faith, Hope and Love," Pavel pointed at each child in turn, starting with the baby and then going up to the next in age.

So the eldest daughter was called 'Love'?

The curly haired toddler threw herself onto me and hugged me.

"Mummy, are you awake? Are you better? Did Love make you better? Daddy said I'm called Love because love is the greatest thing in the world. Perfect love can throw out fear and torment. He said I'm the secret healing weapon that will make you better. Look. Are you feeling better?"

Because the eldest had thrown herself on me, the second daughter followed suit, stopping her crying and babbling to me instead, only a few words were intelligible.

"Hope. Mummy. Mummy. Hope. Hope. Hope here."

The baby in my arms hiccupped a few times and then settled down with a deep sigh of seeming relief.

"Love," I acknowledged my oldest daughter and smiled at the way her curls bounced with her. "Hope," I caressed the soft fine hair of the stumbling toddler holding me and looking up into my eyes with big shining ones. "Faith," I kissed the baby in my arms. Then I looked at the man standing nervously by my side. "Husband."

Pavel's face lit up as if fireworks had gone off.

"Come," I sighed and lifted my face to him, accepting his kiss. I leaned into his embrace and closed my eyes with a deep and contented sigh, nuzzling close. "Pavel. Thank you. Thank you."

Words couldn't express how grateful I felt to have the man holding me and who stood by my side.

Pavel seemed to understand. Tears were still streaming down his face when he bent over to kiss me again. More deeply, while I nuzzled into his embrace, making him smile widely, even while he cried.

"Thank you," he whispered.

The children, seeing their father cry and smile and laugh and cry some more, cried as well but more with confusion and worry than anything else.

"Mummy," sniffed Love, wiping her snot on my shirt while she cried into my clothes. "Mummy. Mummy. My Mummy."

"Baby," I replied. "My baby. My babies."

"This time your heart won't break again," Love confided to me. "Daddy said that with the three of us, your heart will be made out of three indestructible things. Faith, Hope and Love never give up and can never be completely destroyed. They always grow. They always build. And always improve. You're going to be the healthiest Mummy with the strongest heart in the world."

An indestructible heart made of faith, hope and love, huh?

I looked up at Pavel again and he wiped the tears from my eyes, while I freed an arm to wipe the tears from his. We cupped each other's cheeks and then rested our foreheads against each other, feeling our breaths intertwine.

"Family," Pavel said through a tight throat and in a whisper. "You wanted a family. Look at you, you amazing woman. You birthed us a family that will never reject or abandon you. We'll build us a family that will be stronger than concrete, stickier than super glue and as hardy as unconditional love. So take your time recovering and becoming healthy again. We're all waiting to make that journey with you."

I gave the man a peck on the lips. He was so good with words. Now I wasn't just with him for the most wonderful lap pillow in the world and because he wouldn't hit me while I was down. I was with him for many, many more reasons.

For him. For my girls. I would get better. I would recover. I would be whole again.