by M. V. Kasi
“Am I allowed to continue working for the company?” Sia asked the attorney quietly.
That was one of the very few things she genuinely enjoyed doing, since the past two years. Especially because her work exhausted her physically, and also kept her from thinking too much. Which was good, since it stopped her from reverting back to her old habits.
“Of course,” said the attorney. “You have been doing a great job. Your aunt was very proud of you, regarding your contribution towards the company.”
He shuffled some papers and took out an envelope from inside.
“Your aunt has left a personal letter addressed to you,” he said. “A few months ago, she had instructed me to hand it over to you after her death. By then, she had already known that she didn’t have much time.”
Sia stared at the white envelope in the attorney’s hand.
“Thank you,” she said coolly, taking it and placing it next to her handbag.
The attorney cleared his throat. “Your aunt had made some amendments since the last time she made the will,” he said.
Sia nodded. “My aunt had already told me that she’d be cutting me off the will,” she said.
The attorney looked surprised. “No. No. Mrs. Sampath actually did quite the opposite. She left all her personal possessions and the business assets to you. You are her sole heir,” he declared.
Sia was stunned.
Not once during the past few months, or even before that did her aunt mention a change in the will.
Did she think that if I knew about the change, I’d quit working and revert back to my old self?
Sia felt a slight twinge in her heart which surprised her. She had stopped feeling hurt or any kind of softer emotions, a long time ago.
The attorney placed a file with a stack of papers in front of him. “I would like to go through these documents that contain information on the assets you’ll be inheriting soon.”
Sia shook her head slightly.”I don’t really have much time right now. I have to get back to my office in an hour. Please have a copy sent to my house and I’ll go through them in detail. I’ll contact you if I have any questions.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I’m really sorry. I know it’s too soon and you must be overwhelmed with so many changes happening this quickly. Please take your time,” he said.
Placing the envelope inside her purse, she stood up, and she shook his hands. “Thanks Stephen. I’ll get back to you regarding the next steps” she said.
When she walked out of the attorney’s office, she nodded coolly at some of the employees she recognized. She continued walking out, passing the elevators, until she stopped at the stairwell of the building.
She took a deep, nervous breath tying to distract her mind.
“Mrs. Sampath, your daughter has repressed all her memories that were formed before you adopted her when she was nine. That’s the reason why she is unable to talk or even recall her name. It appears to be a case of traumatic disassociation.”
Her aunt frowned. “Sia’s other therapist diagnosed her with post traumatic stress disorder. I don’t care what you call it in. Just fix her,” she demanded impatiently.
“We can Mrs. Sampath. But you need to let her talk to a child therapist long enough to be able to earn her trust, and help her completely.”
But her aunt never allowed that to happen.
Sia shook her head, trying to get rid of those memories. But her nervousness didn’t subside.
Because her slightly heavy bag reminded her of the envelope inside, which could possibly be holding some kind of insight to her past.
So she did the only thing she could do right then.
She put it off until later.
***
A month later, Sia got back home after another exhausting day at work. She had left home the previous morning and somehow her day leeched into the night.
And now, it was six in the morning already. But luckily, it was still dark and gloomy outside, and so she decided to take a nap, even though she knew she had to get up and go back to work in a few hours.
“Starting today, Sia will be joining the board of directors,” her aunt announced proudly.
There was even a celebration party.
“I don’t know how Dr. Patel did it, but there has been a tremendous change in you since the last two years, Sia. I’m really proud of you,” her aunt said.
Her aunt and everyone around her had thought that Dr. Patel had completely healed her.
But she wasn’t healed.
Not even close.
She simply learned how to suppress her urges and hide her fears from others.
Since the past two years, work consumed her life, and helped numb out the other things from her head without the help of prescriptions.
But after her aunt had passed away, things were changing rapidly at Blush Enterprises on the corporate front. Even though Sia had inherited most of the company assets and shares, she didn’t want to automatically take the top position.
She wasn’t ready for it. She wanted to earn her way up in the usual way. And so, most of the times she took up tasks that went beyond her call of duty as a senior executive. Which meant sleepless nights and working over the weekends.
Rubbing her tired eyes, she walked into her bedroom and changed into comfortable clothes before sliding into the bed. When she was about to turn off the lights on the night stand next to her, her eyes fell on the unopened white envelope.
She was yet to take a look at the contents.
Each night it had been beckoning her, but she had been ignoring it purposefully.
She decided to do it again.
Shifting her eyes away from the envelope, she simply turned off the lights.
If only it were that simple.
Her mind was beyond tired, and she was unable to relax enough to sleep. So, an hour later, when had she tossed and turned sufficiently enough, she gave up trying.
Sighing, she sat up on her bed and called someone.
As soon as it was answered, she got straight to the point.
“Dr. Patel, I’ll be heading to your office for a session at nine. I’d also like some sleep aid prescriptions,” she said, tiredly.
She had her therapist’s number on speed dial. With the kind of issues she had been dealing with most of her life, it wasn’t that unusual. Usually she met him only twice a month. But from the past month, she had been meeting him multiple times each week. Mostly due to the increase in her anxiety levels.
There was silence on the other end, and then a sigh.
“Sia, don’t go there. Not now, after all the hard work you put in over the last two years. Just go to sleep the normal way. You’ve been to my office almost every day since the past month. You should use that extra hour or two to relax and sleep,” he advised.
“I’m relaxing fine,” she murmured.
“Then why do you need the sleep-aid pills?” he asked.
She was silent.
He sighed again, and then continued talking gently. “Take off from work and get some proper sleep, Sia. Four hours of sleep is not sustainable for anyone on a long run. I want to see you get back to a healthy routine. Until then, don’t come over; just call me if you really need to talk.”
Sia closed her eyes and leaned back against the headboard.
“I need to talk, right now,” she said, calmly.
There was a brief pause. “Alright. Go ahead then. I’m listening,” he said, using the tone she had gotten used to over the past two years.
That tone indicated that he wanted her to bare her mind while he assessed it, and tried to reason through the mess living there.
“My aunt. She left me a letter. I had it with me for over a month, but I haven’t opened it.”
There was another pause.
“You didn’t mention anything about a letter before,” he said.
“I know. I didn’t want to.”
“Sia,” he said in a gentle tone. “You are not inhuman. Yo
u don’t need me to tell you why you are avoiding reading that letter. You already have an answer to that.”
She rubbed her dry scratchy eyes with the back of her hand as she processed his words.
“I do. But I want you to help me by talking me through this…this feeling of unease.”
Sia trusted Dr. Patel’s advice more than she trusted her own. And that was quite something, especially considering the way she was, and what she had gone through over the years.
“Are you worried that your aunt might have written about how she really felt about you?” he asked.
“Partly.”
“You said she was proud of you and had supported you over the past two years. So what are you really worried about?”
Dr. Patel always asked more questions than offer advice to her during the therapy. It used to irritate her a lot initially, but over the months, she had gotten used to it. And it was usually effective in calming her down.
She took a deep breath. “I’m worried about what else she knew about me.”
“Isn’t that a good thing? Haven’t you always wanted an insight about where you came from?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I did,” she replied.
All that her aunt had ever revealed over the years was that she had adopted Sia from an orphanage in India when she was nine years old. She had tried pushing her aunt for more information, but her aunt had brushed it off, saying that there wasn’t much information to give her apart from that.
But Sia hadn’t completely believed it. She knew there was more to her past.
And over the past two years, Dr. Patel had several theories—none of which she could stomach—regarding why she had some really strange fears and addictions over the years. She had told him several times that she didn’t remember anything about what happened in her earlier life—prior to the age of nine—to validate any of those theories.
And she also didn’t really want to spend time or energy figuring out about her past. She just wanted to move forward. But now, she might have some information about her mysterious past.
And that damn letter was like a siren, luring her to open it, and face the unknown.
Maybe it contained nothing. Maybe it just had a few more last minute lectures and advices to take care of the company her aunt had built.
“Are you worried that you won’t be able to handle what was in your past?” Dr. Patel asked, interrupting her thoughts
Sia sighed. “Yes.”
“Take the day off, Sia,” he said. “And by the way, it’s a Sunday today, and I’ll be busy with my grandchildren. Open the letter. Process it, and then come meet me tomorrow. But get some good sleep first.”
Sia thanked him and ended the call.
Sighing, she got down from the bed. She could no longer put it off.
She eyed the letter again, and picked it up to stare at it from close. And then with her heart thudding, she slowly opened the white envelope and saw a piece of paper along with a small memory stick.
She stared at it for a while again before going towards her laptop to insert it.
It was an audio file.
Taking a deep breath, she hit the play button.
“Hello Sia,” her aunt’s familiar voice filled the room.
Feeling a little unnerved, Sia moved away from the laptop and stood in the middle of the room listening to her aunt’s voice as she continued to talk.
“Before I begin, I would like to tell you that I love you. I know that it is hard for you to believe me at this point. But please believe me when I say that I loved you the best way I was capable of loving anyone. Even though I haven’t showed it in my actions like other parents.”
Sia was surprised. Especially because her aunt wasn’t the kind to get emotional or dole out affection of any kind. Even verbally. She was more of a practical kind of person.
“I have noticed that from the past two years, you have found some direction in your life. I’m really proud that from being aimless, you have altered your life to have an ambition worthy of my heir.”
Sia relaxed slightly, relieved that the recording simply contained her aunt’s words of praise and maybe some attempt at affection during her last days. She went towards the laptop to stop the recording, and to listen to it sometime later, when she had more time. But her hands froze at the next words.
“I wanted to record this message to give you some information about your past. I know that I should have revealed it to you years ago. But I was too much of a coward then. And even now… during my last few days, I still can’t find enough courage to give you the truth in person.”
Sia could hear her aunt take a deep breath and she felt her own breath catch.
“Your adoption…it isn’t completely legal. Because technically I stole you.”
Sia was stunned.
“When you were an incoherent child who was going through a difficult phase, I was given an opportunity to take you away. And I did, thinking that I was legally adopting you.”
Her aunt paused as though to collect herself.
“But later I found that your name and even your birth certificate were faked.” Her aunt’s voice wavered.
“After your initial breakdowns, I had hired a personal investigator to dig up whatever information he could about you. And he found a few things that shocked me.
When I adopted you, I thought you had no one. But you are a rich heiress of an influential family and estate in a village named Ghadwaal in India.
Your birth name is Dharini Reddy.
Both your parents had died in an auto accident when you were seven years old. You mother who was the sole heiress to the Naidu estate in Ghadwaal had a brother. After her death, you had been sent to live with your uncle and his family.
The reports stated that you couldn’t quite adjust living with your mother’s family. And that your parent’s accident had left you quite traumatized.
Apparently you had begun to hallucinate and behave quite erratically. You made up stories and even tried to fatally harm your sixteen year old cousin. But luckily, no one was hurt since you were stopped on time.
It’s been also stated that you continued to try and harm your cousin repeatedly while hurling vile accusations at him. And when you didn’t succeed, you had tried killing yourself.
Even your uncle who is well-known for his kindness and charity had been debating whether or not to listen to the other village heads who had demanded that you be committed to a mental asylum or be placed in a children’s correctional center. Because they thought you were dangerous and unfit to be the heir to the Naidu Estate.
But a few people from the village thought that you were too young to be committed or arrested. They faked your death and told everyone that you had succeeded in killing yourself—by drowning in a nearby river. And even though a body was never found, no one had questioned that person about it.
You were then somehow smuggled to the city of Hyderabad, and placed at the orphanage. It was around the same time that I was visiting India with the sole purpose of adopting a child.
And when I saw you at the orphanage, I was told that you had temporarily lost all your memories due to a head injury. And I believed them at that time and got you home.
I know it was naive and stupid on my part to not have properly checked your background before adopting you. But I had been desperate at that time.
Because although I was quite successful in my business, there was always a nagging thought of wanting to leave my hard earned legacy to someone I had personally raised and groomed. I didn’t want to ever marry and neither did I have any intention of having a child of my own. I just needed an heir to groom.
A few people had suggested that I adopt a child. And since I didn’t have the time or wanted to put any effort of raising a baby, I jumped at the chance of taking a nine year old girl.
How wrong I was.
The sad, frightened nine year old girl I had gotten home was not someone I should have reared.
During the initial days, I’d really thought that you were simply being unruly, by not talking or responding to anyone. A few days later, I realized that something was very wrong with you. You were not able to recall your name or your memories from before for a very long time.
At that time, what you really needed was my time and effort. And most importantly, love.
But I couldn’t provide any of those to you.
It broke my heart to see you suffer over the years, dealing with your recurring nightmares, and struggling through your addictions. I tried getting you help. But whenever any of your therapists tried to make a breakthrough, I panicked.
I was terrified that you would tell people that I took you away under false pretences. I was scared of losing you on top of getting into trouble with the law.
Sia, I’m really sorry that I couldn’t reveal all this to you earlier, because I felt you weren’t ready for the information in your fragile state. I hope you find peace and forgive me for keeping all of this from you.
I have left you the investigative reports along with the list of names that you will want to reach out to.
Goodbye Sia. I hope you continue to make me proud.”
The audio clip ended.
With shaking fingers, Sia picked up the folded papers in the envelope. She looked at the reports and then the names stated on it.
Her vision blurred as her eyes fell on some of the names.
Her heart began to race as she read through some of the details in the report. Slowly she began to get overwhelmed.
Millions of thoughts, along with a lot of feelings and emotions rushed into her head so quickly that she felt her brain would fry all her circuits and explode in her head.
Soon, she heard someone’s loud screaming, and then realized that she herself was making those sounds. She held her head as her own screams combined with static played behind her eyes.
She collapsed on the floor, unable to stop it, unable to move, frozen in shock and fear.
