Todd Revisited: Broken (Chapter 25)

Vicki's voice could be heard from the library by both Todd and The Impostor.  "Good God, you look like Irene!"


Within moments, he was meeting his mother and discovering that he had a brother.  A twin brother, as a matter of fact, not a strange impostor.  But how?  As Irene revealed more and more of her story, he could not help but think about his legacy.  All of the parents he had ever known, aside from Bitsy, were out to hurt him in one way or another.  All three of them had evil intent and nefarious goals.  All three of them hated him. That was what he lacked most of his life, and had never really realized it as clearly before.  He never had a family, and a family was what he had always sought so much.


He had been taken from Victor's tomb.  The memories he could not access were becoming clearer and it didn't hurt thinking about the time right before his disappearance.  As she spoke, he was revealing more to himself, and he didn't get the terrible pain.  The story that she told was horrific; the things she had done to her children were painful at best, and she showed no sign of remorse.  He began to look at The Impostor as something entirely different.  He was a victim too, in his own way, if her story was true.  Hearing the words from Irene, "You, are my special one, my beloved Victor...and you're Todd," as painful and confusing as they were, also was liberating.  He was himself, and had nothing else to prove.  


He turned to his sister, when John took Irene off, and Victor, his brother, left as well.  She poured two drinks, and after recalling that she could no longer drink it, he downed both glasses.  


"I told you so," he said between gulps.


She started to laugh.  "I can't believe I'm laughing."


"It's the only way, really."


"Wow."  Both were taking in what happened.


He looked at the floor.  "C'have a hug?"


She crossed in front of him, clasping and unclasping her hands.  "My brother doesn't like hugs."


"Your brother was locked up for eight years.  The only time anybody ever touched me was to torture me.  I could use your hug now."


She embraced him with all of her heart.  Inside him, so many feelings stirred, but also, there was relief in an odd way.  This horrific explanation from the mother who birthed him and despised him was relieving as well as terrible.


As he sank into the "being alone" and absorbed more of what had happened, he also experienced a great sense of loss.  The mother he thought loved him enough to give him up to protect him, had done these horrific things to him and to his brother.  This brought him also to the thoughts of his adoptive father, Peter Manning, and what her simple act of giving him up for adoption brought into his life, and how it also changed him.  Most of what he ever did was imprinted by Peter's influence on his life and his own heart, in one way or another.  Everything he was ashamed of came from his own shame embedded in his own soul from Peter's branding of him with that lighter and the other horrors he had faced.


From the landing outside the cottage, Aman and Lilly heard a loud crash.  Startled, they both hurried through the door to see Todd lying on the floor.  "Fuck this!  I'm getting out of this fucking hell hole."  He was dragging himself across the floor toward the door, using his arms.  At the base of the table, he struggled, with success, to pull himself to standing.  The laceration on his arm, that had been almost healed completely, had burst open and was dripping blood down his elbow.  


"My Good Lord, Todd, what are you doing, lad?"  Lilly cried out.  "You're standing!"


"Oh shut up old woman!  Todd's gone.  Leave me alone.  Get the fuck out of my way!"


Aman came forward, stepping toward Todd.  "Stop it.  You don't talk that way in my house."


Todd stopped and propped himself on both elbows, looking up.  "What are you gonna do about it, old man?"  Todd lifted the kitchen knife from the table top.  Propped up by both arms, he struggled to maintain himself in a standing position, but his legs would not cooperate well and he staggered, leaning against the surface.


Aman became angry, and knew he was.  He could feel the ire in his throat and felt the red creeping up his neck and face.  "Don't make me do this, lad."


Todd bellowed into a deep, menacing laugh.  "Don't make you do what, lad?"  He mocked his caretaker with rage in his hazel eyes.  He waved the knife.


Lilly was beside herself.  She could not imagine what had brought him to this point.  She took a risk.  "Tom?  Tom, please come talk to us, Tom, dear."  


Aman did not want to hurt Todd.  He knew what that could cause, but at the same time, he had to protect his home and his wife.  Todd sneered.  "Tom?  That little sniveling bitch?  I could eat him alive.  Now are you going to move out of my way?"  His eyes were wild.


Aman began to step toward Todd, knowing that with his bear-paw hands, he could take him down easily, though a huge part of him didn't want to.  Lilly instinctively pulled Aman back.  "No," she heard herself say.  "No, Aman."


Todd stopped, still breathing heavy, watching both of them, the knife gripped in one hand, blood dripping now from the elbow to the floor in little channels.  


She stepped a small length closer.  "Todd.  Todd, I know you're there, lad.  I know you're there and that you're so hurt."


His face twisted slightly, but he seemed to fight to keep composure.  She continued.  "Todd, you don't want to hurt anyone, you don't.  You're just confused because of how you've been hurt, isn't that right?"


"Shut up!"  He howled.  "Shut up!  Now!  Fucking shut your mouth!"


She shuddered, but did not back down.  Aman's fists were clenching and unclenching, she could see, but she kept on, very softly.  "No.  This isn't what you want, and this isn't you."


He laughed menacingly again.  "It's not?  Then who the fuck do you think I am, huh lady?  I'm not Tom, that little wuss.  I'm not Todd either, you moron."


Aman spoke up.  "Since you're so brave to talk this way to a woman, why don't you tell us who you are and take some responsibility?"


He smiled a horrific, pained smile.  "Pete.  I'm Pete.  What's it to you?"


Lilly immediately somehow knew what to do, and spoke even quieter.  "Pete.  Pete, stop this.  You don't want to be like your father, do ya?  You don't want to hurt us, like he hurt you?  Like he did to you, whatever he did?  We know it was horrible, we know it was bad, Pete.  We know."


Lilly watched his face change, relax and loosen, and he immediately dropped to the floor, staring to the ceiling, as if dead.  "Oh Aman!"  She cried.  "Is he breathing?"


"Yes, now help me woman, get his legs."  They struggled and carried him back to the bed.  Lying him down, Aman said, "We have to call a doctor."


"No!" she shrieked. "No we can't.  If you do he'll be put away somewhere, Aman, we can't let it happen to him.  Hasn't he had enough?"


Aman was finding it harder and harder to accept his wife's devotion, and he was afraid for her.  "What do you mean to do with him, eh?  Now he's turned violent against us, it will only be a matter of time."


She went to her husband, gasping both his hands.  "Please, Aman, please?  He won't hurt us. He won't.  If he wanted to, really, he already would have.  Please.  Look at him, he can't even move.  He's staring at the ceiling like he's finding his God,"  her voice quivered.


"Since it's the weekend, and I'll be home, I'll listen to ya and keep watch."


"Yes, just a few days, Aman, please."  Then more thoughtfully, "Something had to bring this Pete out, maybe he's on the brink of remembering something so awful he can't face it.  Please, Aman, we're all he has."


"I'll just say this, when the boy is healed, and he wants to go home, I'd like to find this father of his, and pan his bloody head in."  Aman himself forced a few tears back.  He knew she was right, something abominable happened to him to break him this way.  He was a man, just as Aman was, and something had broken him into human shards.