“Have a seat,” Natalie said before entering the kitchen with the cold pot of coffee in the living room and returning with a hot one. Then she poured the coffee into a cup and handed it to Mikhail. “Here you go.”
When he saw that, he felt as though his mind had traveled back to more than two decades ago. Jen would also serve me coffee like this in the past. Natalie’s demeanor and manner of pouring the coffee are almost precisely the same as Jen’s.
A storm of emotions brewed in his heart as he witnessed that scene. He sniffed as tears welled in his eyes. After Natalie poured herself a cup of coffee as well, she raised her eyes and saw him staring at her with reddened eyes.
They gazed at each other for a moment before Mikhail realized he had lost his composure and cleared his throat. “You really do look like your mother…”
“Mhm.” Natalie nodded. “Aunt Patricia said the same thing. She mentioned I looked exactly like my mother when my mother was young, as though we were both born from the same mold.”
“I know I don’t have the right to ask you what your life was like in the past, but I still want to know what you and your mother went through.” When he asked that question, he stifled the immense guilt swelling in his heart as he thought about how Jennie had raised Natalie in the countryside by herself.
“It wasn’t as harsh as you may have imagined.” Upon taking a sip of the coffee, Natalie glanced at him. “For as long as I can remember, I lived with my mother in the countryside. There wasn’t anything particularly good about it, but it wasn’t bad either. Aside from not having a father, I didn’t lack anything when I was a kid. There wasn’t anything I really wanted, either. When I was young, I didn’t know my birth father wasn’t the one who raised me.
I hated a man called Thomas because he cheated on my mother, ignored her, and made her cry. It wasn’t until Thomas died that I realized I hated the wrong person. My mother never mentioned you or left anything for me to give you. In fact, before she passed, she hoped I could live a peaceful life as an ordinary person and that I wouldn’t look into my background.” When he heard Jennie didn’t leave anything behind, he muttered, “How can that be? What about the paper meant for Geert?”
The edges of her lips curved upward. “That? I wrote it to distract him. King did develop a drug that could suppress Geert’s personality. However, he didn’t know the drug’s effect was unstable, regardless of its effectiveness. I suspect King was born because Geert was abused during childhood. I intentionally. provoked him to elicit a hormonal change. within him quickly and influence the drug’s effect.”
After listening to that, Mikhail suddenly realized. something while feeling slightly disappointed. / thought Jennie would leave something like a letter for me before she passed away, but it seems like it was just wishful thinking on my part. She left nothing behind.
Tears continued to well in his eyes as he spoke. “In the end, she did move on from me. She didn’t even want to meet with me or let you know I existed before she passed. This is the cruelest punishment in the world for me…”
“You’re wrong! Mother didn’t punish you!” Natalie refuted resolutely. “She didn’t expect things would turn out like this. If not for a string of coincidences, you wouldn’t have known I’m your daughter, so there wouldn’t have been any. ‘punishments. You would’ve only treated her as a dead lover. While you would miss her, you wouldn’t have experienced any other emotions. Mother was a woman who was contented with living a simple life, and she wasn’t as complicated as you thought she was. Right. before she passed and when she was in a state of delirium, she was still muttering your name.”
Unable to control his emotions any longer upon hearing that, Mikhail sobbed. “Jen… Oh, Jen… I’m sorry I let you down…”
