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Chapter 30
“Is she someone you know?” the young wife asked Charles in confusion.
“Ah, what happened… wait. Hey. Why are you here?! What’s with that look?! And what about your child?!”
“Hah, haha… my child?” A hollow laugh escaped Kate’s lips.
The affectionate greeting, the gifts, the “dad.” This was a side of her husband Kate had never seen before.
“I asked who she is, honey?”
“Ah, well…” Charles, who had been yelling at Kate, mumbled awkwardly at his wife’s prodding.
At this unfamiliar side of her husband, Kate let out a sneer and said, “He’s my husband. And my child’s father.”
“…What? Husband? The child’s father?” The woman blinked a few times, understood the situation, and glared at Charles as if she wanted to kill him.
“Honey. I can explain everything. What happened is… Hey! Don’t you dare leave!”
While Charles was flustered, Kate, who had ignited the fire, had already left the restaurant.
Vendia, who had been watching the entire situation, said to the man sitting in front of Kate’s mother-in-law, “Clean up and withdraw.”
“Yes, my Lord.” Chris bowed his head.
“Kate! Kate, wait!” Vendia ran after Kate, who was running through the rain.
What a twist of fate. Suddenly, dark clouds gathered, thunder rumbled, and rain poured down. The raindrops splashed and made a splish-splash sound with every step. Vendia ran with all her might and finally grabbed Kate’s shoulder.
Kate roughly turned around to look at her. On Kate’s face, water—whether it was tears or raindrops—was flowing.
“You knew everything! You knew everything and did this on purpose…!”
“Yes.”
“Why, why did you do that! Why! No, no… I’m sorry. I, sniff…”
Realizing her outburst was misplaced anger, Kate slumped to the floor. Vendia had simply shown her the truth—a truth that couldn’t be hidden, shouldn’t be hidden, and a truth that Kate needed to know. It was the ugly truth about their true nature, they who had never once considered her family. Kate had a vague idea of the truth. But she had nothing and could do nothing, so she had simply ignored it.
“Kate.”
Calling her name softly and gently, Vendia crouched down with Kate. Getting drenched in the rain with her, she wrapped her arms warmly around Kate’s trembling shoulders.
“I have a shop ready for you in Second. There’s a small room behind the shop, so you and Regen can live there.”
“Sob…”
“You, Kate, can do it all by yourself. Don’t work for them, but for you and Regen now.”
“Sob… Regen needs a family. I can’t let her grow up lonely like me.”
Kate said, trembling pitifully with her head bowed low. Even after knowing the truth, she was still holding on to a thread of hope so heartbreakingly that it made one ache to see it.
But Vendia knew. “A child cannot be happy in an unhappy family.”
Because that’s what happened to her. Even though she had an unbroken, complete family, Vendia—the woman before she was reincarnated—had never been happy, not even once.
‘It’s because of you that I’m not getting a divorce from your father.’ Her mother would say it as often as she ate.
‘Your mother and I are enduring all this for you.’ Her father would always mutter.
They were a seemingly complete family on the outside. But thanks to her parents, who fought and hurled insults at each other every single day, every day felt like hell. On days when the two fought fiercely, she felt like she was walking on thin ice. Her parents would get furious over the smallest things, and the blame would fall on her.
Why? How is this for my own good? I’ve never been happy, not for a single moment.
Ultimately, she learned to be careful at a young age within the confines of her family and mastered the art of crying in silence.
‘Your father is.’
‘Your mother is.’
She couldn’t even say a word of displeasure even though she became the emotional trash can for her parents, who would come to her and badmouth each other. Because even if she did say something, all she would get back was a resentful, ‘Whose fault do you think this is?’
As soon as she became an adult, her parents got a divorce, and neither of them took her, saying they had fulfilled their responsibilities until now. That’s how she became independent at the age of 20. She had never felt so at peace. Her body was tired, but her mind was at ease. After that, she tried to live a normal life like everyone else.
‘My Lord has no reason to step in for someone she doesn’t even know.’
Chris was right. As an advisor, she had no reason to get involved to this extent. Yet, the reason she kept getting involved, her heart so invested, might have been because she saw her own unhappy childhood self in the young Regen.
“Why would Regen not have a family? Kate, you’re here.”
“…”
“Regen has a mother.”
At those words, Kate raised her bowed head. Vendia was holding something out to her.
“Your skin is pale, so I thought this color would suit you well.”
It was a lipstick.
When Kate hesitated to take it, Vendia placed it in her hand herself. “Kate. Be brave. For Regen.”
Where Vendia had been, Kate stared blankly at the lipstick in her hand for a long time and wept. It was the first gift for herself she had received since she got married and had a child.
“A-Are you worried she won’t come?”
Vendia took a sip of warm tea to warm up her body, which had gotten a chill from the rain yesterday.
“No. We did everything we could, so it’s fine. Crossing this line is Kate’s choice, after all.”
At that answer, Chris stared at Vendia intently. Contrary to her answer that she wasn’t worried, she was shaking her leg. To anyone, she looked worried.
“S-Should I go and find out? H-How things are going?”
“No?! I said it’s fine. We did what we had to do.” She rejected him firmly and bit her nails.
Chris let out a small sigh inwardly and said, “W-What do you want, my Lord? For her to break up with her husband and stand on her own?”
“Exactly. For Kate to throw away her trash husband and mother-in-law and live well with Regen, the two of them.”
“Ah.”
“And for Charles to work his fingers to the bone every month for child support, and for her mother-in-law to be treated like a fool again.”
“…”
“Wouldn’t that make this world a little fairer?” Vendia glared and poured out her answers as if she had been waiting for the question.
Chris, who had nothing to say after the sudden barrage of answers, pressed his lips together and just nodded.
“By the way. Chris, you’re a good actor.”
He was so good he looked like a real gigolo. Vendia turned her gaze from the window and stared at Chris, who was sitting in front of her.
He had gently provoked Kate’s mother-in-law to open her mouth. Thanks to that, they got what they wanted without getting their hands dirty. The woman had blurted out that she was getting a 50 percent discount on the rent but had lied to her daughter-in-law that it had gone up by 40 percent.
Their plan had succeeded. Kate’s mother-in-law had approached Chris because of his looks, and Chris had intentionally met her and entertained her. That day, they had used a free meal voucher to lure Kate’s husband and his mistress to the restaurant, and Chris had brought the mother-in-law to the restaurant with him. This way, all the characters were perfectly on the same stage.
“I-I didn’t really do anything.”
“I see you in a new light.”
“T-That’s not a good thing!” Chris shouted, his face turning red and dejected.
Vendia chuckled and held the warm teacup with both hands.
They say there’s a rainbow after the rain.
Unlike yesterday’s storm, the sun was shining brightly, and there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. It was peaceful.
It seemed Kate wasn’t going to come…
“Huh?”
Just then, Vendia saw something outside the window and jumped up. Her hand quickly opened the closed window as if she had been waiting.
“Kate!”
“Lady Dia!”
Kate, who had entered through the open main gate, was holding Regen in her arms and approaching her.
“I’m going to raise my daughter well for everyone to see!”
“…”
“I’m going to be a mother I’m not ashamed of. I can do it, right?”
A bright smile, as if a flower had fully bloomed, was on Kate’s face. Her rough skin and dark circles under her eyes were the same, but her eyes were sparkling more brightly and full of life than ever before. In addition, her lips were painted with a coral-pink lipstick. It was the color of the lipstick Vendia had given her.
“Of course!” Vendia smiled brightly, following Kate.
Two weeks later.
“What? Does that even make sense?”
So surprised, the papers slipped from Vendia’s hand and fluttered to the floor.
