Chapter 166. Grandmother's Cradle
Margo grabbed his shoulder with trembling hands, and Noah, who had been staring blankly into space, slowly looked down at her.
“Wh-what on earth is going on...?”
Noah opened his eyes thinly at Margo's question. His pupils, visible between his narrowed eyelids, wandered, unable to find a place to rest. His dry lips parted, unable to find words, and he couldn't even breathe properly, as if something were stuck in his throat.
Margo embraced him without a moment to think.
“Oh... Noah... Noah...”
Though her grown nephew didn't fit entirely in her embrace, Margo held Noah as tightly as she could.
He smelled of damp earth. He smelled of cold wind, and of burnt ashes.
Margo morbidly thought of a grave. Her eyes, suddenly fearful, flickered, and a deep, cracked voice came from above her.
“Aunt.”
Margo's head snapped up in surprise, and she took a step back. Noah was staring blankly at something. Her gaze slowly followed his.
There was a photograph of the royal family. On the landing where a royal family portrait once hung, there was now a wedding photo of Olivia and Noah.
Noah gazed endlessly at Olivia in her wedding dress. Though it was a black and white photo, to his eyes, all colors were superimposed.
The day Olivia finally became his wife.
Noah remembered every trace of that day.
“Let’s get a divorce.”
A voice, both lovely and cruel, struck his entire body.
Olivia embraced the cold grave and wept endlessly.
His vow to let her live a life of peace and comfort in the paradise he had created had become as brittle as the dry grass by a grave.
Noah knelt before Olivia's parents' grave, with nothing he could do but wait for Olivia's crying to stop.
He looked at the gravestone, growing wet with Olivia's tears, and asked blankly, yet as if truly seeking an answer:
‘What should I do?’
Noah looked at Olivia in the photo and barely managed to speak.
“What you told me back then.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You told me not to look after her, but to be with her...”
Noah slowly lowered his gaze to Margo. His eyes trembled and flickered mercilessly. Margo stared at him, lost in thought, as Noah asked in a voice wet with tears:
“What… did that mean?”
And a few hours later.
Noah stood before a path he had considered long and desolate. Wild grasses grew haphazardly, sprawling without order, and it was an old, worn path, unpaved and bumpy with stones.
And… the path Olivia had always taken with her large bag.
“When I first met Olivia, she was walking across the campus with a bag as big as her body, her face pale blue. Who wouldn’t have resented her admission? Not just other students, but many professors as well.”
“……”
“Think about it, Noah. A life where you have to stand alone in a world that denies you.”
Noah recalled Olivia on the day he proposed.
Olivia, who seemed to be crossing a storm alone under the bright sunshine. Even now, thinking of Olivia that day made his chest ache.
Noah walked slowly along the bumpy path.
“If she had stood firm, unbroken, in a world where everyone denied her… Yes. How shattered must her heart have been.”
The morning sun stretched long, brushing Noah's cheek.
“But, Noah, did you love your wife out of pity?”
Margo's question struck deep into Noah's heart.
A word that once felt so grand had, before he knew it, seeped into Olivia and become natural.
The reason for loving Olivia? Was such a thing necessary? He loved her simply because she was Olivia…
Lost in thought, Noah suddenly recalled their first meeting at the autumn banquet.
A person who shone alone amidst the glittering nobles, even in simple attire.
Her eyes met his, black, smooth, and… solid, as if filled with something.
“From the swamp that pulled at her ankles, Olivia is a child who ultimately bloomed a lotus. Didn’t you also discover her pride in those beautiful, deep eyes?”
Noah walked Olivia's path. He walked the long path imbued with her time, her life.
Then, when he stopped, a wave of wildflowers, bathed in golden sunlight, shimmered before his eyes. The delicate, colorful flowers, appearing like pointillist paintings, swayed as the wind caressed them, sending forth their fragrant scent.
Noah suddenly saw a girl walking among the wildflowers, picking them. With a bag as big as her body in one hand, she picked flowers with the other, burying her face in the bouquet to inhale their scent.
And when she lifted her head again, her sun-drenched face shone even brighter than the sunlight.
Noah gazed at the lovely afterimage and recalled her words at the Royal School's founding ceremony.
“Looking back now, I wonder how a mere ten-year-old managed it. Still, that school was the closest to home, so even if I went back in time, I would still travel that distance.”
Margo's resolute voice overlapped.
“She’s a child who has forged her own path her entire life. Is a proud spirit made overnight?”
“……”
“Did you, perhaps, try to break her pride in the name of love?”
Transparent tears flowed silently from Noah's eyes, wetting his cheeks.
The lovely afterimage was now running somewhere. At its end stood an old woman with outstretched arms and a small house covered in wisteria blossoms.
⚜ ⚜ ⚜
Olivia fell asleep, hugging the gravestone. Or rather, she closed her eyes for a moment.
‘Liv!’
‘Olivia!’
It felt as if affectionate voices, imbued with love in every syllable, were vividly audible. And in all those moments, she was always small, in a cradle. The longed-for dreams always hovered around that place.
Then, her grandmother's wrinkled voice was heard.
‘Olivia. Liv.’
At some point, she had thought her grandmother's voice had become weak, filled with a melancholy that made it hard to breathe. Sometimes, even her breathing sounded that way, causing her pain.
‘My darling, welcome.’
Olivia slowly blinked her eyes.
‘Olivia. Liv.’
The moment her grandmother's voice called her name again.
Olivia realized, as if surging up from beneath the water.
Her grandmother's voice had been filled with love even then, and the gaze that looked upon her held firm belief.
‘Only after acknowledging what is unfair can you see your freedom.’
How could the pain-filled tears and immense worries, hidden as personal burdens, and the constant reassurances of being able to do well in front of her young granddaughter, not be called love?
What was the difference between that and the smile she had met in her cradle?
There was only one difference.
It was Olivia's own gaze.
Olivia opened her eyes, weeping.
She had clearly been lying on the gravestone, but when she opened her eyes, she was lying in bed, covered by a blanket. Tears that had flowed down the corners of her eyes seeped into her ears and overflowed, constantly wetting her hair.
Yet, Olivia didn't even think of wiping away her tears. She simply stared blankly at the ceiling, where the wood grain was clearly visible.
Olivia slowly sat up and looked around the room, bathed in dim light. None of the furniture was expensive.
No. Even the combined price of everything that made up this house wouldn't be half the price of the mother-of-pearl chime hanging on the balcony of the Upper River mansion.
At that moment, Olivia could only let out a hollow laugh. Then, the laughter turned into tears, and Olivia, pulling her knees to her chest, buried her face and wept.
“…I’m sorry, Grandma……”
I’m sorry.
Olivia repented with all her heart.
She raised her tear-filled eyes and looked around again.
How could she put a price on all of this? What resided here was her grandmother's time, her love.
The marks where her height had been measured still remained on the entrance wall, and the bookshelf, which she had always kept dust-free, was filled with her books and awards.
This place was still her cradle.
It was a peaceful garden, desperately protected by her grandmother.
It was the last sanctuary, fought for with all her might by Susanna Liberty, who would have collapsed from exhaustion without Olivia.
Without this place, Olivia would not have grown up like this.
“I’m sorry……”
Olivia wept, unable to even breathe, and finally sobbed aloud. Mrs. Betty and Jonan, startled by her cries, rushed in, but Olivia didn't even notice them entering.
Mrs. Betty embraced Olivia, who was crying as if she would die.
Olivia wept and continuously repented, apologizing to her grandmother, grandfather, and parents.
Her young life had been difficult.
Why am I a commoner? Why am I here? Why did my parents and grandfather die? How much longer must I endure baseless discrimination?
All those futile questions burned her young heart black.
There was nowhere to shake off the ashes. Young Olivia, therefore, shook all those ashes onto her grandmother. She shook them onto her parents and grandfather who had left her behind.
And thus, while loving them,
She hated them.
She hated the life they had left her, even as she loved it.
How dare she have felt ashamed of this place, which her grandmother had desperately protected?
The desire to flee, feeling ashamed of this house even before the smoothly polished handkerchief, was not shame, but hatred. She now realized it was the foolishness of not being able to love her own life fully.
It was an awakening.
It was an awakening to the shrinking feeling she had felt before Noah, and a shattering pain that broke the hard shell that had encased her.
And the moment the eggshell broke, Olivia saw.
The scene of the girl's soul, which had not grown an inch since the night of loss when her parents died, finally growing.
The soul, whose height increased and hair grew longer, finally met her gaze.
The moment their eyes met, Olivia shed her loss and whispered.
‘You worked hard. Now, see the world properly.’
