Chapter 75 : We’ll Still Be Family
Allison returned to her room, but even after lying down, she could not fall asleep.
Sherrie marrying into the Lopez family would only further strip away her identity.
So what should be my next move? Perhaps Gabriel would be the breakthrough I needed.
Her intuition told her that Gabriel would definitely come looking for her again.
The next morning, Allison slept longer. After all, no one in the house cared about her.
When she stepped out of her room, she saw Ruth sitting in the living room. Allison immediately turned to head back to her room.
Unexpectedly, Ruth called out to her for the first time ever. “Ally, come here.”
Ruth was smiling at her with rare gentleness, her eyes glowing with a motherly warmth.
Allison froze for a moment. Almost out of instinct, she walked over.
Ruth patted the seat beside her and pulled Allison down next to her. They sat close together, and Allison could feel the warmth of Ruth’s body. The maternal love she had longed for seemed to be right there, yet it left her feeling as though she were sitting on pins and needles.
Unaware of Allison’s discomfort, Ruth flipped through a fashion magazine and asked, “Ally, do you think this wedding dress is beautiful?”
Allison nodded. At one point, one million dollars, how could the dress not be beautiful?
Seeing her response, Ruth’s expression softened. She turned toward Allison and gently took her hand, placing it on her own. With a trace of guilt in her voice, she said, “Ally, you probably don’t know this yet, but Sherrie is getting married.”
Allison did not know what Ruth was trying to say. Still, her hand felt numb in Ruth’s grasp. Ruth had deliberately left the engagement gifts in the living room, hoping to prepare Allison for the news when she came home.
The past few days had been restless for her. At first, she was happy for Sherrie, but little by little, a hollow feeling crept in. She sighed softly and said, “Ally, I know you’ve been through a lot. Every time I think about it, my heart feels heavy…”
“Once Sherrie gets married and moves into the Lopez family, it will just be the two of us left in this big house,” Ruth said in a trembling voice, and her eyes turned red. It was unclear whether she was grieving Sherrie’s departure or moved by her sudden closeness with Allison.
Ruth’s feelings for Allison were shallow, but Allison was still her own flesh and blood. Late at night, when she couldn't sleep, Ruth would often feel guilty.
That guilt, however, always came quickly and faded just as fast.
At times, she felt she should be closer to Allison, but at other times, resentment lingered in her heart.
When she had been rescued from the mountains, still in rags and hollowed out by hardship, and walked through the gates of the Rogers mansion, she saw Allison wearing a princess gown, raised in luxury and privilege. In that moment, she felt a deep sense of hatred.
If it had not been for giving birth to her, she would not have argued with Nelson. Without that argument, she would not have stormed off in anger and been abducted into the mountains, forced to endure endless humiliation. While she suffered daily beatings and insults, drifting through life in a daze, Allison had been living comfortably. It felt unbearably unfair.
Now that Sherrie was getting married, Ruth felt as though her emotional anchor was slipping away, and her thoughts returned to Allison.
Watching Allison spend three years in the insane asylum, her face ruined, changing from a cherished princess into a pitiful, ordinary woman, Ruth’s resentment slowly faded. Perhaps it was the emptiness she felt, but she now even felt a trace of sympathy for Allison.
She lifted her hand and gently ruffled Allison’s hair, saying, “Once Sherrie is married, we’ll forget everything unpleasant from the past. We’ll still be family.”
Allison didn’t know what illusion Ruth was harboring.
When she said they would forget the past, did she mean the slanderous accusations that sent me to the insane asylum for three years? Or the way she had traded my identity for Sherrie and constantly favored her? Did she really think that Sherrie’s marriage could make all the pain I felt disappear?
Impossible.
Allison instinctively stepped back, putting some distance between herself and Ruth. She looked at her with a serious expression.
"I won't forget what happened. Unless you can ask Sherrie to return my identity to me, only then can I really call you family."
The shock on Ruth’s face was enough of an answer for Allison to know that Ruth’s heart had always been with Sherrie. She let out a faint, self-mocking laugh. "You don’t need to waste your time comforting me anymore. I won’t blame you."
And I will never expect anything from you again.
Perhaps realizing she was wrong, Ruth opened her mouth, but no words came out.
Yet no matter how guilty she felt, she couldn't ask Sherrie to give Allison her identity back. Sherrie had already secured her place in the Rogers family with that name. If it were returned now, would all those years of effort not be wasted?
“Ally, do you know how deeply your words cut me, like a knife to the heart?” Ruth’s voice trembled, filled with pain and conflict. “Do you really think I’m trying to comfort you with empty words? I want to be close to you. We are mother and daughter, not enemies. Are you really willing to cut ties with me forever over a simple household registration paper?”
“You and Sherrie are both my precious daughters. If I had to choose only one, what would you have me do?” Ruth wiped away her tears, and her voice was filled with emotion. “Sherrie may have taken your name, but one day she will marry out. Everything in the Rogers family will still be yours. Your two brothers will cherish you. You can sleep as late as you want. You won’t need to serve in-laws, support a husband, or raise children. What more could you possibly want?”
Ruth was more distraught than Allison.
She simply could not understand what Allison was fighting for.
Why couldn’t their family just live in harmony?