Chapter 284 Conscious on the Path of Sorrow
Alexander's temple throbbed violently.
The word ‘promise’ lodged in his mind like a dull ache. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake it.
The feeling was cold and sharp, forcing him to touch a memory he should clearly remember but couldn't grasp no matter what.
"You've forgotten everything you said."
Irene still sounded angry, but it was fading from Alexander’s ears, retreating like a door closing between them.
"You've forgotten all the vows you made to Ms. Neville."
Alexander wanted to speak, wanted to ask her what exactly he had forgotten. But before he could make a sound, a sharp pain exploded deep in his temple, like an electric current suddenly shooting through his skull.
A blinding white light surged up, quickly swallowing his vision.
His body swayed, then he fell heavily to the ground and lost consciousness.
When Alexander woke up, he found himself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. Outside the window, it was completely dark.
He slowly propped himself up to sit, looking down at himself. Someone had taken off his jacket and covered him with a thin blanket.
It was a very small bedroom. A narrow bed stood against the wall, and a small wooden table was squeezed beside the headboard, stacked with a few old books. The window had floral curtains, and in the corner stood a cream-colored wardrobe.
This room felt familiar to him, so familiar it made his heart feel empty, as if he'd been here before but couldn't remember exactly when.
Irene sat at the foot of the bed, facing sideways, head down, mending an old sweater. The needle and thread moved back and forth between her fingers, the motion so steady it seemed the habit had been carved into her body.
She heard the movement on the bed.
"You're awake?"
"I..." Alexander managed to make a sound with difficulty.
"Just lie down."
Irene cut him off. She turned the sweater over and continued with the next stitch.
"Look at the state you're in, driving all this way. If you really collapsed here and something happened, I'd have to deal with the mess. I'm not getting any younger. If you go down in here, I'm not going to be able to haul you back up."
Alexander didn't respond.
He leaned against the headboard, looking at the sweater in Irene's hands. His first reaction was confusion, because Irene lived alone, yet she was mending what was clearly a man's sweater.
The sweater was dark gray, hand-knitted with very fine stitches. The style was old, but you could tell it hadn't been worn much—only the elbow had a hole, like it had been accidentally torn.
"Whose sweater is that?" he asked in a hoarse voice.
Irene's hands didn't stop.
"Don't know," she said. "Could be Felix's, could be someone who used to live here left it behind. I can't remember."
She pushed the needle through the yarn, pulled it tight, and made another stitch.
"This place has had quite a few people living here over the years," Irene continued. "All sent here by Ms. Neville. Some were injured, some had nowhere to go, some were hiding from people chasing them, and some were sick but couldn't afford treatment. All kinds of people. They'd come and stay, and when they recovered, they'd leave. They often left things behind when they left. This sweater was left like that."
She kept her head down, bringing the thread close to the light, squinting as she cut off the excess.
"Ms. Neville said this place didn't need to do anything big. If I can help one person, that's enough. So I've been watching over it."
Irene put the needle back in the sewing box, shook out the sweater, and carefully examined the mended spot. She folded the sweater and placed it on her lap.
"What are you doing here?"
She finally looked up at Alexander.
Alexander's throat tightened. "I wanted to come see you, see if there's anything I could help with. I also wanted to ask you about Caroline."
Irene stared at him for a long time.
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything." He said it almost greedily. "What kind of person she was, what she liked, what she was afraid of. And... how she spent those days I didn't know about."
Irene didn't answer right away.
She placed the folded sweater on the low cabinet beside her, then bent down to pick up an old shirt from the floor. She threaded the needle again and continued mending, her movements showing no extra emotion.
"Don't you think it's too late to be asking these things now?"
Her tone wasn't explosive like it had been in the afternoon. Instead, it was so calm it was almost flat. But this calmness made Alexander feel worse, like a piece of ice pressed against his skin—no sound, and no way out.
"Yes," he admitted. "Too late."
Irene sewed a few stitches, then suddenly stopped.
"Ms. Neville was afraid of the dark when she was little," her voice softened. "But she never made a fuss. She didn't cry or call for anyone. She'd just curl up alone under the blanket, making herself very small, hugging her knees, and endure until dawn."
Alexander's fingers clenched suddenly.
"When she was three, the Neville Family had a burglary. Someone broke in during the night. They didn't steal anything valuable, but it terrified her. After that, she was afraid of the dark. But she never said anything, and wouldn't let anyone sleep with her. Mr. Neville and Mrs. Neville didn't know—only I knew."
Irene's gaze returned to the needle and thread. "Because every morning when I went to wake her up, her blanket was always neatly arranged, but her pillow would be soaked through."
Alexander's throat felt blocked, even breathing became difficult.
Irene suddenly asked, "Do you know how she was during those years studying abroad?"
Alexander shook his head.
He really didn't know. During those years, his attention had been all on Edith. He'd never seriously asked how Caroline was doing overseas.
"She didn't do well," Irene said.
"She was alone out there, no family, no real friends. She wrote me letters, but never wrote about how hard it was. She only wrote about what pieces she'd practiced, what books she'd read, what plant she'd managed to keep alive. But in the photos she sent back, she wasn't smiling in a single one."
Irene tied a knot and cut the thread.
"Later she came back, and I went to pick her up. As soon as she got off the plane and saw me, she suddenly cried. She hugged me and said, 'Irene, I miss home so much.'"
Irene's voice caught.
"She missed home so much. But when she came back, what was waiting for her at home?"
Alexander's nails dug into his palms.
"You."
Irene looked up, her gaze pinning him directly.
"When she married you, she came to see me. She told me that she was happy that she could finally marry him."
Irene's voice suddenly became cold and hard.
"At that moment, I really wanted to tell her the man wouldn’t be good to her—that he didn’t truly see her. He wasn’t marrying her because he loved her—he was marrying her to torture her. But I didn’t say it. She was smiling then, but there was no light in her eyes at all. Right then, I understood—she knew exactly what she’d be facing by marrying you, but she did it anyway. She walked into that disaster with her eyes open.