Chapter 306
‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.
“Rupert seems to see you as a man and feels threatened by you. The idea that a priest would look at another man’s wife as a woman. How could he even think something so vulgar… I’ll apologize to you on his behalf. I’m sorry.”
It had gotten so bad that even you noticed.
But gradually, he stopped. Perhaps my lack of reaction bored him. Or perhaps he reassured himself that I would never steal another man’s wife.
Or maybe it was simply because you and Rupert both became busier.
After Rupert succeeded in infiltrating the operations command through our embedded agents, he arranged for you, who had been posing as a civilian nurse, to be assigned as the commander’s personal nurse.
Once the operation gained momentum, it was only natural that things grew hectic. From around autumn, Rupert’s workload at headquarters increased, and he often didn’t return until dawn.
So picking you up after your shifts became my task, as the one with time to spare.
I would wait for you outside headquarters, drive you home, and on the way we’d stop to shop in town or buy groceries. Once home, we’d cook together.
“Dana, I’ll carry the pot, just leave it.”
That was around the time I began calling you Dana. You were no longer Miss Loveridge then.
Still, I would have rather died than call you Marchioness.
“I’ve built up plenty of stamina caring for patients, Father.”
You’d asked me to call you by name too, but you never did the same for me. You said God might disapprove.
It wasn’t God you were worried about. It was Rupert.
“Ah, why is the bottom completely burned black?”
“Oh no… maybe we should’ve just eaten out.”
Neither of us knew how to cook, so we often ended up producing meals barely edible. Somehow we’d finish dinner anyway, then do the housework together.
You were spending more time with me than with your husband. Honestly, from that point on, it wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say I had taken over the role of husband.
“Anything unusual at headquarters today?”
“Nothing worth reporting to Mr. Miller.”
Miller was the agent we reported to. He was stationed in a city about an hour away from Leningen by train. We relied on him heavily.
“But there was something funny.”
“Tell me.”
After finishing the chores, we’d talk about the day or about the world beyond, sometimes playing cards. If bedtime came and Rupert still hadn’t returned, we would naturally head outside and sit side by side in the corner of the backyard.
“The cigarette smoke looks like the Milky Way.”
“I thought it looked more like ghosts, but that’s poetic.”
After we began living together, cigarettes became my responsibility. Whenever I pulled one from my pocket, you’d smile brightly.
I carried a cigarette case everywhere just to see that smile.
I was happy.
Until I heard the sound of Rupert’s car returning. Until then, I could fall into the illusion that I was your husband and that illusion made me happy, even though I knew it was a sin to think that way about another man’s wife.
At the time, I still didn’t fully believe in God, so I committed sins freely in thought.
But I never intended to sin through action.
I tried not to look at you through the eyes of a man in love. Every moment we spent together, I repeated it to myself:
I must not be a man. I’m just a friend.
Friends don’t trim each other’s nails. No matter how much I wanted to, I had to hold back.
When I met you again as an adult, your nails were always uneven, jagged at the edges. The skin around them was often red, raw, sometimes scabbed.
I assumed it was because caring for hundreds of soldiers each day was such harsh work. But even after you were assigned to nurse only the commander, it didn’t improve.
“My nails look awful, don’t they? No matter how much I practice, I never get better.”
I learned that your nails were misshapen because, since childhood, maids had always trimmed them for you, so you’d never learned to do it yourself.
And the reason the skin around them was always damaged was because you kept tearing at the hangnails.
You were still anxious.
I couldn’t understand it. I thought everything that had once made you anxious had been resolved.
You had married into nobility as your family wished, and you no longer lived with the grandmother who had abused you.
So what was it that still made you uneasy?
While I was wondering how to ask, you confessed first.
“Father, there’s something I want to talk about. You have to keep it a secret. Please don’t tell Rupert either.”
Discussion
0 CommentsNo comments yet.