Please Forget Me - Chapter 371

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

“Where were you when Grandmother was beating me? Where were you when Mother lost the child she carried? Instead of being comforted, she had to beg Grandmother, who scolded her for failing to produce an heir? Where were you then?!”

The doctor’s eyes wavered. It was obvious he was hearing about my mother’s suffering for the first time. The realization was infuriating.

“She must have done the same to Mother. Abusing her behind your back, then pretending to cherish her in front of you. Acting as though she were the one being mistreated, turning Mother into the villain. Just like you did with me, you must have handed the responsibility of caring for your wife over to your mother and sided with the person who made your life easier.”

Mother must have been unable to tell her husband what she was going through for the same reason I couldn’t.

“Because you protected your mother, I lost mine!”

How unbearable must it have been for her to abandon the husband and daughter she loved and run away? I had resented Mother. But not for escaping that hell. The reason I resented her was—

“You should’ve taken me with you…”

Tears blurred my vision. Suddenly my head got dizzy. The strength drained from my trembling legs, my hand slipped from his collar, and I collapsed to the floor.

“Mother… huh… you should have taken me too.”

Why did you leave me behind in this hell?

* * *

“Oh no… this isn’t good…”

Dana cried where she had fallen, then began to sway, unable to support herself. Some of the sedative must have dissolved and been absorbed while she held it in her mouth. Phineas lifted her and laid her down on the sofa.

“Phineas, everything Dana said is a lie. You know how skilled she is at lying.”

His mother, more concerned with her own safety than with the granddaughter she had drugged, instructed the maids to take her away.

“Killian… you said you’d save me from the witch…”

Watching his daughter cry for another man like a child, Phineas suddenly realized something.

‘She was the same age Dana is now when she left.’

Back then, he had thought his wife selfish and immature for abandoning her husband and child to chase her dreams. He believed he understood what she had gone through, but still blamed her.

Only now, imagining Dana carrying all that pain alone, did he see it differently.

‘The selfish, immature one was me.’

After enduring repeated miscarriages, even a stillbirth, without a single person to comfort her, only condemnation, how deeply must she have resented her husband?

‘No wonder she left without a word and never contacted us again.’

In truth, his wife had left a final message.

Don’t let Dana live the way I did.

She left nothing behind for the man she loved but she left her concern for her daughter. Even after becoming a successful actress and starting a new life, she never forgot her guilt and worry for Dana.

The proof was the gifts she sent every year.

Dana had never received a single one.

“How heartless. Dana’s forgotten her mother and lives just fine. That woman only wants to stir up the child’s feelings.”

Believing it would only hurt Dana, he had thrown everything away.

“Because you protected your mother, I lost mine!”

Only now did Phineas realize how cruel that had been.

“Doctor.”

Once, ‘Father’ had been a title he heard without question. Since Dana returned, he hadn’t heard it even once. He’d thought she had changed, but perhaps she hadn’t changed at all. Perhaps she had simply chosen to live honestly.

‘I’m not her father to her anymore.’

That was the truth she had been holding back all this time. He had always prioritized his work and neglected his daughter, so it was hardly an unreasonable conclusion.

Don’t let Dana live the way I did.

‘I misunderstood those words.’

He had believed that giving her a comfortable life, an environment where she could do anything she wanted, was enough to fulfill that promise. But no matter how fertile the soil or how plentiful the sunlight, a tree cannot grow properly without human care.

If only she had merely grown wild.

Phineas squeezed his eyes shut, recalling the horrific evidence of abuse he had seen just moments ago.

His indifference had been part of the crime. He couldn’t erase the wounds she had already suffered, but he would do anything to make sure her pain could finally fade.