The child, having received healing from the priest to appear before others, looked at the coffin with an expression devoid of emotion.
Just as the marks of violence on her body were erased, the bruises on her mother's face were skillfully disguised with funeral director makeup.
Surrounded by white flowers, her mother finally found peace.
Only then did the girl truly realize how pointless it was to look for her father. Even if she managed to call a doctor, her mother, having survived, would not have experienced the slightest joy.
“It's okay, Tilia. Everything is fine. Daddy is here. Father is still next to you..."
Remembering Earl Palmer and his wife, who came to his daughter only after her death, the father shed fake tears, hugging the child.
Inhaling the sickening smell of his cologne, Tilia, with empty eyes, decided that she could no longer remain a child.
She should never have expectations from others again. She should never be deceived by her hopes.
She must never believe in love, must never think that affection can exist untouched by deceit and desire.
This decision became the last lesson that her wise mother taught her, and the main principle of her life.
It was the only weapon and armor that allowed her to somehow protect herself in a life that was little better than hell.
So, after the eyes of her mother, who faced death by either suicide or murder, closed, Tilia's goal remained the same.
Don't die like your mother. Don't choose the same stupid path her mother chose. Never be deceived by fleeting emotions and optimism, never believe in anything presumptuously.
This goal protected her throughout her short but long life.*
Both physically and mentally.
(*P.P. I think here the author means that life is short (because Tilia is still very young), but at the same time it feels long due to suffering)
Expectations, which she had never foolishly entertained, protected her in moments of crisis, and the habit of constant doubt saved her in unforeseen moments.
It wasn't a curse. It wasn't a scar. Her inability to believe in love was the last gift her mother left her - a blessing.
At least until she met him.
She was definitely moving away from Akansis. It was as if something that had been lurking in the darkness began to become clearer, and a faint light of awareness began to seep into her hazy emotions.
With empty eyes, Tilia reached for the deception buried deep in her chest.
Ilex Davenport was a man shrouded in radiance. Although she pretended not to, she too instinctively glanced in his direction whenever he appeared.
She did not forget about her mother's death. It was just an inevitable human instinct.
Just as the eye is drawn to a beautifully sparkling emerald forest. Just as it is impossible not to look up at the towering spire that reaches to the heavens.
Knowing that the closer she got, the more obvious her own wretchedness would be, she stubbornly avoided being near him.
And so, when she drank the holy water and ended up lying with him, she found some comfort in the fact that her first experience was with such a brilliant man. It was a thought befitting of those she had always despised, but she felt it anyway.
That day when she had to go to bed, when everything happened completely against her will.
At least the fact that it was someone she had chosen, someone she secretly believed was a gem shining under the sea, allowed her to push away some of the sadness.
But she never, not once, wanted anything more.
Tilia knew all too well how a moment of carelessness, one wrong judgment, could lead to death.
She ruthlessly rooted out any emotions that could eat away at her resolve before they had a chance to take root. She never allowed the slightest thought of cultivating in her heart the catastrophe that would one day destroy her.
And yet, despite this, when Ilex Davenport began to slowly seep into her life...
Tilia felt as if the very foundation of her existence was shaking.
In truth, she already knew.
She knew what the actions of the man hovering next to her really meant.
When he risked himself without a second thought to save her, when he lied just to give her ice cream, when he filled the table with all the foods she loved...
She couldn't help but understand this.
She wasn't stupid. Ilex always looked at her with the most ardent recognition in his eyes.
With such tender affection that it was impossible to ignore, so all-consuming that he could not even look at her directly, only sneaking sidelong glances.
But every time she realized how deep, vast and lasting his feelings were, anxiety crept into her heart.
And just as much as this fear grew, she was drawn to him.
Yes, now she understood.
She despised him because she was attracted to him. She was afraid of him because he unsettled her.
Because she couldn't bring herself to feel contempt for him. Because she couldn't reject him.
Because she could no longer live in that terrible, indifferent world of muted colors as before.
The fact that her resolve was wavering was a secret hidden in the very depths of her heart.
The truth is that she also had a desire to rely on someone. She had a desire to be loved. It was a weakness that she didn't even want to admit to herself.
But one day, a hidden awl will inevitably pierce your pocket.
She didn't fully realize it, but she had a vague idea.
That for some reason she was especially vulnerable to Ilex Davenport.
It's not like no one has ever approached her this way. And this was not the first time she had received such interest and kindness.
However, she had never been able to push him away as coldly as she had done to others in the past.
She left the door slightly open, just enough for him to slip through. She left a small gap, just enough to keep him going until the very end.
Ilex didn't know this. And until today, even she did not fully realize it.
But now, looking back, she understood everything.
She came up with many excuses to justify herself, but the real reason she followed him to the mansion, the real reason she lied even to herself, claiming that she had simply inhaled holy water, the real reason she turned the carriage around was to pick him up...
Because she couldn't bear the thought of him sleeping with another woman.
The truth was that she loved seeing him fight to stay by her side. She loved the affectionate care he showed her, pretending it didn't matter.
Every time his beautiful gray-blue eyes, filled with unconditional love, looked at her, the dry desert of her heart was quenched for a moment, like rain falling on a parched land.
But when she could easily admit this truth, Tilia stubbornly closed her eyes. Even when she saw it, she pretended not to see it. She was deceiving herself.
She feigned ignorance. She acted as if an easily solved problem was an unsolvable mystery, indulging in hypocrisy.
She knew very well what those eyes meant, what it meant to let him stay next to her.
Yet she deliberately pretended to be ignorant.
Suddenly a tingling sensation ran through my cheek. Only then did Tilia realize that she was crying.
But simply realizing this didn't change anything. Just like the regret that consumes her now.
"I had no choice."
She roughly wiped her cheek and muttered some excuses under her breath, not knowing whether they were intended for someone else or her own conscience.
She really had no choice. The reason she feigned ignorance until the very end was because she just wanted to survive.
The first vow of her childhood, to never believe in love, was her last line of defense.
She was terrified. If this defense was broken, she feared that the world she believed in would die without a cry.
If she accepted that what he felt for her was love, and as a natural consequence, accepted that she too was attracted to him, then...
She would have died.
Just like her mother.
She was afraid that his love would destroy her.
That's why she did it. Only this was the only absolute truth. There was a desperate reason why she ignored his love.
It was cowardice. It was something that no one else could understand. But that's how it was.
While she cried silently, choking on the truth that threatened to consume her...
- Josephine, look there.
As if from a world separate from the one where Tilia was being punished, a warm and gentle voice reached her ears.
Turning her head slightly, she saw a woman next to her, holding a child tightly to her and pointing at the train window.
- Isn't it wonderful? The snow has stopped. Even the sea seems to rejoice at the arrival of our Josephine.
The woman who was wary of her at first turned out to be a tender mother.
Hearing her soft words, Tilia slowly turned her head like a child in her arms. It was only then that she truly saw the view that had been in front of her all this time.
The woman was right. At some point the wet snow stopped.
The fog that had made the world blurry dissipated, and finally the surrounding space became clearly visible through the window.
They seemed to cut through the middle of the sea. The vast expanse of the endless ocean stretched out before her frozen eyes.
Slanting rays of sunlight burst through the cloudy sky like pillars, and the calm sea shimmered as if it was all a deception.
As she gazed absentmindedly at this dazzling sight, she saw a reflection in her eyes.
A man whose eyes shone as beautifully as the sea in front of her.
Now that the thick, choking fog had cleared, now that she had removed the blindfold that was both a blessing and a curse, she could finally see him clearly.
Ilex Davenport was not a heartless scoundrel who played with human feelings. He was not the womanizing fool she thought he was.
The feelings he had for her were never something that could harm her. They were not a disaster that would lead her to her grave.
It was just... love.
And that's all it ever was.
When the gray fog of fear cleared, the truth was revealed to her.
The man she once despised, the man she convinced herself would destroy her.
In the end he was the one who saved her with his love.
The first man who ever loved her. A man who loved her with devotion.