episode_0062

[Episode 62] – Elise’s Day (4)

“Then I can live with my mother for the rest of my life… Right? Mother?”

Trisha was speechless at Elise’s question. She had no confidence in persuading Elise with words. She thought about getting angry, but she wanted to try to resolve the issue through a friendly conversation first, but she was speechless.

‘If I reject your confession here and now, will Elise give up on you?’

No matter how much I thought about it, it seemed like it was no different from pouring oil on a fire. Was Elise willing to be socially ostracized in order to be loved? Elise’s twisted obsession was almost self-destructive.

Trisha covered her mouth with her hand, shocked at the extent of Elise’s obsession, wondering if getting angry at her would only have the opposite effect.

Trisha didn’t care if she was socially ostracized. She had already been married twice, and it wouldn’t matter if she relied on Catherine anyway.

But the social ostracism of children was a different story. The gossip of the social circle was malicious, persistent, and scary. For children about to have their debutante or children preparing for marriage, the strange rumors that spread before they even made their debut in society meant their ostracism from the aristocratic society.

Trisha held her head in her hands and looked at Elise. Elise, who was smiling at her with her legs crossed and her shoes clicking, looked so different from the way she had seen her in the morning. Then, suddenly, Trisha remembered Sylvia saying that she would raise her.

Trisha let out a long sigh as she looked up at the carriage ceiling as if she was frustrated. Her thoughts, which had been hazy as if covered by thick fog, felt like the fog was clearing. She could now clearly understand the children’s feelings that she had vaguely known.

“You guys… are you not planning on getting married? And… are you planning on living with me without getting married?”

“……”

Elise didn’t say anything, but Trisha took Elise’s silence as an affirmation and clicked her tongue. She had known for a long time that the children didn’t want to get married. Trisha also knew how the children felt toward her.

If it was just the heart, there would be no problem, but putting that heart, that thought into action was a completely different matter. In Trisha’s eyes, the children seemed to be completely ignorant of reality. At that moment, Trisha felt very suffocated in this wide carriage.

It was such a spacious luxury carriage, but strangely, I felt like I was trapped inside, and it was hard to breathe. No matter how much I thought about it, the cause of that suffocation was the sadness that the children did not understand my feelings. Elise, who was looking at Trisha’s suffocated appearance, let out a low sigh and whispered in a small voice.

“Don’t worry too much about us. We have our own thoughts. We just want to continue living with our mother…”

“Are you not worried right now!?”

Trisha finally couldn’t hold back Elise’s words and screamed. The end of her voice, which had been uttered in a nervous manner, trembled and groaned. She burst into tears, unable to understand why the children did not understand her feelings.

“You don’t know reality at all! What if you don’t get married in an aristocratic society?! You want to live with me for the rest of your life?! Who would allow it?! What do people around you think?! This isn’t a problem that can be solved with emotions alone! I just…! I just wish you’d meet a good person, build a happy family, and live with your loving family… That’s all I wanted..!”

Trisha shouted at Elise, forgetting that the coachman was outside. If that was going to happen, she shouldn’t have been teaching her, but rather just distancing herself from the kids. Trisha clenched her fists and clenched her teeth to control her emotions, feeling regretful later.

Trisha realized that tears were streaming down her face, and quickly lowered her head to hide the fact from Elise. Elise walked over to Trisha, knelt down on one knee, and wiped the tears streaming down Trisha’s cheeks.

“Mother, I… The person we love is you. It was like that in the past, it is like that now, and it will never change in the future.”

Trisha burst into tears at Elise’s serious voice confessing without any playfulness, and she was sobbing and crying. It would be more appropriate to say sobbing than crying. The moment Trisha closed her eyes, tears fell down onto the cushion.

Trisha looked down at Elise with tear-filled eyes and thought that she couldn’t do this anymore. She swallowed her tears and looked at Elise with red eyes, thinking that she had to distance herself from the children before things got any worse. She answered the ‘confession’ that she had been putting off.

“Elise… Even if we aren’t related by blood, you are my family, my daughter. As someone like that… I can’t look at you with those eyes.”

“Even if we aren’t related by blood, are we still family?”

“…Yeah, you and I are family.”

At Trisha’s confident answer, Elise looked at Trisha with a chuckle. Rather than a laugh of joy and happiness, it was a laugh that came from the thought that her mother was still ignorant and innocent, not knowing her own heart. Elise burst out laughing at her mother’s innocence, who still said the word ‘family’ in this situation.

Elise didn’t care how much her mother called her ‘family’. No matter what her mother thought of her, Elise knew that she loved her mother and that her mother’s treatment of her would not change.

Of course, that would be so. Up until now, her mother had never rejected her even once, despite saying no. Elise knew very well that the reason she was angry at herself now was not because of her actions just now, but because she was worried about her.

“Mother, actually, I didn’t want to bother you, so I planned to do as much as I could according to your wishes. Go to the debutante, get married, and have a happy family. If it were possible, I would have done that. But when I thought about you being left alone after we got married… I, no, we were so anxious.”

“……”

“I was anxious when I thought about my mother being left alone after we left. I wanted to be by her side all the time. I wanted to just stay by her side for the rest of my life without getting married. So we changed our minds. We made a plan to continue living with her. Even if she said no, we could still live by her side. Don’t worry about the debt my father left behind. I can pay it all off. Don’t worry about the practical aspects either. I’ll make money even if it means selling the mansion or selling the secret assets my father left behind. That way, I can solve all the practical things my mother is worried about. I can solve all the problems she’s worried about, so I have to stay by her side.”

Elise gently stroked Trisha’s cheek, telling her not to worry, that she could solve the practical issues her mother was worried about. Trisha felt goosebumps as she felt the hand caressing her cheek.

“I can solve the ‘realistic part’ that my mother always made excuses for. What excuses will my mother make now to avoid accepting my feelings?”

“, Elise…”

“I really, really love you, Mom. I know you won’t hate me even if I do this.”

Elise got up from her seat and came close enough to Trisha that she could feel her breathing. She held Trisha’s cheeks with both hands and lifted her head so that their noses were almost touching. Trisha’s eyes shook as if there had been an earthquake.

“Because I know my mother’s heart well, even though she doesn’t know it. She always refuses what we say, but instead wants us to touch her. Look at this, mother. Even though it’s just an outing with her adopted daughter, she came out dressed in such a sexy outfit. What on earth do you expect from me to come out dressed like this?”

“Oh, no… I just…”

Elise slowly and very slowly moved the hand that had been caressing her cheek down. Along her neckline to her collarbone. Elise’s hand stopped at her collarbone and now scratched her fingernails at the hollowed-out collarbone as if teasing it. As she stroked her collarbone, a passionate moan escaped Trisha’s mouth.

“Ugh, uhh…”

Trisha thought that paying attention to what to wear on her date with Elise was just a matter of being ‘courtesy’ to the other person. If she went out dressed sloppily for a date, she thought Elise would be disappointed, so she wore a dress she didn’t usually wear, put on makeup, and sprayed on perfume.

But was this really just an act of ‘courtesy’? After hearing Elise’s words, he realized that what he had done was no different from the act of lovers putting on makeup and spraying perfume before meeting their loved ones.

Trisha began to wonder if perhaps, deep in her unconscious mind, her wish for her children to remain unmarried and close to her was seeping out of her.

Trisha quickly tried to find another ‘excuse’, but she was so shocked by Elise’s revelation of her unconsciousness that she couldn’t even think about anything, as if all her thoughts had stopped.

Elise didn’t seem to have any intention of giving Trisha a moment to think, and immediately climbed onto Trisha’s thigh, reached out and cupped her flushed cheek, kissing it.

It was a light contact, just lips gently overlapping and pressing, but for some reason it felt heavier than any of the countless kisses I’ve had up until now.

“I don’t think even my mother knows what’s on her mind… I’ll tell you while we’re on our date today. After the date, my mother will know what she thinks of us.”