Episode 158
Sasha was taken straight to the hospital in Wordington, the small town, then transferred the next day to a large hospital in the capital, Goldington. Wilson, whose condition was critical, would be cared for in Wordington for several days, as something might go wrong if he were moved just yet.
Even after arriving at the hospital in the capital, Sasha slept on without waking for nearly an entire day, just as she had the day before. In many ways, it drained Isaac dry. He already suffered from chronic anxiety and paranoia, and it went without saying that both had worsened over the past two days.
The one mercy was that he still retained enough judgment to behave obediently, at least toward the medical staff. Everyone else, without exception, was blocked. Caroline, who rushed over as soon as she heard the news, as well as Jason the butler, who came on behalf of the servants of Dilton Manor, and several others were forced to turn back without even making it through the entrance.
“At least tell me how she is. Has she woken up?”
“No. She hasn’t woken yet. And even if she regains consciousness, it will be difficult to have a proper conversation because of the medication.”
Caroline let out a hollow laugh of disbelief as she looked at Isaac, who explained with an expressionless face. He was still being polite to her as his grandmother, but to anyone watching, it would have felt not only like an order to leave, but like a warning not to even think of seeing his face for the time being.
Like the others who belatedly learned the whole story through the newspapers, Caroline, too, was at once dumbfounded and flustered when she heard the news and did not know what to do. She had already been on edge ever since Sasha’s trial, and when she then learned that a warrant had been issued for her grandson, she had nearly collapsed.
Unable to hide her resentment, she clenched her teeth as she looked at her grandson, who was gazing back at her with cold eyes. Soon, however, she took a calm, deep breath and stepped back.
“Fine. I won’t say anything else, so at least make sure you eat.”
That was her attempt at making a concession, and Isaac merely nodded instead of answering, as if he had heard her and not heard her at all.
“I’ll see you out.”
“Forget it. Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
Caroline had come early in the morning, and afterward several more visitors came by, hovering about. Among them were Sasha’s lawyer, the butler who looked after her mansion, and some woman who claimed to be her friend. All of them were treated worse than Caroline and had to leave as though they were being chased away.
Isaac returned to the hospital room and sat down. As Caroline had pointed out, he looked to anyone like someone who ought to be taking care of his own condition first, but regardless, he did not even glance at the food set on the nearby table and went straight to Sasha.
Once he sat, the air in the room seemed far too stuffy. When had the room last been aired out? He rose at once and went to the window, sliding it open with a rattle. But when he sat down again, this time the sunlight was too strong and reached all the way to the bed where she lay.
“The sunlight is too harsh.”
Muttering, he went back to the window, shut it again, and even drew the curtains. But then the room was far too gloomy. They had said she should get some sunlight. Remembering the nurse’s words, he kept opening and closing the window, over and over, his face looking somehow unhinged.
In the end, he compromised by leaving it about half-open and came back to sit down. This time, the chair felt too small. He grumbled as though taking his anger out on the innocent chair, then fell silent again.
Yes. It was nothing more than taking his anger out on something.
Since two days ago, Isaac had been in a state where he could not bear his anger toward himself. Since two days ago, he had been far from sane.
From his lonely childhood, when he could trust no one but himself, through his adolescence, when there was likewise no one but himself to protect him, and then through long years spent as a soldier, he had held a firm creed in life.
The same was true of that issue with his explanations, the one that had earned Sasha’s anger. The mentality of a soldier was embedded in him to the bone, so until Sasha pointed it out herself, he had not even known what the problem was.
He had managed to take one step back in the face of Sasha’s anger, but the immutable truth forged by the countless experiences he had endured over the years remained. Whether in war or in some filthy political struggle carried out secretly beneath the surface, the principle was that innocent civilians were not to be dragged into it. It was an unspoken agreement that neither side even needed to voice aloud.
That was why Isaac, who had placed Sasha’s safety above all else, had so readily sent her away on the train. A means of transportation packed with civilians would have that many eyes watching, and so no one would be able to do anything foolish. Unless she had the terrible luck to run into something like train robbers, at the very least, it was not a place where assassins could openly run rampant.
After hearing Cedric Osmond’s warning, and after rushing to the train station just in case, the sight he saw the moment he arrived shattered everything he had taken for granted until then.
It was a shock that felt as if everything he had experienced in his life had been denied. He stared blankly at the sobbing people, and when he pushed his way through them, the sight before him only added to his rage.
His wife, collapsed over there with a pale face. The pallid face visible between the strands of fallen hair was bloodless, and her dress was covered here and there with dried bloodstains.
In that moment, rage toward himself surged madly within him, and before long, dreadful terror followed.
No.
She must not die.
……My wife,
……dying because of my damned stupid judgment.
After that, he could not hold back his tears and wept. It was the first fear of loss he had ever known.
Until now, he had lived loving only himself, with no real attachment to anyone, and at most he had only ever felt troubled while imagining his own death at some uncertain time. And so, even as he examined his wife with tears streaming down his face and confirmed that she was still breathing, he remained seized by fear and continued to cry like a child.
She was someone he loved more than himself, and the death of such a person felt impossible to endure.
Relief lasted only a moment, because the thought came to him that if things had gone wrong, he would have lost her in such a horribly futile way.
“……Hi, Jack.”
At the thought that hearing that voice might truly have been the last time, the tears that had stopped began flowing down again.
“……Jack.”
No matter how many times she called him, he did not even lift his head, because he had no right to answer. She looked as though she would break if he held her, so he could not bring himself to touch her. He only cried on and on because he was sorry, and because he was afraid.
I’m afraid.
……Terribly afraid.
The fact that I’ve come to love you this much is…… too overwhelming, and too frightening.
Without even realizing that he was muttering such things to himself, Isaac turned his gaze from where he had been staring gloomily into empty space.
She was looking at him.
“……Sasha.”
It was the moment he had longed for with his blood drying in his veins over the past two days. Yet at the same time, it was a moment he had not wanted.
He felt far too ashamed to face her. He wanted to apologize for his own arrogance, for having been so certain there was no need, when she had so naturally wanted him to share everything with her.
He wanted to apologize, to say that he had been stupid and complacent. That he was sorry he had not realized he was driving her into the jaws of death.
Those words could not come out in order. They tangled among themselves and lodged tightly in Isaac’s throat. And so he only shed tears again, streaming down his face, while his wife, whether she knew what was inside him or not, looked at his weeping face and smiled faintly.
Isaac thought that, too, felt presumptuously cruel of her, but when Sasha lifted her uninjured arm and stroked his cheek, he quickly leaned his face into the back of her hand.
“……I’m sorry. Sasha.”
His voice, grown utterly rough, barely escaped him.
She did not answer his words and only stroked the line of his jaw.
“I thought wrong.”
“…….”
“I, I should have been with you.”
Sasha, who had moved her hand and was touching the corners of his eyes where tears had pooled, finally opened her mouth.
“Don’t say such ridiculous things. You’re a wanted man. How were you supposed to get on the train?”
“But.”
“I survived thanks to Mr. Wilson. If it hadn’t been for him, I really would have died. You insisted on having him ride with me. You did everything you could.”
“……If I had not been wanted in the first place. If I had not insisted on my way, and had listened to what others said…….”
If I had not done that back then.
Useless assumptions that the original him would have scoffed at continued fruitlessly on.
“If I had handled the general’s matter a little sooner.”
“…….”
“Or if I had refused your proposal of marriage…….”
He remembered someone asking why it had to be the two of them, of all people.
That question had tormented Isaac all this time. Exactly. Why had it had to be him and her?
He could not stop thinking that perhaps because he, and not some other ordinary man, had married her, it had ultimately made them impatient.
“Jack.”
His cheeks were seized and lifted rather roughly.
He saw a cold expression, with none of the smile from before.
“Hold me.”
Enough, so shut up and just hold me.
She urged him on in that particular tone she could never hide whenever she was annoyed.
Isaac looked at her with a blank face, then wiped away the rest of his tears and rose from his seat, bending over toward her.
One slender arm came up, wrapped around his neck, and pulled him close.
Amid the smell of alcohol, the scent of each other’s bodies, stronger than usual, was so clear it brought tears to his eyes.
“Do you regret marrying me?”
After burying her face in the nape of his neck for a long while without speaking, she asked softly.
As if the words he had just uttered meant nothing, Isaac answered at once.
“No.”
Ha. She laughed as though she found him unbelievable.
Isaac, regardless, held her small body in his arms.
“Then don’t ever say something like that again.”
“…….”
“…Jack.”
“……Yes.”
I love you.
She said it as she kissed his dispirited cheek.