14. The Right to Part with Dignity
Episode 114
“The capital really isn’t that cold in winter. It passes quickly, too. I feel like I can already sense spring in the air. Derosa will still be in winter for quite a while after this.”
Through the window Anna had thrown wide open, the late-winter biting wind swept into the bedroom. Born in Derosa and resistant to the cold, Anna would tilt her head whenever the people of Claris shivered and complained of the cold even with their thick clothes fastened tightly.
“Oh, did you hear? Teacher Polina says she’ll be going home soon.”
Lizan had also felt that it would happen before long. Ethan had seemed less like someone who had come to meet him at Polina’s request and more like a man who had come to fetch his wife, from whom he had been separated. Besides, Polina was a promising doctor. The fact that she had stayed until now was already a great act of goodwill, considering their connection from Derosa.
Anna glanced back at Lizan.
“And I…”
Her voice lowered with apology.
“Master wants me to move into the main estate and keep staying with you, but my family is still in Derosa… And you’ve gotten much healthier now, so I feel relieved, too. I think I’d like to start heading back and see my family.”
Lizan was not flustered.
It was only natural for her to think that way. Polina and Anna both had their own circumstances; they could not remain bound to the Valdemaera main estate forever.
Fluttering, the birds took flight with a beat of their wings.
“You’ll stay here, right?”
Anna asked naturally.
“I still remember the day I first met you in Derosa. I thought a pretty, diligent girl had come in, but seeing with my own eyes how a person’s fate can change like this feels a little amazing. Still, even back then, you somehow seemed too precious a child to be doing only laundry. Maybe I knew you’d become someone noble someday. I’m envious, and I’m really glad, and I’m also worried that if I casually call you by your name now, I’ll get in trouble… Claris is nice, too, but maybe because I saw you in the north first, I feel a little sad. You’ll come visit Derosa later too, right?”
Lizan nodded. Only then did Anna seem reassured, and she smiled brightly.
❖ ❖ ❖
I want to visit my parents.
Ezekail was quite surprised after reading the written message Lizan held out to him.
It was a rare request. Lizan had almost never expressed a desire to do anything. Since she was even saying she would have the visit she had kept putting off, he first examined her expression.
Had something changed in her heart?
After letting her meet Ethan, he had steadily watched to see whether anything had changed, but Lizan was much the same as usual. If anything, on some days she seemed to sink even deeper inward.
“A visit? Will you be all right?”
If Lizan was all right with it, there was no reason it could not be done.
Ezekail checked the clock. Four in the afternoon. Around now, her parents would have finished their light exercise as the doctor advised and would be resting in the annex. Lizan had not asked, but Ezekail knew even the couple’s daily routine, as he received reports on it every day.
“Then shall we go now? Unless there’s something you need to prepare.”
At his answer, Lizan gathered up paper, a fountain pen, and an ink bottle. They were supplies that seemed to assume Ezekail would accompany her.
He quickly took the things from Lizan’s hands.
“Give them here.”
This meant she had something to say to her family.
During the few visits she had had, Lizan had never once prepared tools for written conversation. She had simply seen with her own eyes that her family was safe, listened to what they had to say, and returned. As if that was enough.
“Lishi?”
“What brings you all the way here?”
The couple welcomed Lizan, who had suddenly appeared without word, but at the same time they were bewildered. Having ended their time of illness, their faces had regained a rosy color.
Lizan looked for a moment at her parents, from whom the pallor of sickness had vanished.
The couple awkwardly returned that gaze.
“What… did you come to see if we’d gotten healthy? We’re all better now.”
“It’s thanks to Master’s care.”
They did not forget to subtly attribute the credit to Ezekail. It was an action made in awareness of his promise to take their daughter as his wife.
“It’s still quite early, but would you like to have dinner with us?”
At her mother’s suggestion, Lizan shook her head.
She moved toward the reception room. With her parents and Ezekail, who had followed after her in a daze, sitting opposite her, Lizan spread out the paper and dipped the nib of the fountain pen into the ink.
She had no intention of staying long. She had only come because she had something to say.
Lizan wrote the first sentence she had come determined to write.
Now that we’re healthy, let’s go back home.
The first person whose expression hardened after reading what Lizan had written was Ezekail. Her parents, unable to read, were simply dumbfounded by the message Lizan had written down.
“Lishi, what on earth did you write…?”
“What home are you talking about, Lizan? Where are you saying you’ll return to?”
“Home? Return?”
The three voices tangled together without order.
Lizan drew in a breath and adjusted her grip on the fountain pen.
Our home.
When winter passed, birds flew back to their homeland. Those who had left home and come a long way were also sending word, one by one, that they were returning to the places they longed for.
And so she had suddenly realized it. That now, having ended her wandering, she needed to go back to the place where she was originally supposed to be.
“Lishi, are you going to become the lady of Valdemaera?”
It had truly been strange.
Watching her family grow excited with expectations for a rosy future, she had not been drowning in water, so why had she kept feeling as if she were about to drown?
“‘Our home?’”
Ezekail narrowed his eyes.
“Lizan, what does this mean? That you’re going to ‘our home’?”
“Our home? No, that place has been left empty for so long now…”
“There aren’t even any belongings left, but even if there were, thieves would have broken in ages ago and cleaned it out…”
In this mansion, she had met many capable doctors. She had never before lived so idly, doing nothing in such an excellent environment and only receiving others’ care. Here, Lizan had lived almost like a noble. It was treatment far beyond what she deserved.
But no matter how much she slept or how good the food she ate was, her fatigue did not fade. It felt as if her soul had burned down completely and only ashes remained. And so one corner of her heart was always hollow.
I don’t want to stay here anymore.
At last, she knew the reason.
It was because this was not where she belonged.
It was because even if her body was comfortable, it was not a place where her heart was at ease.
“…I did think that, given the timing, Claris and the Valdemaera main estate might be uncomfortable for you. If you can recuperate more comfortably somewhere else, I think that would be better too.”
Ezekail spoke carefully.
“I meant to tell you, but I haven’t had the chance. Lizan, I have a mansion prepared in the west. It’s cozy and a good place to live. Most things are ready, enough that you could move there and live without inconvenience right away. How about staying there with your family for the time being, until people quiet down?”
After hearing Ezekail’s added explanation, relief seeped into the couple’s expressions. Realizing that the man had absolutely no intention of letting Lizan go, her parents subtly took his side.
“That’s right, Lishi. How can you suddenly say we should leave?”
“We don’t have anywhere to go.”
It’s not as if our house has disappeared, so why can’t we go back? We can clean up what’s dirty and live without the things we don’t have. When have we ever lived in wealth?
“Lizan.”
Please tell my parents.
“You’re still weak.”
Tell them, please.
“That’s right, Lishi. You need more treatment. Hm? You have to fix your voice too, and…”
“Listen to Master. Isn’t everyone saying this because they’re worried about you?”
Lizan set down the fountain pen.
The ink soaked the message that had not been conveyed, spreading black across it.
So this was what it meant.
“If some part of your body is not whole, other people try to make decisions for you in many areas of your life.”
Even though she could express her will well enough, it simply would not reach the other person.
They would not listen because they thought the life here, lacking nothing, was better than “our home,” left behind in its shabby state. Ezekail did not want to let her leave his side, and her family did not want to leave the comfort of this place.
Just as Ethan had to wear clothes that suited Polina’s tastes instead of his own, Lizan had no choice but to be swayed by the opinions Ezekail and her parents decided for her in the name of doing it for her sake.
Ethan had accepted that, in exchange for living with Polina, that much was well worth enduring.
But I.
But what about me…?
Lizan asked herself.
Could she keep living like that? Even now, her chest felt this stifled.
She did not know why it was so hard to breathe. As her shoulders heaved greatly with her attempt to draw in a deep breath, Ezekail came closer and examined her face from nearby.
“Lizan, are you feeling unwell? Shall we go back to the bedroom?”
In the man’s dark blue irises, her own reflection was mirrored. Because the distance was so terribly narrow, her eyes, widened in alarm, her wandering gaze, and her awkward expression came into view at once like a mirror.
To other people, it would have looked like an ordinary sign of surprise or confusion. But Lizan knew.
This was a frightened face. A face barely holding back tears. A face that had no idea what to do.
For an instant, it was as if she had been struck by lightning.
Had she been looking at him with this face all along?
Since when? Because of what? Why?
“Sometimes, you have to face the parts of yourself you don’t want others to discover, like your true nature or the bottom of your heart.”
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