Her crying face vividly penetrated his retina and began to cast a terrible shadow.

Luke stopped his movements as if nailed, held his breath, and stared at Aria’s tears.
She cried and opened her mouth many times to ask, but no words came out.

Luke inadvertently let out a question, “Why…?”

Why was she crying like that?

The rest didn’t follow.

Without understanding the emotions he was feeling, he hastily got up from his seat.

It seemed like he shouldn’t look at Aria any longer.

On the bed, Bonita was working on the writing homework that Hildreth had given her. Bonita, who copied each letter while reading along with the alphabet, made a grumbling sound.

“Why are there so many letters?”

It wasn’t difficult to memorize them itself. However, Bonita still felt the boundary between pictures and letters somewhat blurry.

Still, she found math problems somewhat manageable, thanks to the tips Hildreth had given her.

“If small number calculations are difficult, think of addition like combining the spare change on both sides…”

Bonita stared at the problems, starting her own ‘translation.’

Then she could solve them quickly.

Finishing the three pages assigned for today, Bonita laid on the bed, flipping through the textbook.

“They said they’ll teach division next time. How do you calculate that?”

Hildreth said that learning math would allow her to understand various things.

For example, fundamentally, the identity of the gears in the carriage that Bonita was curious about was also math.

Hearing such stories, she genuinely longed to learn more.

Even though studying letters was still uninteresting.

“But I want to try writing a letter.”

When Bonita closed the math textbook and opened the alphabet book again to read, the door opened.

“Mom?”

Familiar blond hair came into view, and Bonita, who had risen from the bed, faced Aria directly.

“…Mom?”

Aria was covered in tears.

Her eyes were red from crying so much.

“B Bonita.”

On the other hand, Aria, who faced Bonita, was extremely flustered.

Thinking that she was in the playroom, she returned to the bedroom to spend time alone.

But to be caught with such a face.

“Are you okay?”

Bonita, perhaps worried that Aria might silently run away, tightly grabbed onto her hood.

It was a clever strategy.

Even though Aria couldn’t push away Bonita’s hand with her small and weak strength, in the end, she sighed and hugged Bonita.

Bonita, who had climbed up, hugged Aria’s neck. She sat on the bed.

Sitting next to Aria, Bonita, who had leaned closer, looked at Aria with a slightly sly expression. A small sound flowed from Bonita’s mouth.

“Mom…”

The moment she heard those words, tears flowed again from Aria’s eyes.
Bonita began to panic.

“Mom, what’s wrong? Does it hurt somewhere?”

“Oh, no. It’s not that. Just…”

“Really?”

Staring at Aria, who was about to say something, Bonita suddenly hugged her mother tightly.

With every breath, a warm scent filled the air. Bonita, holding Aria’s arms tightly, tried to raise her eyes only to look at her mother’s face.

“Daughter.”

It was a term she hadn’t heard in a long time.

Feeling Aria’s touch on the back of her head, Bonita delved a little deeper into her embrace.

Aria’s voice, locked in Bonita’s ear, reached her.

“Mom, I’m sorry. A lot…”

In each disjointed syllable, sadness was embedded.

Bonita couldn’t understand why her mom was so sorry to her.

Thinking about it, her mom was the same when they first met.

She apologized for leaving her alone for seven years after her death.

“Sorry, sorry…”

So Bonita had to ask.

“Why?”

It was not a probing or questioning, just a pure question.

“I don’t really know why Mom is apologizing to me.”

Bonita, who came out of Aria’s embrace, stared at her intently.

Seeing her mother crying made her feel sad. Bonita mumbled, then threw a bomb at Aria.

“It’s not Mom’s fault that she died, right?”