Chapter 511
[ 501 words ]
Chapter 511:
“Jarrod was there. He was five years old. He had been standing in the corner of the room the entire time. And he watched it all. He watched his mother die waiting for a man who never came. He watched his father fall apart in a storm of useless regret.”
Agnes’s eyes were wide, haunted.
“And on that little boy’s face, there was nothing. No tears. No fear. Just a cold, empty, deadness. He just stood there, looking at his father with those empty eyes.”
“And in that moment,” Agnes concluded, her voice a ghost of a whisper, “the last piece of the boy that was Jarrod Romero died right alongside his mother.”
The only sound in the kitchen was the quiet, rhythmic ticking of a clock on the wall and the soft hiss of the pilot light on the stove. The story was over, but its oppressive weight remained, thick and suffocating.
Agnes wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, her breathing still ragged. “After the funeral,” she said, her voice hoarse, “Leland fell apart completely. He couldn’t face the ghost of Isabella in this house. He couldn’t face his own guilt.”
He had his staff pack up all of Isabella’s belongings. In the back of her writing desk, he found her diary.
𝖣𝘪sc𝗼𝗏е𝗿 𝗁𝘪𝘥𝘥𝖾𝗇 𝘨𝗲𝗆ѕ 𝗼𝗇 g𝖺𝘭ոo𝘷е𝘭s.c𝘰𝗆
“It was filled with entries,” Agnes murmured. “Hundreds of pages about her love for her son. Every milestone, every funny word he said, every little drawing he made for her. It was a shrine to Jarrod.”
Agnes paused, her expression hardening. “There was not a single mention of Leland’s name in the entire book.”
That final, posthumous rejection was the last straw. It shattered what was left of him.
“He couldn’t bear to look at the boy,” she said, her voice filled with a cold disgust. “Because every time he saw Jarrod’s face, he saw Isabella’s eyes looking back at him, judging him. So he did the coward’s thing. He ran.”
He left his son, his only child, in the vast, empty estate and fled back to the city, leaving the door wide open for Cornelia to step in and claim her prize.
“She became the lady of the manor,” Agnes spat. “And Jarrod, that poor, motherless boy, was left to her mercy. He grew up in the shadow of the woman who had replaced his mother, facing her and her daughter’s cruelties alone.”
Agnes looked at Caroline, her eyes pleading for understanding. “That is why he is the way he is,” she explained. “That is why he built a fortress of ice around his heart. He learned as a child that love leads to pain, that attachment leads to abandonment. He pushes everyone away because he believes, deep down, that everyone will eventually leave.”
She reached out and took Caroline’s hand, her grip surprisingly strong. A flicker of desperate hope ignited in her eyes.
“Until you,” she whispered fiercely. “You are the first person I have ever seen who managed to get past his walls. The first person who has made him look… alive.”
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