“Exactly. Neither of them are any good. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”
“I heard the daughter wormed her way in too, broke up someone's relationship just to marry rich.”
Ever since the day my mother's life fell apart, voices like these had clung to us like rot that never healed.
At first, I charged out like a madwoman to argue, to explain, to beg them to understand that my mother had been framed.
All I got in return were colder stares and sharper ridicule.
“Still denying it at this point?” “Where there's smoke, there's fire.”
No one was willing to believe me. Or rather, they didn't care what the truth was.
The more I explained, the guiltier I looked.
The more I argued, the more pathetic I seemed.
By now I was used to it. But in my arms, my mother had started to tremble.
I was about to comfort her when she wrenched herself free, her eyes locked wide on the doorway.
“I didn't……I didn't……”
Before I could react, she shoved me aside and bolted out of the room.
“Mom!”
My heart lurched. I ran after her.
She was like a cornered animal, crashing blindly through the hallway.
The crowd of gawkers scattered instantly, terrified she'd barrel into them.
And there, at the end of the corridor, Ferdinand stood with Deborah.
Deborah wore a loose maternity dress, her belly slightly rounded, leaning into Ferdinand and murmuring something in that helpless, syrupy way of hers.
My mother charged straight at them and clamped both hands around Ferdinand's sleeve.
“Ferdinand! Please help me! I was framed……”
Before she could finish, Deborah, who stood on Ferdinand's other side, let out a piercing shriek and stumbled backward.
“You hit me!”
She clutched her stomach, her face draining of color.
“You hit my belly!”
Ferdinand's expression turned savage. He wrenched my mother's hands off his arm and rushed to steady Deborah.
“Are you okay? Does it hurt?”
My mother staggered from the force of being thrown off and slammed into the wall, frozen where she stood.
A new ring of onlookers had already closed in around the corridor.
“Did that crazy old woman just hit a pregnant lady?”
“God, that had to be on purpose. Bad enough she's lost her mind, but attacking a young girl like that!”
“Right? She looks so pitiful, who knew she was this vicious!”
Deborah huddled in Ferdinand's arms, her shoulders hitching with sobs, eyes rimmed red.
I shoved through the crowd and saw my mother's frail body pressed against the wall, terror all over her face.
“Mom!” I threw myself forward and caught her. Something seized my chest so tight I couldn't breathe.
“Ferdinand, are you blind? My mother didn't even touch her!”
I screamed it at him, eyes burning, but his gaze stayed ice-cold.
“Enough, Renee! Deborah's pregnant. How much strength could she possibly have? Your lunatic mother did it on purpose!”
“Make her apologize right now, or I'm calling the police!”
Deborah was still sobbing in his arms, tugging pitifully at his sleeve：
“Ferdinand, just let it go……She probably didn't mean it. Don't make things hard for her. I'm fine.”
Ferdinand's face darkened further. He stared at me, his voice frigid：
“Renee, Deborah is pregnant and she still went out of her way to find treatment for your mother.”
“That miracle drug? She moved heaven and earth to get it shipped from overseas.”
“And instead of showing an ounce of gratitude, you two repay her kindness by hurting her. Do you even have a conscience?”
Those words hit me like a thunderclap.
The miracle drug came from Deborah?
So it had been Deborah all along.
She was the one who spread the rumors back then, and now she was the one behind the poison driving my mother insane.
