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Chapter 171 Her Goodbye?
Mabel was still burdened by guilt over not protecting Caroline.
To Alistair, that was simply unacceptable. She was a
grandmother, not a guardian by law, and she had already given Caroline everything she could.
Without her presence, Caroline’s childhood might have been even more suffocating and bleak.
“Please don’t blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault,” Alistair said softly and then hesitated before asking, “Do you remember when you first got sick?”
Mabel thought for a moment. “I believe it was when Caroline had just started eighth grade. Right at the beginning of the school year.”
Alistair’s heart gave a sudden jolt.
In Caroline’s memories, after Mabel fell ill, Paige had taken over her care- -though “care” was hardly the word. It was control, plain and simple. The real breaking point came when Giselle went through her room and opened the belongings her mother had left her. That act lit the fuse.
From that moment on, Caroline and Paige had been at odds. And during the year Mabel spent in the convalescent home, Caroline had been stuck under Paige’s thumb, surviving under
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Chapter 171 Her Goodbye?
her rule.
Okay, maybe “surviving” was a little dramatic.
That was just his own mental exaggeration.
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Caroline had never described exactly how she got through that year. She’d only mentioned what had happened between her and Paige, leaving out the rest.
But knowing her, she would never have bowed her head just to make life easier. And Paige was the type who thrived on dominance, with a need to control every little thing.
Two people like that under one roof? Someone was going to suffer. And it didn’t take a genius to know who that someone was. Caroline, barely in her teens, hadn’t even grown her wings
yet.
Then, without meaning to, Alistair found himself thinking about that house in Chicago, the one not far from his own. The one with the child who’d been locked upstairs.
At first, he’d ruled Caroline out because the child had been assumed to be a boy. But now he wasn’t so sure. That assumption had been based solely on the short haircut. No one had ever confirmed the gender. The two women living there had kept to themselves, rarely speaking to anyone. Who was to say the child hadn’t been a girl?
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And if it had been a girl… why couldn’t that girl have been Caroline?
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Ever since the system had bound him to her, ever since they’d gotten married, Alistair had stopped believing anything in this insane world was off–limits.
That day they’d passed the house together, Caroline’s reaction had been too extreme to explain with something as flimsy as low blood sugar. It hadn’t added up. Which was why he’d gone back on his own to investigate. Unfortunately, he hadn’t found anything conclusive.
Still, he hoped he was wrong. Even if those memories belonged to a younger version of her, he hoped her past hadn’t been quite so bleak.
But the timeline Mabel gave him now matched up exactly with what he remembered about that locked–away child.
Trying to keep his tone casual, Alistair asked, “Do you know what really happened between Caroline and Paige? What caused their relationship to fall apart like that?”
Mabel frowned, and her answer echoed what Caroline had told him before.
But her position was far more complicated than his. Alistair was Caroline’s husband. He hadn’t even met Paige back then. All he knew came from/Caroline, and of course he believed every word.
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Chapter 171 Her Goodbye?
For Mabel, though, things weren’t so simple.
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Paige was her daughter. Caroline was her granddaughter, someone she’d raised from infancy. When both sides were family, when mother and granddaughter told entirely different. stories, who was she supposed to believe?
What touched Alistair was that Mabel had never once hesitated. She believed Caroline.
“Caroline’s my girl. I raised her. She’s not who Paige makes her out to be,” Mabel said, her voice tightening. “Gordon was just as blind. Paige told him Caroline was unruly and dangerous, that she needed to be sent away to one of those behavior correction institutions. And the idiot actually agreed.”
Alistair’s eyebrows shot up. “A correctional facility?”
That didn’t match what he remembered.
The house in Chicago had been just that—a house, an ordinary residential unit. There was nothing official or clinical about it. Only three people lived there, and none of them had contact with the outside world.
But then again, if the Ashbourne family had wanted to commission a private correctional setup, they had the money to do it.
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Before he could ask more, Mabel’s tone shifted. Her fingers wrapped around his, and her eyes glistened.
“For some reason, Caroline doesn’t remember any of that year. She’s asked about it before, and we’ve always told her she was sick. Maybe she was, in a way. Maybe she just couldn’t face what happened, and her mind chose to forget it.” Mabel paused. “Alistair, I need you to promise me–don’t ever tell her. Please.”
Of course he wouldn’t. Caroline had already remembered.
The fact that she still chose silence proved she didn’t want Mabel to bear the weight of it.
Alistair gave her a solemn nod. “I promise.”
Mabel exhaled slowly, like a heavy stone had been lifted from her chest. “That’s a relief.”
Alistair was still lost in thought when she changed the subject again. “And about the Whitfield family…”
He looked up quickly. “I swear, I really had nothing to do with that, not even a little. That wasn’t me.”
Mabel gave him a long look and then shook her head. “You already told me. I believe you. You don’t need to keep saying it. If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t have let you anywhere near my granddaughter.”
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Chapter 171 Her Goodbye?
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It hit him then… about how much she meant that and how much faith she had placed in him.
Mabel had been especially talkative that day. What started as a conversation about Caroline slowly shifted to Eloise.
She listed her favorite foods, her newest hobbies, and how much taller she’d grown.
At first, Alistair listened with amusement. But the longer she went on, the more something unsettled him.
A strange thought crept into his mind, uninvited and unwelcome, but impossible to shake.
It didn’t feel like casual conversation anymore. It felt like something else… like she was passing something on.
No. Not just talking. She was entrusting them to me.
His chest tightened.
Mabel was placing Caroline and Eloise in his hands.
Why would she do that all of a sudden? Why now, when everything is fine?
It sounded too much like a farewell. Like parting words. Like… a final request.
Chapter 171 Her Goodbye?
Damn it, no. Don’t go
there.
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He wanted to curse himself for even thinking it, but the weight in his chest had already settled in.
He told himself he was reading too much into it and that he was overreacting.
But the problem was… he trusted his instincts now more than
ever.
What if something really was wrong with her?
She had just come out of the hospital. The doctors had said she was fine.
But was she?
He looked at her more carefully. Her complexion was dull, her energy a little too forced. And really, who could say for certain that the doctors had told them the truth?
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