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“Alright, Darla, Mommy is leaving. Don’t cry, sweetheart. When you cry, Mommy’s heart breaks too.”
“No, I don’t want you to go! You promised you’d always be with me!”
Darlene clung tightly to her mother, but Audrey pried her daughter’s hands off and got into the car.
“Mommy…”
Ignoring everything else, Darlene started running, trying to catch up with her mother’s car.
But such a little girl could never catch up with a car.
Darlene fell to the ground, scraping the skin on her fair knees and little hands. The little girl cried her heart out.
The servants couldn’t comfort her, so they had no choice but to go to the study and ask for Claudine.
“You said Darla is downstairs by herself?”
“Where is her ‘mother’?”
Claudine asked.
Angie replied, “She left, saying she was afraid staying would upset you.”
Claudine frowned.
If that woman really knew her place, she wouldn’t be entangled with a man who isn’t even divorced yet.
“Mrs. Barrette, you should go downstairs and take a look!
“Miss Barrette has been crying outside and refuses to come in. It’s so cold-what if she gets sick!”
Claudine glanced out the window. The tree branches were swaying wildly in the wind, making it look freezing out- side.
Just as Angie thought Claudine would immediately go out to the yard and coax Darlene inside, she heard Claudine say coldly, “If she wants to cry, let her cry. Call all the servants back from the yard. What are they doing out there? Don’t they have anything else to do!”
Angie never expected that Claudine, who had always doted on Darlene, would say something like this.
She couldn’t help but try to persuade her.
“Mrs. Barrette, it’s so cold outside, and Miss Barrette just fell and scraped her knee.”
Claudine didn’t let Angie continue.
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“She’s already five years old. She knows where it’s cold and where it’s warm, and she also knows how to use crying to threaten adults.
“If you don’t like the way I handle things, you can call Damian. If there’s nothing else, please leave.”
Angie never thought there would come a day when Claudine would ignore Darlene.
She sighed and left the study.
Darlene kept crying and making a fuss in the yard, thinking that this would make the adults give in and bring her mother back.
But she cried for a long time, until her throat hurt, and still Claudine didn’t come out.
At that moment, Angie came over.
Darlene thought Claudine had sent Angie to comfort her. She turned her face away and said, “I’m not going inside! I want my mom to stay with me! Unless you bring my mom back, I’ll just keep crying here.”
Unexpectedly, Angie said to the others, “Mrs. Barrette wants you all to go back inside and do your own work. Go
on!”
As soon as they heard it was Claudine’s order, the servants immediately stood up.
After all, who would willingly stand out in the cold wind to coax a spoiled child?
Seeing that not only did Claudine not come out to comfort her, but even the others were called back inside, Darlene felt even more wronged.
Angie looked at the endlessly crying Darlene and felt a headache coming on.
Forget it, she had tried to persuade and comfort her. If Mr. Barrette found out and blamed her later, she would just say Mrs. Barrette told them to do so.
After all, that was indeed Mrs. Barrette’s instruction.
Seeing Angie also return inside, Darlene now cried her heart out.
She even stood up and cried loudly toward the second-floor window, thinking that would make Claudine hear her.
But what she didn’t know was that Claudine was in the study on the far right of the second floor, and not only that, she was wearing noise-canceling headphones.
Even if she screamed herself hoarse, Claudine wouldn’t know.
The servants inside the house were all tormented by the wailing, but no one dared say a word.
Soon, it started to rain.outside.
Winter rain is the coldest, like icy blades, the chill seeping right into your bones.
At that moment, Angie was about to go out and persuade Darlene to come back in. She was just about to get an um-
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brella when she saw Darlene, sobbing, come inside on her own.
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“Oh dear, Miss Barrette, you must be freezing! Your little face is all red from crying. If you catch a chill, it’ll be trou-
ble.”
Saying this, Angie picked Darlene up and headed upstairs.
“Miss Barrette, let’s take a bath to warm up, so you don’t catch a cold.”
By now, Darlene was exhausted from crying. She nestled in Angie’s arms, still sobbing, her eyes fixed on the direc- tion of the bedroom.
She thought Claudine was there.
