“What?”
“Eum mamma. Eumma, eum mamma.”
I couldn’t figure out whether the child was saying “mamma” or “umma.” Facing the child properly, who somewhat resembled a mother’s pronunciation, I didn’t know how to react.
“Sigh… This is insane, really.”
Louisette’s child.
Miss Valerie.
I read the letter again and again. Even though I kept scrutinizing it, I couldn’t figure out who the writer was by just reading the text.
Pretending not to know seemed daunting since whoever brought the child here might know my true identity up to this point.
“No, this won’t do. Baby, staying here, your real mom who brought you here will come for you.”
I doubted anyone would leave a baby alone here. Perhaps they put the baby down, knocked on the door, and were now watching from nearby.
I took the letter with Celeste’s name and covered the basket back with the blanket.
The baby’s cute face disappeared under the blanket.
“Goo, gaga.”
Even when I turned the cloth over the baby’s face, they seemed to think it was a game, making happy sounds.
Despite feeling uneasy about leaving the baby like that, I couldn’t just take a stranger’s baby inside.
“It was nice to meet you, let’s not meet again.”
That’s right. I shouldn’t play into someone’s malicious prank. Refreshing my determination, I hurried inside and closed the door.
Ignoring the baby’s giggles behind me.
“…The tea must have gone cold.”
I took a sip of the long-cold tea. The leisure to fully enjoy its aroma had long vanished.
5 minutes later.
Determined not to leave until the child was gone, I opened the door wide after 5 minutes and could do nothing but hold the tearful infant in my arms.
“Waaah!”
“It’s gotta be cold.”
When the child, who seemed to be enjoying until the door closed, was left alone, the five minutes that followed seemed quite terrifying as tears streamed down their face.
As I embraced the baby who cried out loud for leaving home, the crying seemed to stop as they started to smile, almost as if asking when they had cried.
“Sniff, sniff. Giggles!”
At that moment, I had a feeling.
My comfortable and warm rural solo life was now coming to an end.
***
I have no family.
I never had them before, and I won’t have them in the future.
Parents? I’ve never seen their faces since I was born, and I don’t even know if they are alive.
When I say I have no family, people first look surprised, then mix sympathy on their faces.
“What do you do without your parents?” They threw comforting words that I didn’t feel in their hearts, saying it must have been tough and lonely.
Tough and lonely? Well, I didn’t particularly miss parents whose faces I didn’t know.
Feeling a sense of loss due to someone’s absence was only possible when there were accompanying memories. For someone like me who had no memories of family at all, I didn’t know what it meant to long for them.
So, I got used to being alone from a very young age.
It was truly a sad thing to get used to a child under 10 living alone without parents.
If I had parents, enduring hurtful words and cold stares wouldn’t have been necessary, I thought.
I also wished I had a real family.
And I really, truly didn’t know it would turn out like this.
***
“Abu, Boo.”
“Sure. This child is indeed the young lady’s baby. No, it’s Madam’s baby.”
“…Is that so?”
As I murmured to myself with a serious look, I looked at the man in front of me.
“I’m not even married. Besides, I’ve never seen this child before. How can they be my baby?”
“I’m not sure about Madam’s past, but it’s been proven that there is a blood relationship between Madam and this child.”
“My request was to find out who abandoned the baby in front of our house, not for a paternity test.”
I wish I had just gone to the police station. My head is pounding.
I brought the baby inside when it started crying, but then came the problem. It didn’t seem right to just keep holding a baby I’d never met before, whose parents I didn’t even know.
I don’t know who left the baby at the door and rang the bell, but seeing the note that said, “I will come back for the baby,” no one would easily accept that explanation.
The best option would have been to find the real parents through the police station, but a letter with my name written correctly made me hesitant to act without caution.
Hiding my identity and living in a rural village made involving the police a bad idea. After some thought, I decided to hire a detective agency to trace the child’s identity.
Fortunately, I had enough money to confidently approach the well-known Alfonso Detective Agency in the neighborhood to find the child’s family.
It’s like a modern-day private investigator. Money can make people do anything, no matter the era. It felt bitter realizing this fact.
But strangely, the respected detective in the village unexpectedly claimed that the child was mine. How should I take that?
The detective showed a flask of transparent potion and said, “This magical elixir reveals a blood connection. When the colors merge and become transparent after mixing a drop of blood from each participant, it shows their relationship, like this result.”
He shook the flask containing the transparent potion. “Parent and child.”
So, he pricked my finger and the baby’s finger alternately with a needle?
The detective explained that due to increasing child abduction cases, a massive crackdown was happening in the empire. An adult with a child of uncertain origin would automatically face investigation.
Perhaps that’s why he used the potion to determine if there was a blood relation between me and the child.
“I… I don’t know. This baby is supposedly mine. But how could I not know the child, not even recognize them after over six months of separation?”
“I can’t answer that, madam. All I can tell is that this child is yours.”
The detective’s eyes narrowed as he spoke, as if suspecting some sinister intentions on my part for secretly giving birth to and abandoning the child.
“If you wish, I can inquire about who left the child at your doorstep.”
He seemed to reluctantly agree after my persistence.
“Hmm. Mama.”
During the exchange with the detective, the baby peacefully nestled in my arms, cooing softly.
“Wow, what on earth is going on? This baby looks completely unfamiliar.
The throbbing pain near my temple gradually spread throughout my entire head.
The child seemed to be about a year old. However, since I had only been possessed by Celeste for barely half a year, there was a possibility that she had secretly given birth to the baby without anyone knowing… It wasn’t entirely impossible.
In the original work, Celeste didn’t even have a child, let alone get married. But since the moment I became Celeste, the original story was already destroyed, so there was no point in sticking to the original content.
So, where exactly did the original story start to twist?
“If you have no further requests, please leave, madam. Well, I won’t charge for the consultation. I won’t even charge for the potion, so please calm your heart and accept the child.”
As if pushing us out, the detective pushed me and the baby out and closed the door. Right before it closed, the detective’s eyes that met mine seemed to say, ‘A despicable human who abandons their own child.’
No! This child is not mine, and I am not the mother! I wanted to say that, but I couldn’t.
“…Unjust.”
I was left standing in the street, holding the child. A sense of injustice seeped out of my desolate and helpless heart.
It was unfair that I died without enjoying my youth, unjust that I was now bound to a villain character with a short lifespan, and to top it off, becoming a single mother without ever experiencing love. There couldn’t be anything more unjust than this.
“Unjust!”
“Dada, baba. Baba.”
The baby cute mimicked my sounds, soothing my unjust heart with a gentle warmth from its chest.
Yes, what fault could you possibly have? If anyone is at fault, it’s the adults.
〈I wish I had a family.〉
Suddenly, a wish that wasn’t my true desire in my past life came to mind.
“Mom, mama. Mama.”
My child… as I quietly pronounced the words, a chilling realization washed over me. My child. My child!
This is not the family I wished for.
I wanted a being who could protect and nurture me, not one I had to take responsibility for!
Although I screamed internally, it remained a silent roar.
The little toddler in my arms. No, this baby closer to a toddler than an infant suddenly appeared and shattered my peaceful and beautiful life.
“Now what do I do? Little one. What should I do with you?”
The child, though seemingly unlikely to answer, spoke out to the child in her arms. It was closer to a lament than a question.
Then, suddenly, a thought crossed her mind. If there is a child, doesn’t that mean the child’s father must exist somewhere too? Unless Celeste is not the Virgin Mary, she cannot create a child alone.
“I must go find the daddy.”
She had to commission the detective again.
She was asking to find the child’s father.
