Chapter 4

4: 4

Jonathan opened his mouth to say something more, but hurried footsteps came up behind him.

"I told you to give back the boat and you drag your feet. Do you still want that leg treated or not?"

Julia came over, thanked me, then took hold of Jonathan and pulled him away.

What I hadn't expected was that Julia really did take Jonathan to the old country doctor.

But once she'd paid the consultation fee, she had no money left for food.

At noon she still came to borrow a fish off me to get by.

Jonathan wasn't so lucky, though.

He stood at my door on an empty stomach, seeming to wait for me to lend a hand.

I didn't spare him a glance. I kept eating the fish soup I'd made.

In the afternoon, when I came back from the sea, heavy rain was falling over the docks.

Jonathan happened to be out at the shoreline in a wide straw hat, gathering seafood.

Seeing me soaked through, he pulled an umbrella from his back basket and held it out to me.

It wasn't as if I'd never sheltered under an umbrella he offered in my past life, but this life was different now, after all.

When Herbert Weiss's umbrella came over me again, I didn't push it away.

Herbert had always liked me. Before I ever met Jonathan, every time it rained he would stand at the shore with an umbrella, waiting for me.

The first time we shared an umbrella, Herbert was nervous.

The cover of it wrapped around me completely.

Herbert was tall, and half his body was left out in the rain.

But he was smiling.

That, I suppose, is what liking someone looks like.

In my past life Jonathan would hold an umbrella over me too, but his face never showed anything, and he never spoke.

Then Jonathan lost his temper over something. He threw the umbrella to the ground and kicked it away.

I glanced back at him.

He was crouched sullenly nearby, still searching for seafood.

I knew what he was looking for.

In my past life he always resented how slowly his leg healed, how he couldn't ease my burdens.

To help him get his confidence back, I'd secretly buried a top-grade strand of golden sea willow out on the water beforehand.

I nearly gave my life getting it when I went diving.

One strand was worth ten thousand dollars.

This life, I had the golden sea willow, but I wasn't going to give it to him.

Back home, Herbert went ahead and stewed me a bowl of hot fish soup.

"You're soaked through. Have some, warm yourself up."

Herbert was a good man. When I was little and never had enough to eat, he'd often save me a share of his own food.

Later, when I started diving, he taught me plenty about gathering seafood.

All these years he'd stayed at my back and never let me suffer the smallest wrong.

I asked him,

"Herb, my parents are coming to find me. When that time comes, will you be willing to leave with me?"

Herbert looked a little stunned.

"You're willing?"

He'd watched over me since we were children. There was no one more fitting to marry.

I nodded.

Herbert caught me up and spun me around a few times.

I was still happy about it when the sound of a bowl smashing came from next door.

Julia was shouting.

"To treat that leg of yours, I took out every dollar my parents left behind."

"You kept promising you'd give me a good life. Since we got married, I can't even keep myself fed."

"Don't bother treating your leg anymore."

Jonathan's pleading rang all the way through my house.

Not long after, Julia came again to borrow meat.

She pushed the door open, clapped a hand over her face and stared at me and Herbert in shock, gasping,

"You, you two are together?"

Julia smiled that simple, guileless smile of hers.

"I always said Herb was honest and good-natured, and he can earn a living. He's the most fitting man to build a life with."

The hurried footsteps outside came closer and closer.

The next second, with a bang, the front door was kicked open with force.

"Fiona Sinclair, you wouldn't dare!"