Chapter 4
Half an hour later, Samuel pushed open the gate, which was already covered in cobwebs. The weeds in the courtyard had grown
even taller than the grass by the gate. They reached up to his waist.
It was clear that this place had been uninhabited for a long time.
Samuel stood in the courtyard, hesitating whether to take another step forward.
He had been here twice before, and he should have remembered that I kept the yard in excellent condition. It didn’t look anything
like this when he visited in the past.
The first time he came here was to drop off Toby and me. Back then, two–year–old Toby had just been diagnosed with uremia
caused by underdevelopment of his kidneys.
He thought Toby was a jinx and bought this farmhouse in a remote village for us to move into. Every month, he transferred me 20
thousand dollars, which included the fees for Toby’s dialysis treatment.
The second time he came was to force me to go and do the HLA typing to see if my bone marrow was compatible with Violet’s. If his memory didn’t fail him, he should recall that the yard was once filled with hydrangeas and roses. I had even built a swing
there for Toby.
