Chapter 20: The Last Four Years

"Ivan!!! Oscar!! It's time for lunch!" I shouted.

"Oscar i asked the chef to make you your favorite shepherd's pie!" Ivan said as he walked out of the woods, holding Oscar's hand as usual.

It's been like this for the past few days.

They play together endlessly and the nanny watches over them to keep them safe. Then after 8pm the nanny bows her head in respect and leaves with Oscar.

It's true that I'm not happy about this situation, but what can I do?

Watching Oscar open his heart to me for the first time yesterday melted my heart.

Now he lets me hold his hand.

It's as if he accepted that I won't hurt him.

Watching him eat a little more each day makes me and Ivan happy.

Most of all, hearing Ivan talk excitedly every night about what they did together all day makes my heart weak.

How they found 5 acorns today.

How they dug the ground deep enough to hide the wooden horse doll.

He talks for hours until he falls asleep.

Every morning after breakfast, Ivan goes to his room to choose the toys he wants to play with today.

Or he asks the cook what he is going to make for the day.

“Don’t use onions, Oscar hates them,” he reminds him every day.

And he always keeps a cookie for Oscar.

I don’t have the heart to tell him the truth.

I can’t tell him that Camelia is the cause of all our misery.

I can’t tell him that Oscar is actually his half-brother.

The only thing I can do is try to give Ivan a normal childhood, hoping that Camelia will somehow allow it.

It is amazing that even after Camelia returned she said nothing about her son disappearing for hours every day.

After all, according to the nanny, she rarely visited him and only took him to parties to play the role of a great mother.

“This hasn’t happened much since that incident 6 months ago.

When she lost her temper after Oscar was bullied by the other noble children because of the way he spoke.

“Does the Duke ignore Oscar too?” i asked the nanny.

“No, he’s the only one who got really worried after Young Master Oscar stopped talking. He brought the best doctors too, but the problem isn’t physical as you know, so it didn’t work.”

“Wait, do you mean they’re not taking care of Oscar together?”

“Madam, don’t tell me you don’t know,” the maid said with a surprised face and then continued.

“The Duke suddenly stopped talking to Lady Camellia after the day they came back from Melbourne to buy some clothes for the baby, I think it has something to do with you but no one knows for sure.”

‘Wait, was it after Ivan was born?’ I thought to myself.

“For the past four years, the only day the Duke has visited Lady Camellia was the day Young Master Oscar was born, and after that he has only met the baby separately.

“But the problem is that he goes out on a secret mission a lot and isn’t home most of the times” the nanny said.

That night in my bed I kept thinking, 'I thought he couldn’t live without her.'

To be honest, knowing that he didn’t care about Camilla anymore made me want to distance myself even more  from him.

It’s scary how easily he could break up a 10-year relationship with someone he’s spent half his life with.

I tried to stop thinking about it any more.

“Tomorrow the boys and I are planning to make a carrot cake, so let’s focus on that.”

That night, I naively thought that Camilla would actually leave us alone.

Only to fall into the same old trap.