Walker Grant frowned at her, and everyone’s eyes fixed on her face.

Chloe Reed lowered her gaze slightly and said calmly, "Ann didn’t mean any harm. She won’t do it again. Having her around helps Grandma relax, both physically and mentally."

At her words, Walker Grant’s frown deepened.

Annie York bowed quickly in gratitude. "Thank you, Chloe. I won’t let you down. I’ll be sure to take good care of Grandma."

Chloe Reed nodded. "All right, go on now. If anything like this happens again, just come and tell me."

"Okay, I will."

Annie York nodded eagerly.

Then, she glanced timidly at Walker Grant before turning and hurrying away. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Chloe Reed looked at him and saw the coldness in his expression. "I’m going to check on Grandma," she said.

She headed straight for her grandmother’s room.

Walker Grant watched her retreating back, his brow furrowed. He took out his phone, sent a message to Dylan Finch, and then turned to leave.

...

The old woman wasn’t asleep. Chloe Reed walked over, sat on the edge of the bed, and took her grandmother’s warm, dry hand in hers.

"Grandma, you haven’t said anything to me about her since you woke up. I kept thinking that maybe you wanted to see her, or maybe you wanted to ask her something. But you saw her today, and you didn’t seem to say anything. Can you tell me what’s on your mind?"

Her grandmother’s eyes were closed as she listened, her eyelashes trembling slightly.

Chloe Reed didn’t press her, waiting quietly instead. As the seconds and minutes ticked by, she felt the hand in her palm stir gently.

Chloe Reed turned her head to look at her grandmother.

She saw that her grandmother had opened her eyes. With a soft sigh, she propped herself up on her arms to sit up.

Chloe Reed helped her sit up, letting her lean against the headboard. It seemed as if more wrinkles had etched themselves onto her face; she looked incredibly old and weary.

Seeing her grandmother like this, Chloe Reed’s heart ached.

"Grandma,"

she called out, her voice catching with a slight sob.

Her grandmother paused for a few seconds before giving a soft chuckle. She then stroked Chloe’s hair and said, "To be honest, at first, I really did want to ask her why she did it."

Her grandmother spoke very slowly, and Chloe Reed didn’t rush her. She gazed out the window, her cloudy eyes filled with a world-weary sorrow.

"But then I thought about it. Ever since she met Susan Bowman in her teens, she was never close to me again. Later, she was always by Susan Bowman’s side. Perhaps even back then, she had already started seeing Susan Bowman as her mother, and I was just... someone who didn’t matter."

Hearing her grandmother say this made Chloe Reed feel awful. She squeezed the old woman’s hand.

"That’s not true."

"But to her, I was." Her grandmother’s tone was calm. After weathering decades of hardship, she had long learned to look past such disputes.

An even worse feeling washed over Chloe Reed. Her eyes began to sting, and the resentment she felt for Autumn Linton deepened.

Her grandmother let out a long, quiet sigh and continued, "Sigh... I kept hesitating. I was just wondering, how should I ask her? What would I even say? But when I saw her today, so sickly and pale... I suddenly had nothing left to say. Her time is running out, after all."