You Must Fall In Love

Chapter Sixty-Nine

The country code took about two seconds to find online, but she still had to breathe thrice before keying it in, her mouth seeming to suck all moisture from her fingertips.

The ringing began. She swallowed nothing, and waited.

What was she going to...

Beep.

"Mum? It's..."

"I know who it is. Why didn't you call sooner?"

Christine opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her mind was like a whiteboard shorn of its surface, just nothing but chipped cork and bare steel. Filled with things that might have once been thoughts.

"I didn't want to..."

"You didn't want to worry me?" came the sharp reply. "Christine Lam Siew-Fong, who do you think I am?"

"You're my..."

"Of course I'm your mother! How many days has it been since the incident?"

"I don't —"

"Who do you think is paying the hospital bill?"

"Just—"

"How do you think I..."

"Ma, just let me speak, okay?"

She almost screamed, but she stopped herself at the last minute, so that it came out as a strangled gasp instead of a wail.

Silence, on the other side of the line. Nothing but silence. She realized, suddenly, that she had no idea what Mum was thinking, whether she was angry or unhappy or giving her that critical, thin-lipped look that she always did. It was a terrible empty feeling.

Was this how most people felt about their mothers?

What had they been doing for all her life?

Mum said something, but she was so taken aback, she didn't even hear the reply.

"I... I didn't hear that," she said, biting back the petulance, trying not to sound like she was ten. She had called, hadn't she? Not the other way around? She was an adult, right?

"I said okay."

Christine closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Mum, did you know I was going to be the Hart Princess?"

"Of course I knew. We have the blood, you had the potential. The lines of fate converged on you."

She'd expected this, somehow, but there was nothing to think about. It was a statement of what she had already suspected.

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"Because there wasn't anything for you to do about it. Didn't I tell you not to tempt fate?"

Christine shook her head, irritation burning between her eyes, the unbearable sense that her mother might have been right after all.

Again with fate!

"If you'd told me..."

"You would have run away," said Mum, "and then the Hunters would have found you, and you would be dead."

"You knew about the Hunters?"

"No," said Mum, "but Walter told me. You stupid girl, I told you not to chase your luggage, right? Now look where it got you."

There was no denying it. She had been stupid. But there was something she had to say.

"I'm..."

"Don't you give me your excuses, Christine."

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

Christine gathered up all her courage and pushed on, splitting the confusion that had settled in her brain with her left hand, clutching the phone for dear life in her right, slicking the screen with cold sweat.

"When he... when Nimrod was about to... to kill Rob, I... I wasn't thinking about you, Mum. But then I did, after, and I realized that there were so many things I wanted to say, but..."

She hiccuped, and drops fell on the blanket. Her throat was trying to roll out of her body.

Was she crying again? Why?

"Mummy, I don't even know who you are. Why didn't you tell me? Don't you love me? I'm your daughter, right?"

The second silence was even more unbearable than the first. Christine listened, desperately, waiting for a response, any response, trying to hear through her own choked sobs.

It was only after two minutes that she pulled the phone away from her face and realized that there was no-one on the other end.