Corinne turned to look out the window and massaged her temples. "In other words, you got nothing out of the trip."
"No. I did get something."
Corinne's eyes lit up with hope once more. "What did you get?"
Lucas looked deeply into her eyes. "I heard Nellie Nymphaea's voice on the phone through that friend, and I'm a hundred percent sure that's our mother's voice! I believe that there aren't any two voices the same in the world. The timbre of the voice, the intonation, and the habitual use of the words are all the same!"
Corinne's eyes trembled. "So it's really Mom?"
Lucas nodded. "Yes, it's her."
Corinne's eyes turned red. "Mom… She's still alive."
It pained Lucas to see Corinne in such a state. He stroked her head and said, "Yes, she's still alive."
Corinne looked up at Lucas. "But why doesn't she want to see you? Does she know that it was you who wanted to meet?"
Lucas shook his head. "No, she didn't know it was me. I asked my friend not to tell her beforehand."
Corinne was speechless. 'Lucas is right. If Mom lost her memory, she wouldn't paint under the pen name Nellie Nymphaea. But if Mom didn’t lose her memory, why didn’t she come back to find me?'
Corinne could understand why her mother did not want to go back or meet the Riveras, but she was not strictly speaking a Rivera. She did not understand why her mother would feel like she had to hide from the world after leaving her behind.
Lucas gently hugged Corinne and patted her back gently. "I know you really want to see Mom. She probably hates me and the rest of the family, so I don't blame her for not wanting to see me. But for your sake, I won't give up trying to meet with her and will convince her to meet with you."
Corinne kept taking deep breaths in a bid to calm herself as she did not want to cry in front of Lucas. In the past, she thought she had a devil-may-care attitude and was not afraid of anything. However, she was not the same person as she was, and she came to have three worries.
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