“Eek!”

At that moment, unfortunately, her eyes met with the child who was also peeking through the gap. After the shriek came the sound of startled footsteps running away.

‘I didn’t mean to scare her!’

Feeling uncomfortable, Erica flung the door open and stuck her head outside.

“Excuse me……”

She couldn’t quite bring herself to say the name. Still, as if knowing she was being called, the child who had been running up the stairs hesitantly turned around.

“What is it?”

“Well……”

The child clearly had something to say but wouldn’t answer readily. She twisted her body, sucked her thumb, and stared at her own feet.

Eric used to do the same thing when he was anxious or nervous.

“It’s nothing.”

“Wait.”

Erica stopped the child who was trying to run away.

The child seemed afraid of Erica, probably because of the memory from their first day after moving in.

‘Well, I did barge in like an angry bull while they were playing and dragged Eric out….’

Now she remembered how the child had looked up at her with intimidated eyes, apparently thinking she had done something wrong too.

‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’

What fault could the child have? It was equally pitiful that she had to watch her father chase after another woman with her brother.

The child apparently hadn’t inherited her father’s shamelessness. While Roderick constantly hovered around Erica, the child either quietly stuck behind him or hid behind doors.

Even without having exchanged a single word with her, Erica could tell.

‘She’s a timid and fearful child.’

For such a child to come all the way here must have taken great courage.

Rejecting her coldly would leave a lifelong scar.

Erica relaxed her hardened face and curved her lips upward. She also lightened her voice before speaking again.

“Auntie’s not angry, so tell me.”

The child hesitated for a moment, then hopped down just one step and asked in an almost whisper.

“Is Eric here? Eric said he would show me the chickens……”

It seemed Eric had told her about the chickens at the shop during their brief play time.

Swallowing a sigh, Erica gestured for her to come in, and the child’s anxious face began to brighten with a smile. Now she understood why Eric kept insisting she was a sunshine spirit. The child looked even more fairy-like when she smiled.

Erica’s face, which had unconsciously relaxed along with the child’s, suddenly hardened like stone.

Thump.

The sound of footsteps came from the top of the stairs, and Roderick’s leather boots appeared.

‘How long has that guy been hiding there?’

It seemed he had sent the child down and secretly watched the situation from the stairs. Erica felt completely baited.

‘Is he using his child as bait to hook a woman?’

Erica pulled Elodie inside and blocked Roderick as he tried to follow.

“I told Elodie to come in. Why are you coming in?”

“Because I’m Elodie’s guardian.”

Roderick now acted shamelessly without even a hint of remorse.

Should she beat him with a broom and drive him out right now?

But how could she do that when the child was watching them nervously, sucking her finger?

“Oh? It’s Elodie! Huh? Why is the mister here? I don’t want to play with the mister.”

“Mister… really……”

Eric delivered the blow instead.

* * *

The chickens were either dozing off on their perches or scratching and rubbing themselves in the sand in the small yard where sunlight had begun to stream in.

“This is how they bathe. Chickens bathe in sand.”

Eric excitedly went around the yard, introducing various things to his new friend, while Elodie, as expected, was afraid of the chickens and stuck to her father like glue. However, her curious eyes never left the chickens.

“Are there any chicks?”

The child asked while touring the yard under Eric’s guidance. It seemed that grown chickens weren’t cute, just scary.

“There’s no rooster.”

Erica answered instead, which prompted a question from Roderick.

“Why no rooster?”

“Having a rooster would just uselessly make chicks with this hen and that hen.”

“Why are chicks useless?”

“But chicks are cute……”

Of course, the innocent children didn’t understand Erica’s implication. Only the man, who was suddenly treated as the rooster, understood and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

“I come here every morning to collect eggs. Then Mom makes super delicious egg dishes.”

Eric boasted as if it were an incredibly impressive feat, then asked Elodie.

“Do you like eggs too?”

“Yes.”

“Then the eggs that are born every day……”

“Laid.”

Erica corrected the wrong word, but Eric waved his hands as if to say don’t do that. Then he promptly picked up the corrected word.

“Since four eggs are laid every day, I’ll give two to Elodie.”

“Wow, really?”

As the children made their deal, Roderick looked at Erica, seemingly asking if that was okay.

‘Does he think I’m petty enough to fuss over just two eggs, even though I’m struggling these days?’

Erica frowned as if asking what he was questioning, and Roderick grinned. Erica’s frown deepened.

“Thank you, Eric. Elodie, you should say thank you too.”

“Thank you, Eric.”

Roderick didn’t stop at making Elodie thank him but knelt in front of Eric to match the child’s eye level.

“Eric, you’re so generous……”

She couldn’t stand it anymore. Erica grabbed Roderick by the collar of his shirt and dragged him into the shop. While doing so, she didn’t forget to smile at the children.

“The adults are going inside to work, so you two play together.”

“Okay!”

“Yes.”

Erica dragged Roderick to a blind spot where the children couldn’t see them. She released him with a push in the secluded corner and warned him as he looked at her with eyes that seemed to expect something.

“Don’t talk to Eric.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell him I’m his father.”

“Of course you shouldn’t. Because you’re not Eric’s father.”

A lie. Roderick’s eyes said so again, but Erica once more pretended not to notice.

Anyway, that wasn’t the only reason Roderick shouldn’t approach Eric.

‘I’ve read so many secret baby stories in my past life.’

In her previous life, Erica used to forget her miserable life by reading equally miserable novels. Fighting fire with fire, so to speak.

Anyway, if you read enough secret baby stories, you start to see patterns. Once the trash karma-male finds the female lead and their child, he hovers around pretending to be pitiful, as Roderick did, or wins the child’s heart to open the female lead’s closed heart—that’s the standard route.

Then the female lead accepts that trash and—tada!—an infuriating happy ending!

Of course, Erica preferred even a sloppy happy ending to a well-written sad ending, so she liked those endings, but that was because it was someone else’s life in a novel.

‘There will be no trash collection in my life.’

Erica turned around and headed toward the shop door, saying.

“Adults should go do their work.”

“Taking care of Elodie is my work.”

Using that kind of excuse to approach Eric again. Erica grabbed Roderick’s shirt collar again as he tried to go to the backyard.

“Don’t you have a job?”

Instead of giving a proper answer, Roderick just raised and lowered his eyebrows.

Full-time parenting while raising a child alone? That didn’t make sense. Only then did she become curious.

‘How do you make a living? Rent, food—it must cost as much as our household. And you don’t seem to have money.’

So irresponsible.

He wasn’t this irresponsible in the past. What happened after he left the village?

‘They say the city ruins people, don’t they?’

Though she was born, raised, and died in Seoul, she was thinking like a country person—it seemed Erica had become a local.

Erica looked at the idle man in front of her with contemptuous eyes, then grabbed a wooden box from the counter and forcibly handed it to him.

The box contained medicine samples. Erica often distributed medicine samples and solicited customers, just like handing out cosmetic samples on the street.

Even if there wasn’t an immediate effect, there would be results in a month or two. Three or four people each month would try them, like the effects, and come back.

“If you have nothing to do, go out to the street and distribute these.”

Watching the children would be a way to approach Eric, so that wouldn’t do. Hovering around her wouldn’t do either. So she made up a reasonable excuse and drove Roderick out.

“What the.”

But he came back in less than an hour. The samples in the box were almost untouched.

“What were you doing for an hour that you couldn’t even distribute all of these……”