Before deciding on a birthday present for Jean, there was something they needed to know first.
“Do you know what Sir Lambert likes the most?”
“Me! Daddy likes me the most!”
“Ugh, that’s so adorable…”
Anne had to clutch her chest again at the answer that came without a shred of doubt, full of confidence.
If it’s Sir Lambert, he’d probably be overjoyed just hearing the young lady wish him a happy birthday…
Anne hadn’t been at the Lambert estate for very long yet, but she already knew Jean was utterly smitten with his daughter. Honestly, she’d realized the man was hopelessly doting from the moment she first interviewed with him before arriving here.
Still, she couldn’t crush the heart of a little girl who wanted to give her father a present.
“That’s true! Sir Lambert loves you more than anything in the world, my lady. Hmm… but you don’t just want to congratulate him with words, right?”
“Mhm, mhm! Right! I want to give him something else. Something way cooler than the picture Peter gave him!”
Who was Peter?
Anne didn’t ask. As someone experienced with children, she knew that wasn’t the important thing right now.
“Hmmm. What would be good? Why don’t we go over there and talk about it properly?”
The two secretly relocated to Anne’s room and began a full-scale meeting.
It was a rather small matter to call a “meeting,” but to Vivian, this was the most important thing in the world. The pair approached it with complete seriousness.
“Now then, let’s think about what would be good to give him! It’s not too late yet, so should I go all the way to Belouan?”
Anne was even prepared to spend her own savings. She could think of it as preparing the gift together with Vivian, and Jean paid far more generously than most employers anyway, so she didn’t mind at all.
Vivian’s cotton-candy-like hair swayed from side to side.
“Nooo. Then it wouldn’t really be me giving Daddy the present. Anne would be buying everything for me. And besides, I don’t have any money to buy Daddy anything…”
“Ahh.”
Anne nodded, understanding what Vivian meant.
“Then… we should think of something you can make or do yourself. I have an idea. How about this?”
Even though no one was eavesdropping, Anne leaned close and whispered into Vivian’s ear anyway.
Vivian’s eyes grew wider and wider as she listened quietly.
The next day.
“Oh no, I’m late. My princess must be hungry.”
Jean hurried home from Belouan after finishing some errands.
Since he always prepared meals himself instead of leaving it to Anne, he worried Vivian’s dinner would end up terribly late.
He had completely forgotten that today was his own birthday.
“Something quick I can make… huh?”
He tossed his outer coat into the room and rushed into the kitchen, only to be greeted by the smell of delicious food.
Had Anne prepared dinner because he was late?
“Ah, Miss Anne. I’m sorry for making you handle dinner prepara—?”
A scene he never could have expected awaited him.
The table was filled with food.
And Vivian came running straight toward him.
Clinging tightly to his leg, she declared,
“Daddyyy! Happy birthday!”
“Bi-birthday?”
“Mhm! It’s your birthday today. Didn’t you know?”
He didn’t.
Back when he’d lost his memories, he hadn’t even known when his birthday was, so there’d been nothing to celebrate. And after regaining them, he’d never had the luxury of caring about birthdays.
From Jean’s perspective, it had been over ten years since he’d last celebrated one. No wonder he’d forgotten such a thing existed.
Only after hearing the word birthday did he vaguely remember.
Ah… right. It was around this time.
“How did you know it was my birthday…?”
“Of course I know! It’s Daddy’s birthday!”
Already, Jean’s nose was stinging.
Fighting back tears, he lifted Vivian—who was still wrapped around his leg—and walked closer to the table.
“Hehe, Daddy. Look at that. Anne helped me make it!”
Vivian pointed with her tiny finger toward a cake.
Fruit was decorated atop the whipped cream cake in a clumsy, uneven arrangement. It was immediately obvious where Vivian’s little hands had been involved.
“And, and!”
Wriggling to be put down, Vivian darted over to Anne the moment her feet touched the floor and received something from her.
It was a frame almost as big as Vivian herself.
She waddled back carefully while hugging it backward so the picture inside wouldn’t show, and Jean worried the entire time that she might trip.
Seven wasn’t really an age where children stumbled while walking anymore, but that was simply how a father’s heart worked.
Seeing how tiny Vivian still was—barely any different in size from when she’d been five—he couldn’t help but worry about how poorly she must have eaten while he was gone.
Fortunately—naturally—Vivian made it to him safely and proudly held out the frame.
“This too! This too! I drew it myself!”
“You drew it yourself…?”
Heart pounding, Jean turned the frame around.
Inside was a picture drawn with clumsy lines.
Did they have crayons in the house?
Something colored pink. Something colored brown.
Vivian had absolutely no talent for drawing.
The abstract shapes didn’t resemble people in the slightest, but Jean immediately knew what it was.
“It’s Daddy and our princess!”
“Mhm! That’s right!”
“Our Vivi… drew this just to celebrate Daddy’s birthday… ngh.”
He was so overwhelmed that he could barely get the words out.
Sniffling, Jean gently stroked the surface of the frame. If there hadn’t been glass protecting it, Vivian’s drawing would already have been smudged by tears.
But this wasn’t all Vivian had prepared today.
As though determined to dry out every tear he had left, she tugged him over to a chair and made him sit down. Then she accepted something from Anne and stood in front of him with a deeply nervous expression.
“My lady, don’t be too nervous. Just do it like we practiced!”
Anne encouraged her from behind with a pleased smile.
—Not that Anne minded the extra work at all. Watching a pure, beautiful man like Jean make all kinds of emotional expressions while tearing up was entertainment enough for her.—
What else had Vivian prepared?
Jean wiped away his tears with his sleeve and straightened his posture.
Whatever it was, he intended to treasure every second of it.
What Vivian pulled out was… a blade of grass.
Grass?
Only after seeing her raise it to her lips did Jean finally remember.
Vivian proudly telling him she’d learned how to play a grass whistle from Anne, then blowing into leaves nonstop right up until bedtime.
Her tiny lips inhaled softly.
Then a familiar melody began to drift through the room.
The performance wasn’t exactly excellent.
It wasn’t even a real instrument—and honestly, could a blade of grass even count as one?—and she’d only just learned recently, so there were many places where the pitch went off or the rhythm faltered.
But to Jean, it was a melody from heaven.
Even if an angel descended from the skies and performed for him personally, it could never sound sweeter than this.
“Fwaaah…! I-it’s over. Waaah… I messed up way more than I did during practice.”
The moment the performance ended, Vivian drooped gloomily and lowered her head.
Jean immediately scooped her into his arms.
“There were mistakes? Daddy couldn’t tell at all.”
“Liaaar.”
“No, really. The fact that our Vivi celebrated a birthday even Daddy himself forgot about…”
His nose stung again, and Jean buried his face against her shoulder, unable to continue speaking.
I haven’t even done anything for you.
Not only had he left her alone and forced her to suffer for years, he’d also been the bastard who let her starve and waste away in sickness until death.
That future no longer existed now, but Jean knew he would carry that guilt for the rest of his life.
“And yet someone like me still gets called Daddy…”
This tiny little girl had remembered his birthday. She’d thought so hard about how to celebrate him.
Just imagining it brought a wave of emotion too overwhelming to describe.
Jean could only hold Vivian tightly and cry for a long, long time.
Night settled over the bedroom.
Jean sat on the bed, gently stroking Vivian’s sleeping pink hair for a long while.
Hair exactly like his wife’s, who had passed away long ago.
Hiring a painter to create portraits cost an enormous amount of money—especially in a rural village like this.
That was why Jean had never been able to leave behind a portrait of his wife.
The only reason he’d commissioned portraits of himself and Vivian afterward was because he regretted that fact so bitterly after she died.
On days like today, he wished he could at least see her face in a painting.
But little by little, his memories of her features kept fading.
“Rosaline, Vivian celebrated my birthday today. Isn’t it amazing? When did she grow up so much?”
How happy would his wife have been if she’d been here today?
Maybe she would’ve sung alongside Vivian.
The image alone brought a smile to Jean’s lips.
“You should’ve heard it yourself—how wonderfully our daughter can play the grass whistle.”
His hand slowed as it stroked Vivian’s hair.
“I miss you…”
His voice, thick with longing, drifted through the silent room with no one there to hear it before fading away.
