Jakub’s body was wheeled out of the morgue and the family members needed to take their final
farewells of it.
Elder Mrs. Henderson didn’t go near the body and just collapsed.
Elder Mr. Henderson waved his hand to let Clara carry her mother away.
Then he approached Jakub.
Standing next to them, Khalid and Marshall cannot bear to witness the scene.
Elder Mr. Henderson stood beside the wheel stretcher and lifted the white sheet that was covering
Jakub’s body and stared his face for a while.
Elder Mr. Henderson seemed to let out a final sigh and said, “My son, why are you being such a fool?”
The hospital didn’t give them much time to say goodbye and just urged them to wheel the body inside.
Then the hospital staff came over and wheeled the stretcher in and said that they call collect the ashes
in half an hour.
Well, actually, the only item a person can leave behind the world was those ashes in that tiny box.
Elder Mr. Henderson gazed at the direction of the cremator and then suddenly burst into tears.
It seemed that only at this time he started examining himself.
He sobbed, “Jakub, I’m sorry.”
But all of those words were meaningless at this point.
After elder Mrs. Henderson was supported by Clara, she cried violently and then just fainted away.
Clara’s auntie then helped her to carry elder Mrs. Henderson onto the chair.
Clara then walked towards Marshall, “Thanks for coming.”
Marshall didn’t know what to say and just said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Clara nodded and lowered her voice, “How are you and Katherine recently? Are you all right?”
Marshall looked at her with the corner of his eyes and whispered, “We’re okay for now. Did you know
anything?”
Clara can’t really tell him, but the truth was she really didn’t know the details.
She just overheard some of the conversations of elder Mr. Henderson and old Mr. Henderson and
didn’t have any concrete evidences.
She then just shook her head.
Marshall mused for a while and added, “Does your family have any subsidiary businesses?”
Clara blinked her eyes and replied, “I don’t know.”
She really didn’t know that, but she heard that her family did have some other business apart the
company from her father and grand-father.
Old Mr. Henderson didn’t really lay out the whole thing clearly and Clara only got to hear some of the
information, so she couldn’t piece everything together.
Now that Marshall was suddenly asking her about this, she was really bewildered.
Marshall scanned around and murmured, “Now that you warned me, I got to tell you the truth. Your
family seems to be running an underground casino and is handing out low interest loans. This is a bit
fishy.”
Clara frowned, “Fishy?”
Marshall can’t really tell her all the details and can really give her this amount of information.
Elder Mr. Henderson cried uncontrollably and Clara hurriedly rushed towards him and soothed him.
There were quite a lot of people being cremated right now. Now that Marshall was standing here to
witness all the family members who were crying their eyes out, he felt that death was a totally normal
thing that was happening in this world for the first time in his life.
There were many people departing from this world everyday which left their families overwhelmed with
grief for the rest of their lives.
Jakub’s ashes were brought out in half an hour.
The Hendersons had prepared the urn beforehand and packed the ashes neatly.
Elder Mr. Henderson and elder Mrs. Henderson both came down with grief and didn’t go to the
mortuary house and Clara was left to send the urn to the house.
Marshall proposed, “Let me take you there. You are not fit to drive now.”
Clara nodded, “Thank you.”
After going out of the hospital, Clara got on Marshall’s car.
On the way to the mortuary house, Clara pursued asking Marshall that question, “You said that my
family is operating a casino now. Where is it located?”
Marshall didn’t answer the question directly and asked back, “You really don’t know what kind of things
that your father or your grandfather are doing secretly?”
Clara pondered for a minute and answered, “I have some assumptions, but I can’t verify them.”
Marshall was actually surprised that Clara was telling him all this information.
He then answered, “Then I’ll take your word for it.”
Clara hugged Jakub’s urn and said lightly, “After Jakub left, I actually have been examining my family
seriously. I think that the lifestyle in my family is really sick.”
Clara let out a breath and continued lowly, “I sometimes would ponder that I was really tough to have
survived in this family. Maybe it was because that I’m a girl and I would have been the same situation
of Jakub’s if I were a boy.”
Growing up, Jakub didn’t really have his own time.
All of his hobbies and daily work were arranged by elder Mr. Henderson.
Old Mr. Henderson would sometimes meddle in too.
They basically had molded Jakub out of their own wishes.
Clara’s eyes reddened, “My poor Jakub, things would probably be different if I noticed something wrong
earlier.”
Marshall turned to Clara and said, “You can’t blame yourself for this. Nobody has seen this coming.
What’s more, I know you got your own difficulties.”
Hearing Marshall’s words, Clara suddenly choked with sobs and felt like bursting out all of her pains.
But she just heaved a sigh and didn’t say anything.
Marshall drove the car into the mortuary house and didn’t go inside.
He just waited in the car.
Clara went into the house with Jakub’s urn.
Leaning against the car seat, Marshall lighted a cigarette.
There were some people burning sacrificial money and shrieking with grief in the house.
Some people even invited Buddhist master to chant for the dead ones.
Marshall looked away and felt uncomfortable inside.
He then thought of his grandpa.
Khalid also asked a master to conduct some religious rites when his grandpa passed away.
Marshall didn’t really understand the point of this.
Those family members were merely doing this to let themselves feel better.
Marshall didn’t wait too long and Clara came out soon after processing all the papers.
She had clearly cried and was dispirited.
Marshall gave her some tissues and she replied thanks.
Marshall didn’t drive too fast and asked Clara if she wanted to go back to her home or to the company.
He was actually probing out saying this.
As expected, she said the truth, “I’ll not work in the company anymore. All of my titles were taken
away.”
Her words proved that she didn’t lie before.
Marshall pretended to be confused, “Why did you quit your job? Do you want to take a break at home?”
Clara shook her head, “I didn’t it myself. My father and grandfather didn’t want me to go the company
for now. I don’t know the reason.”
62fb1bb41dcb31934bd49bda