Even though Steven was the second son of the Bowers family, he felt as if he had been demoted to a nanny ever since Samuel returned with Franklin and Sophia five years ago. As long as one of them got into trouble, he would be the one taking all the blame in the end, no matter whatever reason was behind it.
However, Steven thought it wise to get straight to the point before shouldering the blame.
“Something astonishing happened, Sam. Sophia can speak now.”
Upon hearing this, Samuel's gaze softened as the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
“Is it because the treatment method was effective when you took Sophia to see Professor James in Ferropene this time?”
“No, it's not because of that.” Steven shook his head before continuing, “I was there during the psychological intervention. Professor James merely applied a conventional treatment this time, which was no different from the previous ones.”
“What was the cause of it then?”
“Sophia met a woman around her twenties at the airport today, Sam. She liked her so much that she called her Mommy several times. You should've seen her sulky face when they were about to part. Her eyes were flooded with tears that kept dripping down her face!”
Thinking back to the earlier events, Steven still felt that it was all very bizarre.
Although the Bowers family had never publicly announced the twins' birth mother when Samuel came back with them back then, they were well aware that she was the daughter of the Nichols family, Yara.
Sophia had never uttered a word to her mother, so why was she addressing a total stranger as her mommy?
Like his brother, Samuel was also puzzled. “Tell me about that woman,” he said as he narrowed his eyes.
“I wouldn't say that she's ugly. But she had freckles all over her face and was ordinary-looking,” Steven replied as he tried his best to recall her appearance. “Her facial features were very plain. There wasn't anything distinctive about them.”
“I wasn't asking about her looks, Steven.”
Steven was rendered speechless.
Samuel then added solemnly, “Since you know the woman is special to Sophia, Steven, why didn't you send someone to look into her background?”
He had a gut feeling that this ordinary-looking woman would be the key to curing Sophia's aphasia.
Steven slapped his thigh as soon as he heard his brother's words.
“Dang it. How could I forget such an important matter? I'll do it right away.”
In a bedroom on the second floor, Franklin Bowers was sharpening some colored pencils for Sophia.
Due to his status as the eldest grandchild of the Bowers family, he was placed on a higher pedestal compared to his sister. However, this was just an act for outsiders, as he was the perfect embodiment of an overprotective brother.
Taking the colored pencil from Franklin, Sophia drew a woman on the drawing paper.
The woman was slim, with a flat nose bridge, thick lips, and a face dotted with freckles. Oddly enough, the little girl was grinning the entire time she was drawing.
That was not all. She even drew yellow lines around the woman to signify light.
Sophia finished the drawing with a word scribbled on top of the woman's head that said: <i>Mommy.</i>
“Mommy?” Franklin's eyes were clouded with confusion.
His sister beamed as she nodded.
“Are you drawing the woman Daddy told us about?” Despite his question, he was still skeptical as she did not look anything like their mother.
Although the twins disliked Yara, they could not deny that she had a pretty face without any blemishes.
Sophia's smile vanished at the mention of Yara. She shook her head frantically in response.
How could Yara ever compare to the mommy in my drawing?
“If it isn't her, who else can it be?” queried Franklin.
Sophia longed to tell her brother of her feelings when she met Mommy but found that she could not utter a word.
Robbed once again of her ability to communicate, she felt slightly discouraged.
Nevertheless, she still rolled up the drawing and held it to her chest, treating it like her most prized possession.
Franklin was extremely curious about his sister's infatuation with the freckled-faced woman. <i>What kind of special charm does this woman have to make Sophia so obsessed with her?
At the same time, Natalie let out a loud sneeze as soon as she tore off the hyper-realistic mask on her face.
“Someone must be thinking of me again.”
At that moment, Xavian, who was scripting codes in front of the computer, glanced at the contents of a mail as he said, “Someone is definitely looking for you, Mommy. He is offering to pay you one hundred million to help him!”
- The Promise of Happiness novel Natalie and Samuel -
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