Carmen kept playing the recording on a loop, only snapping out of it when the battery finally drained to zero and the device went dead.
She murmured softly under her breath, "I promise I'll fulfill your last wish."
Three days later, Carmen drove out to Julienne's hometown in a village, carrying her ashes in the passenger seat.
She had never been to the area before and didn't have the exact address of Julienne's old family house, so she had no choice but to pull over and ask a passing villager for directions.
"Hi there, excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the Martins' house?"
The villager gave her a wary look, sizing her up from head to toe. "We don't have a Martin living around here. You must have been in the wrong place."
Carmen swallowed the bitterness rising in her throat.
