The pair of mother and daughter were now seated on the lounge chairs that had been placed under the canopy in the back garden.
The sweet scent of fresh roses planted in the garden wafted in their direction, enveloping them as a gentle breeze blew their way.
Giana Valken, the Matriarch of the Valken family, sat facing her daughter and scanned her from top to bottom.
"Did you lose weight?" She inquired while shaking her head, wondering whether her daughter was taking care of herself as she lived alone in a different country.
This question made Nita chuckle as it had been a constant every single time she met her mother.
"You know that is not possible." Nita rolled her eyes at her mother's unnecessary inquiry.
A Vampire's metabolic rate was stagnant, making it highly impossible for them to lose weight.
It was easier for them to overfeed and put on muscle in places they wished to bulk in but it was difficult for them to lose weight.
Their bodies would not allow them to starve themselves, which was essential for one to lose weight.
Therefore, Nita knew that this question was just a mother's innate concern for her child's well-being and had nothing to do with reality.
Giana once again shook her head at her daughter's reaction but decided to drop this topic for now.
"It has been so long since we sat like this..." She muttered to herself but Nita heard her anyway.
"We met just last summer." Nita reminded her mother of their last meeting.
After Nita had left the country, her mother had come to visit her almost every year, though she had done so without letting the other members of the family know about her whereabouts.
Even her elder brother, Detrim, had done the same, without letting the others know of his trips to visit her.
Thinking of this, Nita could not help but smile at her family members who thought they were hiding their concern for her but had come to visit her as often as they could.
Both her mother and brother made trips to visit her without letting the other know of their itinerary.
Only her father had stayed away from her throughout the years she had left the city.
However, this was what she had wished for so she did not mind his absence and instead chose to now focus her attention on the reason for her return to this place that she had willingly left many years ago.
"Was Brother acting differently before his disappearance?" Nita questioned as she leaned closer towards her mother.
While the two siblings were distant from their strict father, they were naturally closer to their mother, who was both gentle and loving.
Therefore, if there was someone who knew about Detrim's daily activities, excluding his personal assistant Milo, it surely would be their mother.
Hence, she chose to use this opportunity to learn more about her brother's behavior in the last few days before he disappeared.
"What do you mean by different?" Giana inquired as she could not decipher what her daughter was trying to figure out by asking this question.
"Hmm... Anything that was unlike his usual self." Nita responded and continued with her theory.
"Maybe he seemed worried or nervous about something? It could be something related to his business or even his personal life." She explained and waited to see how her mother would react.
"Anything at all that comes to your mind might be helpful!" She added, reminding her mother that even the tiniest of the details might come in handy in finding him.
Giana took her time to recollect the past few days before Detrim had left the house and a look of realization appeared on her face.
"There was something... Around a week before he disappeared, we had dinner together..." The mother began narrating an incident that came to her mind after hearing Nita's questions.
___
Around a week before Detrim's disappearance, he had returned home from the office ahead of his usual time.
This had seemed off to Giana, who was used to having dinner alone on most nights as even her Husband, Uri would be busy with matters concerning the Valken clan's branch families.
Though Uri had taken a step back from handling the Valken family business, he still had a lot of responsibilities as the head of the Valken family, which kept him away from dinner on most nights.
Her son, on the other hand, was either busy working late into the night or attending business events, which delayed his return home every day.
However, as her son had returned home just in time for dinner, she had suggested that they have dinner together and Detrim had agreed without giving it much thought.
The pair of mother and son had found a rare opportunity to eat together and reminisce about the old days when the entire family would gather at the dinner table every night on time to have their meal with each other.
Giana had mentioned how after Nita had left the city, Uri would often skip having dinner at the table with them and Detrim would keep himself busy with the family business.
This left the mother to eat alone at the table every night.
Hearing about her lonely thoughts, Detrim had shown her an expression that had stuck with her until now.
___
"Guilt..." Giana came back from her thoughts and revealed to Nita how she had deciphered Detrim's expression that night.
"Maybe he was feeling bad for not accompanying you to dinner more often?" Nita tried to make sense of the incident her mother had just shared.
She herself felt the same way after hearing about this encounter, as she, in some way, had been the reason for this family to drift apart.
'Not that it would have made me change my decision of leaving...' She added in her heart as nothing would have made her stay in this city back in the past.
Now, unfortunately, circumstances were different and hence she had no way of turning her back on her family like she had done back then.
She was certain that, just like her, Detrim too must have felt guilty that their mother was left alone at home while the rest of them had kept themselves busy.
However, in the very next second, Giana shook her head as she was confident that the expression she had seen from Detrim meant something else entirely.
"It was almost as if he had done something wrong and was guilty about it." She explained, recalling why she had felt this way back when she was having dinner with him.
She had not thought too much about it as she did not want their dinner together to be ruined by sad memories so she had not focused on it and had even changed the topic.
Now, thinking back to this incident, it made her recall another incident with Detrim from when he was a child.
"Your brother had shown a similar expression only once in the past... Back when he was around ten." She reminisced about an incident when her children were younger.
Without waiting for her daughter, Giana went ahead and explained how this incident came to her mind when she recalled Detrim's expression.
"Your elder brother had gotten into a quarrel at a family gathering, pushing your cousin into the pool after beating him up." She revealed something that Nita had never even heard about.
To Nita, her elder brother was the epitome of a well-behaved child who could do no wrong in the eyes of their parents.
Hence, hearing that he too had a not-so-perfect past as a child was making her giggle.
"So he showed the same guilty expression as when he had beaten up one of the cousins as a child?" She summarized what her mother had revealed and saw her nod.
"If you wish to oversimplify it, then yes, but it was anything but simple back when this incident had taken place." Giana sighed while thinking of the mess Detrim's actions had caused at that family event.
As the family head, Uri had to take responsibility for their son's unruly actions and had to apologize to the rest of the family members as well as the parents of the cousin who had been injured.
"That poor child was in the hospital for three days after taking Detrim's beating..." She muttered these next words, successfully putting a stop to Nita's giggles.