After I Died, He Went Mad

Synopsis

Liliana Rossi had been married into the Castello family in upstate New York for three years, yet her husband Vito hated her to the core. He believed she was a scheming woman who had forced him into marriage, unaware the union had been arranged by his mother, and oblivious to Liliana’s terminal stomach cancer. When she filed for divorce and begged him to exonerate her wrongfully imprisoned father, Vito replied coldly, “Your death would only set me free.” Shortly after, her father was said to have committed suicide, followed by her brother. Overwhelmed by despair, Liliana cut her hair, slit her wrists, and set a fire to coerce the Castello family into granting her a divorce. She died in her mother’s arms at only twenty-five years old. What she never learned was that Vito was not behind her family’s misfortunes—his elder sister Isabella was the real culprit. When the truth finally came to light, Vito crumbled completely. His mother died overwhelmed by guilt, Isabella descended into madness, and his father knelt before Liliana’s grieving mother, begging her to end his suffering. Trapped in hallucinations, Vito spent his days talking to a phantom of Liliana, clinging to a delusional happiness. It was only when his health deteriorated and his garden fell into neglect that he was forced to accept the brutal truth: she was truly gone forever. Years passed, and Vito never remarried. Every spring, he laid a bouquet beside the stone monument in his red tulip garden. Tulips stand for sincere love and unwavering promises—feelings he once scorned, yet spent the rest of his life atoning for a cruel remark he could never take back.