Chapter 311: Chapter 311: "Dr. Linden, the Patient in Bed 137 Has Passed Away.

Rory Linden had grown up with the Harrington family, but she’d rarely interacted with Charlotte Rhodes. Later, she and Sean Harrison got together, then broke up, and now, all these years later, she was Charlotte’s attending physician.

In all those twenty-odd years, Charlotte Rhodes had never spoken to her with such a tone.

The caregiver pulled a chair over to the bedside.

Rory Linden sat down. "Auntie Rhodes, please don’t be so formal. Just tell me what’s on your mind."

"Did Leo go to school today?"

Charlotte Rhodes asked about Leo first.

"No, he’s home. There’s a weekend robotics class he really enjoys, so Sean took him."

Rory Linden explained.

"How nice," Charlotte Rhodes murmured. "Growing up, Sean never had a parent take him to his classes."

...

"I wouldn’t let his father visit. I never took him to his classes, never took him to the park, and I never went to any of his school activities. Every time he won an award and showed it to me, I wouldn’t even offer a word of praise."

The old woman stared straight ahead, recounting the past word by word.

A heavy feeling settled over Rory Linden.

She had only known bits and pieces about Sean Harrison’s past.

She knew his childhood hadn’t been a happy one.

She knew Charlotte Rhodes hadn’t been a good mother.

She knew he’d been deprived of a happy childhood.

But listening to Charlotte Rhodes’s confession, a small, shadowy figure began to take shape in her mind.

"Leo said every mother loves her child. In that case, I suppose I don’t count as a mother."

"You must be aware of the many scars on Sean’s back. I’m the one who put them there. Whenever he did anything that didn’t go my way, I would fly into a rage and beat him."

"But he was such a stubborn child. No matter how much I beat him, he wouldn’t cry out or beg for mercy."

"That would only make me angrier."

"I don’t know what I was thinking. It was like I was punishing him, and yet... and yet..."

Unsure of how to describe the feeling, Charlotte Rhodes gave up trying to put a name to it.

"I never wanted to marry his father, but I had no choice in the matter. His father didn’t love me, either. After we began living apart, he cheated on me with one woman after another. By then, the allowance from my family had dwindled, and most of my income came from Sean’s father."

"I was such a failure back then. I didn’t have the courage to escape it all. I couldn’t defy my family, I couldn’t defy my husband, and I certainly couldn’t take it out on the servants."

"The only one around was Sean. When he was Leo’s age, I could hold him down with just one hand. He was powerless to resist."

"No matter how I beat him, he would only ever say that he’d do better next time."

"He seemed to... he was always trying to be better, I think. I just never paid attention."

"Once, he came in first on his exams and timidly asked if I would take him somewhere fun. I think it was Disneyland."

"I had already promised to spend the weekend with Lion. I assumed Sean had been eavesdropping on my phone call, and I beat him in a fit of rage."

Charlotte Rhodes spoke very slowly.

Piece by piece, she recalled the past, recounting everything she had done to Sean.

Though the events she described were so cruel, her expression remained placid as she recalled them.

It was as if she were talking about someone else’s life.

At some point during the confession, tears had begun to well up in Rory Linden’s eyes.

The small, shadowy figure in her mind grew clearer and more distinct.

She felt she finally understood why Sean was always so careful to appear perfect.

Her own family life had been unhappy, but while her mother was alive, she had been loved dearly.

Charlotte Rhodes spoke for a long, long time.

She looked over at Rory, who was wiping her tears with her head bowed. "Do you hate me? It wasn’t until I met Leo that I truly started to look back on the past. I’ve realized how cowardly and selfish I was. I don’t deserve to be a mother at all."

"Actually, Lion wasn’t that great. I think I just felt like such a failure that I tried to create a perfect version of myself, and he just happened to come along."

"I... COUGH, COUGH, COUGH."

Charlotte Rhodes tried to say more but was overcome by a fit of coughing.

"Auntie Rhodes, you need to rest. We can talk about this another time."

Rory Linden urged.

"I’m fine, I’m fine." Charlotte Rhodes waved her hand dismissively. She looked at Rory. "Miss Linden, about that car accident all those years ago... it was Lion who drugged him."

"What?"

Rory Linden froze.

Charlotte Rhodes coughed again before continuing with difficulty, "I found out long ago, but Lion begged me to keep it a secret. He said he only did it because he wanted to be with me..."

...

Rory fell silent.

"I’m sorry," Charlotte Rhodes said. "If I had told the truth back then, perhaps you two would have never broken up."

...

Rory didn’t want to say anything.

’So she and Sean never should have taken such a long, winding road.’

’Their son could have had a perfect childhood.’

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

There was a knock at the door.

Before the caregiver could answer, a nurse pushed the door open. Upon seeing Rory, she said immediately, "Dr. Linden, there’s an emergency consultation. The director needs you right away."

"Got it!"

Rory Linden shot up from her chair.

She wiped away her tears before saying to Charlotte Rhodes, "Auntie Rhodes, I have to get back to work."

With that, she hurried out of the room.

Before her shift ended that evening, Rory Linden made her rounds again.

When she got to Charlotte Rhodes’s room, the caregiver told her that the older woman was already asleep.

She still took a quick look around the room before she left.

Sean Harrison was waiting for her downstairs, holding a bouquet of flowers.

Since it was the weekend, he was alone.

The moment Rory saw him in the lobby of the inpatient building, Charlotte’s words flooded her mind.

Word for word, she could almost see the sad, helpless boy he must have been.

She had just walked over to him and taken the flowers when...

"Well now, Dr. Linden, your husband’s here to pick you up again," a doctor who had been in the consultation with her earlier teased.

"He is!"

This time, Rory didn’t stay silent. She answered cheerfully.

It was the man beside her who was stunned for a few seconds.

The doctor laughed. "Go on, you two, get out of here. I’ve already had dinner; I don’t need you two making me feel any more single!"

As they left the inpatient building, Rory looked from the flowers in her hands to the man beside her. "We’re running out of vases at home," she said. "Let’s go buy another one."

"Okay."

Sean Harrison agreed.

He could sense that Rory was somehow different today.

He just didn’t know why.

’Rory had no intention of telling Sean about her conversation with his mother.’

’It was better to let the past stay in the past.’

-

「In the middle of the night.」

Rory was fast asleep when her phone began to ring incessantly.

Half-asleep, she fumbled for the phone. She glanced at the caller ID—it was the hospital—and pressed it to her ear, her eyes still closed. "What’s wrong?"

"Dr. Linden, the patient in bed 137 just passed away."