In the past few weeks, her mental state had been rather poor. Most of the time, she lived in a hazy illusion, looking at her deceased father and the unborn child. Every time she thought of these things, it tore her apart with pain. Even during her psychological therapy sessions, the thought of death lingered in her heart.
All this suffering was brought upon her by Hamish. She had originally planned to spend her remaining year of life taking revenge on Hamish, but he was like an impenetrable fortress. Despite her heart burning like hot iron, she could not melt his icy heart.
She had overestimated herself and underestimated Hamish’s unyielding nature. She had deluded herself into thinking that she could warm his heart with her hands, only to find out that Hamish had no heart at all.
“Hamish, I don’t owe you anything, or rather, I have already repaid what I owed, principal and interest.”
Ignoring her words, Hamish said, “I know you resent me deep down. I will make it up to you. Apart from divorce and Lila, whatever you want, as long as I can do it, I promise you.”
Elisa seemed uninterested in dealing with him, leaning against the headboard with her eyes closed as if she wanted to sleep.
After waiting for a while, when Hamish was about to shake the bed to wake her up, Elisa spoke, “I want to leave the hospital.”
“Alright.”
Elisa continued, “Before leaving, I want to talk to Hattie alone.”
Hamish hesitated for a moment. Hattie, that woman, had a doll-like face that seemed innocent but was actually cunning. Who knew if she would say something derogatory about him in Elisa’s ear?
“You don’t agree?”
“I’ll go get her then. I promised Elisa just now, and I can’t go back on my word.”
Hattie received the call and came as soon as she finished seeing her patients. She gestured for Hamish to leave and closed the door, isolating their conversation.
“Are you feeling better now?”
Elisa forced herself to appear composed. “I’m awake now, but my reactions are still a bit slow.”
“That’s normal. You’ve only just recovered. So, what are you going to do next?” Hattie asked with concern.
“What else can I do? Just… endure.”
Elisa said, “The only regret I have now is that on the day of the abortion, I was in so much pain that I couldn’t speak. Otherwise, I would have asked you to remove my uterus.”
Hattie furrowed her brow. “Are you still concerned about that child?”
How could she not be concerned? Although she had been prepared to terminate the pregnancy, when the unexpected happened, she realized how reluctant she was in her heart.
“I thought I didn’t care, but when he disappeared from my womb, I felt a deep pain. I wanted to die with the child. It proved what Micah said before, that having a child gives you something to hold onto. She refused it with her mouth, but in her heart, she silently acknowledged the presence of that child.”
“During that hazy period, I occasionally heard the cries of the child. He wanted me to hold him, but when I reached out, I saw that child turn into a pool of blood. Elisa gently placed her hand on her abdomen, where there would no longer be any response from within. She whispered bitterly, ‘This kind of pain is enough once.'”
That’s what she thought, but Hamish wouldn’t grant her wish. Her uterus was still intact, and Hamish would definitely make her pregnant as he had said before. But she couldn’t give birth. She could only watch helplessly as each child died. The thought of it made Elisa tremble with fear.
Hattie changed the subject. “I’ll tell you some good news. Micah’s research abroad has made new progress.”
“Hmm, that’s good.” There was no visible joy on Elisa’s face.
In fact, Hattie wasn’t very clear about the specific progress of the research. After all, Micah and his team had signed a confidentiality agreement and couldn’t disclose any information to the public.
But the fact that they told her there had been progress meant that they had likely stabilized the spread of cancer cells. If they could stabilize it, then they could extend the lives of cancer patients. Wasn’t the distance to completely curing cancer patients much closer now that they had more time?
“I have been prescribing medication for you during your illness, and Hamish hasn’t noticed anything unusual,” Hattie said, taking out a blood collection needle from her pocket.
“I want to collect some of your blood to send to Micah. It’s already been delayed this month.”
Elisa stretched out her hand. “Go ahead and draw it.”
Hattie drew five tubes of blood, pressed a cotton swab on the needle puncture site to stop the bleeding, and left only after the blood had dried.
During this time, Hamish took care of the discharge procedures and when he returned, he didn’t notice anything unusual between Hattie and Elisa, as they had just finished their conversation.