“Huh? Really? But yo used to call me mom,” Anna laughed as she was flattered. She didn’t care what Isabella called her but just lectured her for a few minutes.
Then Anna asked, “You said you saved the girl, what about her? Did she thank you?”
“I was afraid she’d be embarrassed, so I let her go,” Isabella explained as she buckled her seat belt.
“Wow! You look exactly like one of those lady knights.”
“Yeah!”
Anna couldn’t help but laugh. After they left the airport highway, Anna asked, “Honestly, why did you call me out of the blue? You rarely said you wanted to come back before.”
Isabella didn’t say anything.
Anna glanced at her and said, “I’m asking you. If you don’t tell me, I’ll send you back to America right now.”
Isabella grabbed the armrest and said, “No! I’m not going back to America!”
“Did you have another fight with Lily?” Anna asked.
Isabella was a wild child who had grown up on the island and had a distinct personality and temperament. As a result, she thought differently than others. On the other hand, Lily was a serious person concerned about her reputation.
They used to argue about Isabella’s behavior after she and Jasper married. Isabella was still a child and Jasper’s legally adopted daughter. So Jasper wouldn’t blame her if she made a mistake. But, over time, she became the source of conflict in their marriage.
Anna knew it before. When she heard about it, she offered to take Isabella to live with her on a French farm. But Jasper turned her down, and Isabella didn’t want to do that. So, Anna said nothing more.
Isabella finished the classes she had missed the year before and was sent to boarding school by Jasper. As a result, she stopped causing problems for them. But she got into trouble again right after her summer vacation.
“Lily is actually a good person, so you don’t have to fight with her all the time. I’ve talked about this with you. Don’t play dumb, okay? I know what you’re thinking.”
Isabella asked nervously, “You know that?”
“You’re afraid Jasper and Lily will neglect you after they have a baby, ” Anna said, looking straight ahead.
Isabella froze for a moment after hearing Anna’s words, then exhaled a sigh of relief.
Knowing she had hit the nail on the head, Anna added, “Jasper is not that type of person, and Lily is not, either. You think that Lily is not treating you well, right? But you still have me! Don’t worry. After all, you’ll be an adult soon. You won’t be able to rely on Jasper for the rest of your life.”
Isabella blinked in surprise and appeared distressed. She had always been a talker and hadn’t said anything else until she got home. Anna thought that was odd. She glanced at Isabella in the passenger seat and found her asleep. Then she sighed and turned up the cool air conditioning, driving slightly slower.
***
“Isabella!” exclaimed a sweet voice as soon as Anna opened the door of her apartment about half an hour later.
Isabella also screamed and dashed into the house to wrap her arms around Tammy. She pinched Tammy’s cheeks and said, “You’ve put on some weight, haven’t you? I suppose Anna’s cooking is better than what you eat at your school cafeteria.”
Tammy pouted and said, “No! I didn’t!”
Isabella threw her backpack off her shoulder and said, “You’re mad at me? Look what I’ve brought you! The new limited edition Switch that came out this month!”
“Yeah!”
They then both ran happily to the living room. Anna felt neglected by the two kids. After she put away the messy things thrown on the floor, she went to cook for them.
She had received word from her mentor about a month ago that she had been accepted for an internship at a hospital in Birmingham. So, she packed a few things and returned to England with Tammy. Tammy’s asthma was almost treated. However, she had to see a doctor once a week to have him check her.
Anna was transferred to Birmingham’s best surgical hospital. She was required to work shifts as a trainee doctor, so she was usually very busy. She had almost no time off when she was on emergency duty. She switched shifts with a coworker to pick up Isabella.
While Anna was cooking, she heard them playing video games in the living room. Both girls were game lovers and were addicted to them.
Anna told Isabella, who was still sleeping, to take Tammy to the doctor before she left the house the next morning. She was worried that Isabella would forget about it, so she left a note on the fridge. She was already late when she left the house, so she dashed out the door.
After a while, Anna walked into the familiar subway and waited for the familiar train. Even though Anna had been back for a month, she still sometimes felt in a trance. The last time she returned here, she noticed that the city had changed dramatically. But the city had not changed at all this time.
About twenty minutes later, Anna reached the hospital. As she walked into the hallway, she met Nancy Moore, the head surgeon. Nancy was in her thirties and dressed very nicely. She wore her hair in a ponytail and had no makeup on her face.
“Good morning, Dr. Gabriel. I love your dress!” Nancy said.
Anna really liked her as Nancy was easy-going and frequently taught Anna new things.
“Good morning, Dr. Moore.”
Nancy smiled as she put her hands in the pockets of her white robe and asked, “You’re on duty here today, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’re going to have a busy day.”
“What’s wrong?”
Nancy looked around cautiously, approached Anna and lowered her voice, “There’s a weird old man here today. He has a particularly bad temper and offended several nurses during the physical examination.”
Anna didn’t ask why but said, “Patients have a lot of tempers, and we must deal with them appropriately. Does he not want a female nurse to examine him?”
“Dr. Gabriel, aren’t you curious about why he lost his temper?” Nancy asked, disappointed.
Anna said, somewhat awkwardly, “This is not the place for gossip, in my opinion. A few days ago, the head nurse yelled at someone because of that.”
“She can’t control me because I’m the head doctor. She wouldn’t dare to blame me!”
“But she’s your mother,” Anna said, coughing.
Nancy quickly shut up. She did so not because she was out of embarrassment but because the head nurse was staring at her from afar.
The head nurse said loudly, “Why don’t you check on the patients, Dr. Moore? Stop talking!”
“I’m speaking with Dr. Gabriel about a new weird patient!”
When Anna noticed Nancy winking at her, she immediately nodded and said, “Yes, Dr. Moore was telling me about a cardiac surgery patient who refused to let the nurses examine him. We were discussing what we should do.”
The head nurse rolled her eyes and asked, “You think you can fix it? I asked him, and he said he didn’t want a female nurse to do his physical. I’ve asked the male nurse to take care of that.”
“Wow! You’re amazing!” Nancy deliberately complimented her mother, and everyone was used to that.
The head nurse grunted and said, “Stop it! You’re going to make that intern as unprofessional as you are.”
After the head nurse left, Nancy and Anna went to the dressing room to get changed. Nancy said as she walked, “Given that I’ve dragged you into this just now, I’ll buy you dinner tonight.”
“No, thanks, I’m on duty tonight.”
“I’ll help you change shift.”
Anna dressed in her white robe, tucking her hands into her pockets. She asked, looking at Nancy’s lovely face, “What? You’re buying me dinner?”
Nancy had never done anything like this before. Anna discovered Nancy was a stingy woman as soon as she started working at the hospital. So Anna reasoned that Nancy had to have done this for a reason.
Nancy said with an innocent smile, “I don’t usually invite people to dinner, but I think we get along well.”
Anna’s intuition told her that she should decline it. And she said apologetically, “I don’t have much time, Dr. Moore, I’m afraid.”
“You can call me Nancy from now on. I’ll definitely take you to dinner tonight, so don’t turn me down. I’ll see you later tonight.”
Nancy had already left before Anna could respond. Anna stood alone, confused by the situation. She had no idea what Nancy wanted to do. But she didn’t have time to think about it because she was so preoccupied with her work. She then went to check on the patient with her stethoscope.
Afterward, a cardiac surgeon led Anna and other interns to the wards. As they walked down the corridor, one of the interns said to Anna, “Anna, the patient in the VIP ward is very bad-tempered. Be careful, don’t offend him. If he says he has any disease, don’t argue with him.”
“How do you know that?”
“In the morning, Smith and I were in a ward giving medical examinations to a patient. Then the head nurse called him out. I was curious about that and went there as well to take a look. Then I found out that it was this eccentric old man who had cursed these nurses.”
Smith was the hospital’s only male nurse. So if a male patient requested that a male nurse examine him, he was the one to do it. As a result, he was nearly the busiest person in the hospital.
Anna had seen a number of irritable patients during her previous internship in a French hospital. As a result, she didn’t think it was all that bad. She nodded and thanked her colleague for the kind reminder.
After that, Anna walked into the ward with the interns.
“Mr. Wright, how do you feel now?”
An older man complained, “Not good. This hospital smells so bad! Even if I’m not sick, I’d get sick in here.”
When she heard the voice, Anna’s eyes widened. She approached Peter in the hospital bed on tiptoe and noticed that he appeared haggard compared to five years ago. Then she hid in the crowd, listened for a while, then dashed out the door.
The patients’ cases were saved in the hospital’s electronic archives. After leaving the ward, Anna went to the electronic archive and looked up Peter’s cases. Her heart rate increased as she read through his hospital records.
Anna spent a long time in the archives, photographing all of Peter’s cases with her phone. She was about to turn off her computer after finishing the last page when she felt someone tap her on the shoulder.
She heard Nancy say, “Gotcha! What are you doing here? I thought you’d be in the ward.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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