Chapter 311 Benjamin Woke Up
Wearing a trench coat in summer made her feel exposed, like some kind of freak.
When all those people in the hospital stared at her, Isla felt like a monkey on a circus stage, put there for everyone’s amusement.
Until the man she was taking the blame for woke up.
The next morning, while Dylan was instructing the butler to prepare breakfast, he received unexpected news.
“Benjamin’s awake!”
He didn’t dare delay. Without even drying his wet hands, he rushed off to tell William.
As William listened to Dylan’s report, something flickered in his usually calm eyes.
His right hand tapped lightly on the table. After a full fifteen minutes, he suddenly stopped.
Then he looked up at Dylan, who stood silently before him, and a terrible plan began to take shape in his mind.
On the monitor, the sound in the hospital room changed.
When the caregiver noticed Benjamin waking up, it was 4 AM, about three hours before dawn.
Usually at that hour, he’d be sound asleep, but tonight he’d been woken up by the urge to pee.
If it hadn’t been so urgent, he wouldn’t have realized so quickly that the patient he was watching had come around.
Thinking about the twisted things he’d done with the patient’s family over the past few days, he guiltily hid in the bathroom for a while before forcing himself to calm down and step back out.
He walked over to the bed and spoke gently to Benjamin.
“You’re finally awake. Don’t be scared, I’ll go get the doctor right away.”
Benjamin opened his dazed eyes, feeling his whole body aching and weak, as if all his strength had drained away and even his bones were hollow.
He couldn’t move his body at all. Only his eyes could shift, so he first checked everything he could see in front of him and confirmed that he was lying in a hospital room.
He felt the oxygen mask on his face, and his head throbbed with a splitting pain.
He closed his eyes and racked his brain, trying to remember what had happened.
Little by little, broken fragments of memory surfaced.
He remembered — he had been on the phone with Isabella.
This was his last remaining daughter. He remembered that during that call, Isabella had sounded like she was crying.
The blurry images in Benjamin’s mind gradually became clearer.
He suddenly opened his eyes wide and used all his strength to call out hoarsely,
“Isabella…”
Panic clawed at him from the inside, but he couldn’t force out any other words.
How was Isabella now?
That was the only thought in his mind.
He remembered there had been a car accident before he passed out, then everything went dark, and he couldn’t see anything.
The doctor walked in with a few nurses. As the overhead lights came on, the doctor checked his pulse and heartbeat,
then sat down by the bed and spoke to him in a gentle voice.
“Mr. Tudor, you don’t need to worry.”
“Your body has stabilized. At most, another two weeks of recovery, and you can consider being discharged.”
“Although you can’t move right now, don’t worry about that. This is a normal reaction for patients who’ve been unconscious for a long time.”
Benjamin opened his mouth. His throat worked anxiously.
Finally, he managed to squeeze out another sentence.
“Where is my daughter?”
The doctor’s expression suddenly changed, and even the nurses’ faces stiffened,
as if Benjamin’s question touched on something no one dared to talk about.
The doctor dodged the question.
“Mr. Tudor, what you need most right now is rest.”
“You don’t have to worry about anything else. Even if you do, it won’t change anything.”
“It’s better to focus on getting your strength back.”
After giving a few more instructions, the doctor left with the nurses.
Only the caregiver and Benjamin remained in the room.
The caregiver looked at the awake Benjamin, saw the sadness in his eyes, and felt a twinge of guilt.
He really couldn’t forget what had happened here these past few days.
But at least it was over now.
Once he met with William, he could take the money and leave, never show his face again, never come back.
Everything that had happened in this hospital room would become a secret he carried alone for the rest of his life.
He sat down by the bed, not knowing what to say to the man.
And Benjamin, lying in the hospital bed, just stared blankly at the ceiling fan above.
He looked at the motionless blades, his chest rising and falling slightly.
He never stopped trying to force his voice to work again.
Finally, after an hour, he could speak normally, though his voice was still hoarse.
“Have you seen my wife?”
“She’s a very gentle woman, and she’s very beautiful.”
“Her name is Isla. She gave me two beautiful daughters.”
“After I fell ill, she must have been so worried.”
The caregiver lowered his head even more. He stared at his toes and stammered, not knowing how to answer.
By now, Benjamin could move his neck as well.
He turned his head to look at the caregiver in front of him and sighed softly.
“May I ask… how long have I been unconscious?”
Benjamin spoke very softly and politely, which made the caregiver even less able to face him.
He kept his head down and, after a long silence, finally said,
“Three… three months.”
“No, almost four months!”
“It’s a miracle you woke up.”
Hearing the caregiver’s answer, Benjamin’s heart sank.
Four months? Why didn’t it feel like any time had passed?
Then a bitter smile crept onto his face. How could someone unconscious ever notice time slipping by?
Benjamin lay in bed and asked the caregiver to raise the head of the bed a little.
The caregiver quickly did as he was told.
Now Benjamin didn’t have to keep staring at the ceiling fan above.
He let his gaze travel over the room, taking in every corner.
He didn’t see Isabella or Isla.
Disappointment welled up in his chest, but even stronger than that was fear.
He was afraid something had happened to Isabella, and even more afraid that Isla had met with some terrible accident.
Thinking of Isabella’s fragile appearance, he thought to himself,
Isabella was always so kind.
She always kept everything bottled up inside.
As a father, it was his fault for not taking better care of her, for letting her suffer so much, endure so much pain.
Remembering what Isabella had looked like as a child, a faint smile appeared on Benjamin’s face.
He thought of how adorable his two daughters had been when they were little.
And of his wife.
How happy their family had been back then.
Until Beatrice had her accident and cracks began to spread through this family, until nothing could ever go back to the way it was.
The smile on Benjamin’s face slowly turned stiff.
But he still tried to talk to the caregiver beside him.
“My daughter Isabella is the most beautiful girl in the world.”
“It’s a pity you never met her.”
“She can paint too, and her paintings are beautiful.”
The caregiver nodded awkwardly, several times wanting to speak but swallowing the words back down.
Though he was just a caregiver, he’d heard about the major incident that had happened at this hospital.
Looking at Benjamin, his expression became complicated.
Isabella was already dead. She’d jumped from the rooftop, right here at this hospital.
He didn’t dare tell him the truth.
While he was still wrestling with his conscience, hurried footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Someone was rushing toward the hospital room.