"Hey, how are you today?" Beatrice asked as soon as she walked into her mother’s ward.
The lady looked up from the bed, much more accepting of her presence than Beatrice’s last visit.
"I brought you cake," Beatrice said as she walked to her mother and placed it before her.
Whitney looked up, her eyes lit up with joy.
"Cake? Birthday?" She asked in her broken English.
Beatrice’s eyes teared up a little when she looked at her mom like this, and she blinked quickly to shoo the tears.
She asked the nurse who had been attending to her mother for 15 years and learned that her mother was very good at painting and was actually a scholar.
That was the information they were provided with.
To see the woman who was supposed to be a lecturer at some prestigious university wasting away her life in a mental hospital, it ached Beatrice’s heart, and she took a deep breath to control her emotions.
"You are here again." The nurse walked into the room to give Whitney the necessary medicine.
"Whitney, you are a good girl, aren’t you? Now open your mouth and take your pills." The nurse talked to Whitney like she was a kid.
Beatrice saw how her mother scrunched her brows but didn’t fight the medicine.
She swallowed the four pills before drinking the water.
"Let me see," the nurse said, and Whitney opened her mouth to show her she had swallowed it for real.
"Good," the nurse said, and was about to leave when Beatrice suddenly stood and followed her.
"Nurse Darcy," Beatrice called out.
The nurse stopped, and Beatrice closed the door behind her before walking to her in the corridor.
"I know it’s off topic and maybe a bit too much, but do you have any idea who my father is? Has anyone apart from Uncle Thames ever arrived here to meet my mom?" She asked.
The nurse looked at the girl hesitantly.
Beatrice immediately held her hand, letting her eyes tear up.
"I know it’s hard to reveal a patient’s information, but I am her daughter, Nurse Darcy. You must’ve seen me on TV. My father would too. I want to know who he is, just in case he appears later to harass me, even when he left me on the road to fend for myself," Beatrice said.
The nurse looked at the girl, then considered a few things, and nodded.
"I’ll give you the file of your mother’s record. All the information should be there. If it’s not there, we don’t know about it," the nurse said.
Beatrice nodded gratefully, following the nurse to the storeroom where all the old files were stored.
Darcy walked through the shelves before she stopped at a particular one.
She pulled out a lime-colored file and gave it to Beatrice.
As soon as Beatrice opened the file, the first thing she saw was her mother’s photo from her prime, and then she froze when she read the name on the file.
Whitney Maiden.
She looked at the nurse, confused.
"Wait. It says Whitney Maiden. But how is this possible? I am a Maiden, and that’s because my uncle adopted me, and he gave me his family name." Beatrice looked at the nurse, confused.
The nurse looked at Beatrice, a little suspiciously.
"Look, I don’t know about what’s going on with your family. But that woman is Mr. Thames’s sister. The previous nurse who was attending to her might know the truth, but that’s all I know," the nurse said.
Beatrice stumbled back in shock, unable to wrap her mind around what was going on.
All her life, since she could distinguish between things, her uncle told her that he found her on a road when she ran from an orphanage.
Then how was this even possible? Either her mother had sent her to the orphanage before she was admitted here, or her uncle was lying to her.
Because even if he found her there, he knew she was his sister’s daughter for real.
Beatrice shuffled through the pages but couldn’t find any information on who her father was.
Consumed by anger, she walked to her mother’s room and looked at the woman, busy eating the cake with a happy smile.
"Mom, who was your husband? Who is my father? Tell me the truth. Was I the result of a one-night stand? What made you like this? Who is that man who did this to you? Who is my father?" Beatrice repeated her questions.
Whitney looked at Beatrice in fear, and flashbacks of what happened began appearing before her eyes.
"Aaa! Get away! Scare! Scare! Aaa!" Whitney started shouting in fear, and the nurse rushed to the room.
"Miss Beatrice, you can’t ask such questions of her. They are sensitive to her." The nurse tried to pull Beatrice out of the room.
"No. She is my mom. I deserve to know too. Who is the man—?" Beatrice couldn’t finish her sentence when Whitney threw the cake in her face, and Beatrice stood there, surprised, as she saw her mother curl into a small ball in the corner of the room, trying to hide.
Beatrice saw her mother’s trembling figure and couldn’t help but close her eyes to control her emotions.
She let the nurse drag her out.
"Miss Beatrice, this is the first and last time you instigate her like this. If this repeats, I’ll have to ban your entry here." The head nurse warned Beatrice while Darcy tried her best to calm Whitney inside the room.
Beatrice nodded and turned before leaving the hospital in a daze.
She got into the car and looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror, her heart skipping a beat.
The sight of her mother’s form flashed through her mind, and guilt consumed her.
No matter how angry she was, she shouldn’t have dumped her questions on the woman whom she was trying so hard to get close to.
Beatrice pulled out the face wipes from the dashboard and cleaned her face before placing her head on the steering wheel, thinking about everything.
There was only one man who knew what was going on, and it was better she ask him directly. With this thought, she started the car, ready to head towards Thames’ office.