Chapter 485 Thank You, Courtney
The afternoon after Josephine left, Scott suddenly acted uncharacteristically as he became cooperative when the doctor came to confirm his indicators and conditions were correct before the surgery. He even asked the doctor if they could bring forward the surgery because he wanted to go back home earlier and keep his great-grandson company.
When Linda told Courtney about this, the latter had been registering some details about a particular medicine. She was stunned for a moment before she smiled.
On the day of the surgery, the doctor helped Scott change into a surgical gown before getting everything ready. Courtney was watching silently when Scott suddenly grabbed her hand.
He rubbed his old fingers against her palm, giving her a faint sense of warmth.
“Courtney, I don’t want to embarrass myself, but I wasn’t this scared when I was young. After so many years, I can’t believe I’m finally afraid of dying at an old age.”
The old man’s voice was hoarse with a hint of trembling. Upon listening to his words, Courtney felt her eyes turn red as she held his hands. “Grandpa, I promise you that the surgery will be a success. You still have to watch Jordan, Tina, and Josie grow up.”
Her words instantly touched the softest parts of his heart. The reason why he had fallen in love with this world today was because he had watched his broken family slowly coming back together over the years.
Now, people from four generations of his family were living in the same house, which was a rare joy for anyone. Although he felt happy, he was sad at the same time because he always felt that it wouldn’t last long. One day, he would have to say goodbye to all of this.
“Thank you, Courtney.”
She accompanied him to the entrance of the operation room. Before the door closed, the old man’s hand slowly detached from hers, and right at that moment, she could hear him thanking her with his hoarse voice.
For a moment, it felt as though a huge stone was placed above her heart. As she stared at the light that lit up in front of the operating room door, images of memories overlapped in her mind, causing her to lose her footing.
Suddenly, her icy palms were filled with warmth as she felt the familiar breath of a man next to her, slowly giving a sense of relief to her anxious heart. She tightened her hand, greedily drawing on the sense of security brought to her by Alexander.
“Grandpa believes that without you, the Duncan Family wouldn’t be where they are today.”
Though he sounded slightly tired, he gave a pertinent dissection of the gratitude that Scott had expressed to her before entering the operation room.
The waiting time outside the operating room was particularly long, so Courtney leaned against Alexander’s shoulder as they messily recounted everything that they went through in the past.
“When I was in the elevator at that time, my hair accidentally got entangled with your button, so Josh accused me of seducing you for my own intentions… Afterward, Tina and Shay got so close with each other that you became jealous and signed him to your company…”
She always picked a funny or wholesome story to talk about. As he listened to her, Alexander couldn’t help but smile.
Amid this intermittent narrative, the door to the operating room suddenly swung open.
Harry was already walking around in circles before the door opened, so he was the first to run forward and grab the doctor’s arm.
“Is Old Master Duncan alright?”
The doctor took off his face mask to reveal a smile on his face. “The operation is a success. The patient is still in a coma, but as long as there are no complications over the next few days, he can be discharged from the hospital. There will be some precautions after the operation, which the other doctors will tell you all in detail later on.”
The moment the operating room door opened, Courtney abruptly sunk her hands into Alexander’s arm, leaving a deep mark under his suit. After listening to the doctor, she calmed down a little and breathed a sigh of relief.
“It’s alright now, Alexander.”
She got up and quickly followed Scott’s bed, ignoring her leg injury.
After all, Scott was now at an old age, so it would take him a relatively longer time to recover after the surgery. In the meantime, the doctor came to confirm his situation, saying that he was not fully awake and would experience indirect respiratory distress during his coma. As such, he should remain sedated.
After school, both Tina and Jordan came to the hospital and accompanied Scott for a long time. Only when Tina fell asleep on Jordan’s shoulder did Courtney ask Alexander to bring them back home.
Then, she continued to accompany the old man past midnight. It was because of Harry’s constant urges that she finally went back home.
Alexander was already asleep by the time she returned, and he looked to be sleeping peacefully as his brows were relaxed. After sitting on the edge of the bed, she reached out to brush his eyebrows.
After all, he had not gotten enough sleep for the past few days. Even though he didn’t say it out loud, she knew that he was worried about Scott deep down.
“Darling, you’re back…”
She suddenly felt a force on her waist as Alexander’s hands peeked out from the blanket. With a gentle pull, she fell into his arms while a hoarse and hazy voice melted next to her ears.
She slept peacefully in his arms, but a while later, she was woken up by the sudden ringing of her phone. She answered the call in a daze, but as soon as she heard the voice on the other end, it felt as though the blood in her body was boiling in an instant and rushing toward her head.
“Something happened to Old Master Duncan…”
The air at dawn was thin and cool while the streets were sparse with vehicles. However, a white car whistled past the roadside, waking up the sleeping Melrose City to a brand new day.
Right now, Courtney had many thoughts appearing in her head while she sat in the passenger seat. Meanwhile, Alexander seemed calm as he drove the car, but the clear fingerprints on the steering wheel showed another story.
“The patient’s brain has been deprived of oxygen for too long, which led him into a complete coma. Fortunately, the problem was discovered just in time. Had we discovered this later, he would’ve lost his life.”
In less than 24 hours, Courtney stood in front of the hospital’s corridor twice in a daze. As she pulled the hem of Alexander’s coat with her pale fingers, she heard a hasty voice ringing next to her.
“How is he now?”
“A part of his brain tissue was damaged, but we’ve done everything possible to save him. He is no longer in danger at the moment, but we don’t know when he will wake up again.”
“Which means…”
“He is now in a vegetative state.”
The doctor’s professional judgment and response blew up inside Alexander’s ears, turning his last piece of sanity into rubble. He could no longer control the pain in his eyes.
Behind him, Harry barely stood while holding onto the wall, but the moment he heard the doctor’s verdict, he instantly fell onto his knees and cried out in a broken voice, “Old Master Duncan… I’m sorry. I was sleepy, and I allowed someone to harm you!”
The old man couldn’t help himself as he wailed in a deep, husky voice. However, Alexander seemed to have caught something from his words, so he looked at Harry with his bloody eyes and asked, “What do you mean? Who harmed him?”
“It was a middle-aged man, but he was wearing a face mask and a cap, so we couldn’t see his face clearly. He snuck into the ward at 3.20AM, so we suspect that he must have pulled off Old Master Duncan’s oxygen tube at that time. I have copied the surveillance video for the police.” Linda’s voice was heard from behind. There was a hint of coldness in her serious tone, and it was followed by her light footsteps.
With that, she placed the flash drive in her hand into Courtney’s palm and shook her hand hard.
She had been a doctor for many years and was used to death, so there was a rare sense of blandness and cold to her body. Without saying any words of comfort, she left after finishing her words.
