ebookslot Chapter 545 - 517: Standpoint
Chapter 545 - 517: Standpoint
The day after learning about Ian Grant’s illness, Mina Thorne handed over all her ongoing cases to her colleagues and began an indefinite leave.She was the first to know about Ian Grant’s illness, and then Quentin Thorne.
At first, they took Ian to visit every breast specialist in Brimfield, to no avail. Later, they heard that a cancer hospital in Port Sterling had a cure rate of over fifty percent, so they traveled to Port Sterling. But after reviewing Ian’s reports, they concluded that the condition was too severe and untreatable, and refused to accept him.
At that time, they were at a loss, so they informed Zachary Grant. Zachary immediately asked his younger son, Gage Grant, to contact the Lockwood Family in The South, who facilitated Ian’s visit to the Mayo Clinic in the United States, where the top American breast specialists developed a treatment plan for Ian.
The plan was in place, and they were willing to accept her, but the treatment process was too painful. Ian, who had never suffered in her life, couldn’t take it, breaking down hysterically every day. The hospital believed it was all meaningless, and coincidentally, Ian’s sisters introduced a master from Qinton, prompting the family to rush back from the United States.
Quentin Thorne disagreed with Ian going to Qinton, but as Ian was on the verge of collapse and Quentin was under a lot of pressure, desperately needing a break, he agreed to let Mina Thorne and Seth Sutton accompany Ian to Qinton.
For Mina Thorne, that month was one of utter darkness and misery.
The atmosphere in the hospital’s oncology ward was oppressive, with people being taken home every day to await death due to treatment failures. Mina, already a naturally melancholic person, suffered both mentally and physically from taking care of Ian day and night during this period.
But none of that was as frightening as the fact that while in the United States, Ian’s attending doctor recommended that, as her daughter, she undergo genetic screening for breast cancer. Although the screening results were fine, Mina couldn’t eat or sleep because of it.
She had never suffered from childhood, nor had she ever experienced the deep concern for her future while caring for such a desperate patient. The process seemed to slowly erode her will to live, and she came close to breaking down several times...
Fortunately, during this time, Seth Sutton was always by her side, being very kind and considerate. With her lover’s support, she didn’t fall apart, but still felt deep pain inside...
"Knock, knock," suddenly there was a knock on the door.
Mina Thorne came back to reality and got up to open the door.
Quentin Thorne stood outside and asked softly, "Is your mom asleep?"
Mina nodded.
Quentin was dressed in a suit and tie. He went to work during the day and returned in the evening to take over from Mina to care for Ian.
Hearing that Ian was asleep, he breathed a sigh of relief and patted Mina on the shoulder, "Come to the study, Dad has something to ask you."
Mina followed him downstairs.
After closing the study door, Quentin asked, "Did you ask Gage to persuade your sister to agree for Aunt Melinda to meet your mom?"
Mina remained silent for a long time, her jaw muscles clenching, biting her molars.
Her face was pale, and after a long time, she gritted her teeth and said, "She’s not my sister! I don’t have a sister like her!"
As she spoke, tears rolled down her cheeks.
The sight of Mina’s tears pained Quentin as well. He stood up, intending to hug his daughter, but Mina stubbornly turned her body to refuse his embrace.
Quentin retracted his hands, handed her a few tissues, and sat back in the swivel chair behind the desk.
His voice was hoarse, his expression weary, and he looked as if he had aged ten years overnight.
Father and daughter sat in silence for a long time, the air heavy with oppression and despair.
Finally, it was Quentin who spoke first, "Mina, you’re such a smart girl. If you try to see things from your sister’s perspective, you’ll understand why she refuses you."
Mina said nothing, not even looking at Quentin, stubbornly staring at a spot on the wall, her gaze filled with despair, pain, and reluctance.
Quentin said, "Annie’s mom has a severe heart condition and has undergone two major surgeries; she can’t withstand stress. You also know that your mom’s emotions have been unstable. Just two days before Annie’s wedding, she went to Annie’s mom and had a huge argument with them. Considering these factors, Annie certainly wouldn’t dare to take that risk."
Seeing his daughter’s stubborn expression, Quentin sighed helplessly, shaking his head, "You care about your mom’s health, and Annie cares about her mom’s health. Neither of you is wrong."
They sat together for a while longer. When Quentin heard a sound from upstairs, he asked Mina to wait for him in the study for a moment.
He went upstairs to check, and Ian was still asleep. At this stage, she relied on morphine to ease the pain and always slept for a long time after an injection.
Quentin went back downstairs, brewed two cups of tea, and brought them into the study.
Mina’s eyes were red, indicating she had probably cried secretly while he was away.
But even so, Quentin felt he needed to say what needed to be said clearly.
"You don’t have to hate your sister, nor do you need to envy her," Quentin said, "I was originally going to marry her mom, but your grandfather and your father stopped me then."
His thoughts drifted back more than thirty years: "At that time, her mom, pregnant, was driven out by her family, wandering for two to three months before being deceived into the extremely impoverished and backward mountains, marrying a man with a violent temper and a cruel heart. That man often mentally abused Annie and her mom..."
As he spoke, Quentin’s eyes reddened, and his voice choked.
But Mina just coldly responded, "She deserved it! Who told her to steal someone else’s man? Who told her to be so ambitious, coveting a man that wasn’t hers!"
Quentin was stunned.
He seemed to see a shadow of Ian in Mina.
He didn’t want Mina to repeat Ian’s mistakes, becoming someone with only hatred in her heart.
He calmed his emotions and said, "I don’t know how your mom described the events of those years to you."
Mina remained silent, her gaze still filled with intense reluctance.
Quentin stood up, taking several letters from the safe at the bottom of the bookshelf, their pages already yellowed and brittle, and handed them to Mina.
Mina glanced at him but didn’t open them.
Quentin patted his daughter’s shoulder, "Take a look, and you’ll understand after reading them."
He took the two cups of cold tea, went outside to replace them with hot ones, and went to the garden to calm his emotions.
He usually tried not to think about those past events because every time he thought or mentioned them, his heart would be in extreme pain.
In fact, over the years, he had some idea that Ian frequently inculcated Mina with stories of his affair with another woman before marriage. But at that time, he didn’t know if Melinda and the child were dead or alive, and that past became the deepest wound in his heart. Every thought of it brought prolonged pain, so he naturally wouldn’t bring it up, and he honestly didn’t know how to explain such things to his young daughter as a man.