Tina was slightly amused.
Looking at Isla's innocent little face on the screen, she found it difficult to refuse her suggestion. She said with a smile, "Okay..."
Isla waved her chubby little hands at her mother, and then ended the video call.
Tina put the mobile phone into her pocket. When she looked up again, she happened to see Bill, who was also wearing a hospital gown, and standing in front of the pedestrian bridge made of glass. His hands were crossed behind his back, and he was looking up at the night sky outside.
The lamplight and moonlight intertwined and shed on Bill's handsome and wise face, making him look a little melancholy.
Tina halted her steps. However, thinking of Isla's last words, she walked forward again.
Bill was still very weak, and his face was not as ruddy as a normal man's. A nursing worker was hired to take care of him on a daily basis.
Tina said, "Chairman Amery..."
Bill heard Tina's voice and turned around. He immediately became delightful and smiled. "Tina, are you here to take a walk!"
He then made a gesture to the nursing worker. The latter nodded and went to a remote place, not wanting to disturb communication between the father and daughter.
Tina nodded. "Yes... I ate too much for dinner. Let's take a walk. It's good for the digestion!"
Bill looked excessively thin after he got sick. His eye sockets were deep, and there were obvious dark circles surrounding his eyes. Tina thought that he might be anxious about the operation tomorrow, and therefore she tried to console him. "Chairman Amery, you don't have to worry too much about the operation tomorrow. It's not that difficult to cure leukemia nowadays. Isla also suffered from leukemia before. Look at her now... After the bone marrow transplant, she has become a healthy little girl again!"
Knowing that Tina had misunderstood him, Bill shook his head with a smile.
He explained, "I'm not worried about the operation.
I just... thought of your mother."
There was a clear pause in his last sentence, and his sound was lowered at that moment.
Tina didn't say anything else.
Bill looked at the night sky outside the window. The beautiful moon was surrounded by bright stars. There was a look of concern in Bill's eyes. "Many years ago, in nights as beautiful as tonight, your mother and I often watch the stars together!"
Tina couldn't help sighing.
She then smiled. "You must be very affectionate toward each other when you were young!"
"Yes, very affectionate indeed!" Bill nodded. Thinking about the happy old days, Bill became very emotional.
When he recalled Tina's mother, his eyes became very tender. "At that time, I fled from the Amery family because I wanted more freedom, and at that time I had nothing to support myself. I went to work in a small design company where nobody know my real identity. All the female colleagues thought that I was just a poor young man, and no one wanted to be nice with me. Ovia was the only exception. She didn't care about whether I was poor or not. We actually fell in love at first sight...
"At that time, we could only rent a house which was almost the cheapest. It was only about a dozen square meters, but it had a small balcony. Ovia liked to watch the stars there at night together with me, and she smiled very happily every time!"
Bill paused for a while. "Later, I took her back to the Amery family. We also watched the stars together on the balcony of our house, but Ovia never smiled again. I knew that since I went back to the Amery family with Ovia, she had been unhappy, but I selfishly wanted her to get used to it.
In the end, Ovia might still feel that this kind of life was not what she wanted, and she could not accept being 'trapped' by a rich and powerful family like the Amery family. She told me that she would be depressed for the rest of her life. It was her who proposed breaking up with me, and she was very determined with that!"
Bill's voice was bitter. "But I really hadn't expected that she would be pregnant. If I knew, I would definitely not let things become like this..."
Tina sighed again in her heart.
"I can only blame fate for playing tricks on me..." She thought.
Bill smiled, yet this time there was more selfmockery in his smile. "Maybe for Ovia, she loved herself, and her own freedom more, compared with me!"
Hearing this, Tina shook her head tenderly. "She actually loved you more, otherwise she wouldn't have chosen to give birth to me."
It was many years ago. At that time, core values of the society were not as enlightened as they were now. As a result, an unmarried woman had to bear more pressure.
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