The General's Replacement Doctor Wife

Chapter Seventeen

Olivia's phone buzzed in her pocket. She jumped to her feet in panic, seeing Clayton's name lit up on the screen. She knew she had to answer but couldn't muster the strength to do so.

What would she tell him? That the woman he could not forget was alive?

She let the phone ring until it stopped.

Olivia had been spaced out for what felt like hours, but she couldn't move. She couldn't face what waited outside that door. For she knew the moment she walked out, her life wouldn't be the same anymore.

A gentle knock made her jump.

"Dr. Hilton?" It was Nurse Jessy.

She pulled herself together and opened the door. 

“Jane Doe's vitals are stable.” Nurse Jessy informed her. “She's responding well to treatment.“

"T-thank you. I'll check on her later."

Nurse Jessy studied her for a moment, her brow furrowing slightly as if she could see through the facade. "Are you alright? You left in quite a hurry."

"I'm fine," Olivia lied, offering a smile that always worked on everyone. But not to her closest colleague.

Nurse Jessy opened her lips as though to say something but suddenly changed her mind. “Alright, but if you need to talk, you can find me at the nurses' station.”

When Olivia was finally alone, her hand touched her belly.

She needed to make a choice: tell everyone the truth or keep this secret buried deep inside her. But secrets had a way of coming out. And when this one did, it would shatter more than just her life; it would shatter everything, including her child's future.

She held the phone in her trembling grasp. After it rang, Mrs. Hilton answered. The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could think them through. "Mom, Caroline is alive."

The silence that followed was deafening.

"That's not funny, Olivia." Mrs. Hilton instantly lashed out. "How dare you joke about your deceased sister!"

Olivia closed her eyes, remembering the day she became part of the family. She was fourteen when the Hiltons took her in, a year after Caroline vanished and was presumed dead. They never stopped hoping their dead daughter would come back. Olivia was there, but they never saw her; Caroline's memories shadowed her presence. She lived but never existed.

"M-mom... I'm not joking. The patient in my ward... she has a mole on her neck, like Caroline. And that star tattoo on her wrist, the one she got when she was just fourteen that almost drove you crazy.”

Silence. Olivia could hear her mother's breathing getting faster.

"M-mom? Are you still there?"

"Y-yes... A-are you s-sure?" Mrs. Hilton's voice had changed. The anger was gone, replaced by vulnerability. She was on the verge of breaking down.

"Please come to the hospital and see for yourself. We look alike… We are the same age.”

Olivia heard a sob through the phone. She wanted to reach through it, to hold her mother, even if she knew she would be pushed away.

"W-we will be there," Mrs. Hilton finally managed to say. “But who will tell Clayton?”

Olivia gripped her phone. "I will," she whispered, though her heart screamed otherwise. "He's my husband. He needs to hear it from me."

After ending the call, she stood frozen, summoning what was left of her strength to contact her husband.