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“Well.” I pursed my lips, suddenly embarrassed. “After I finished pediatrics here, I moved back to my town and worked at the practice there. I’ve been head of that practice for over a year now.”
He nodded, paying close attention to what I was saying, studying my face closely. His hands were linked on his lap, his legs crossed at the ankles and stretched in front of him, just like Dr. Martín had done a few days prior. “Mmmm,” he mumbled, twirling his thumbs. I couldn’t get a read on him—never could, not even back then, when I saw him almost daily.
“Lucía,” he said, his voice level and calm, his gaze fixed on mine. “Things have changed around here.” He cocked his head.
“Okay,” I drawled, not quite grasping what he was trying to tell me.
“We have new policies in place.” He sat up and crossed one ankle over a knee and draped one arm on the back of his chair. I swiveled in my seat, the rolling chair not helping my nerves. I was squirming under his gaze. “To avoid what happened to you from happening again.”
My shoulders sagged. I had gotten too close to that family, and that had hurt my career.Fuck.
“Therapy is now mandatory for all our doctors,” he said, counting off on his fingers. “We provide that resource for you.” He flashed two fingers in front of me. “Staff are now expected to take two weeks off every three months.” He looked at me with a steady gaze. “Does this make sense?”
“Dr. Varela,” I said softly, a slight blush creeping up my cheeks. “I’m so sorry about how it all went do?—”
He stopped me, raising his palm at me. “Lucía, it happens. More than you think it does.” His voice sounded reassuring, but I couldn’t read him at all. “You don’t need to explain yourself, not to me.”
I sagged again. I wasn’t sure what he was telling me. If he was trying to give me a second chance or if he was absolutely turning me down. I came here with the intention of asking for a job, maybe the only spot this year or next at the pediatric oncology fellowship that started in the winter. “You know that feeling of wanting something so much that every step you take towards it feels like two forward and one back?”
He nodded and smiled.
“This is how I’ve been living for three years,” I said. My eyes flooded with tears, and I tried to blink them away, but instead one of them fell down my cheek, followed by another one. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted for so long that it just didn’t seem possible, and then things exploded with Jazmín here, and I couldn’t take it.” I took a deep breath, waiting patiently for his response.
“We all have that one patient that makes us doubt ourselves.” He smiled. “Ask around. Every doctor and nurse here will tell you theirs.”
I sobbed, covering my mouth with my hand, my chest shaking with the pain.
“I can offer you an attending role for the time being,” he said, extending one of his hands and placing it on my shoulder, a reassuring pat, pat, pat. “When the time comes, if you want to go for the fellowship, I will support your candidacy. But you have to go to therapy.” He pressed his lips together in determination. “That is a non-negotiable for anyone on my service.”
That was it?All I had to do was have a few candid conversations about my experience, and that was that? It surely couldn’t be as easy as that.
“Of course that’s it,” he said. My eyes widened because I had said that out loud, and he smiled. “This is a hard job,Lucía, and you are a talented doctor. We were sad to see you go.”
I let out a wet laugh, tears streaming down my face freely. “Oh my god, I’m so embarrassed.” I wiped my tears away and looked around, taking in the office. My new office.
Nothing had changed, but so many things did, in fact, change.
“Nonsense,” he said, standing and smoothing his scrubs down with his hands. He extended his palm to help me get up and then shook it. “When can you start?”
I left the office beaming because I was one step closer to those goals I had set for myself years ago, and one step closer to getting back to him.
Sonia was standing at the edge of the hallway, the handheld phone up by her ear despite not being on call, but she was nodding and jotting down notes precariously against the wall. She saw me walking towards her and nodded a few times, speaking rapidly into the phone, then hanging up. She quirked a smile, not one of her big, friendly ones. But one that was reserved for Francisco on those evenings he snuck into the hospital, carrying something or other in his hand or backpack.Contrabando, she would call it, rolling her eyes but smiling wide, like she was one hundred percent in on it.
“Ready, girl?” she asked, cocking her hip to the side in the most playful way. I’d never seen her like this, but many things had changed since. “I just need my purse from the office.”
33
FRANCISCO
“We can’t figure it out,”Lorena said, all tense and stressed. Her shirt was untucked on one side, the sleeves rolled up carelessly on her forearms. She headed the external comms department of our firm, which took on its fair share of celebrity cases—mostly high-profile divorces and custody battles—and she was a motherfucking beast at her job. A sleuth like no other. But neither her team nor any of her contacts had come up with the source.
Somehow, one particularly ruthless reporter had gotten wind that my father had a second child out of wedlock. It was still whispers, but it was going to go wide soon. We were just waiting at this point. For the cameras to arrive. For the calls to start.
But it was squeaky clean. Looked like a professional job. Like a master plan designed to hurt. And the source was nowhere to be found.
We were on hour eleven of this meeting, the sky already dark outside despite the long summer night. It was quiet here, the middle-class neighborhood where Florencia had lived all these years since Jazmín was born.
“It’s impossible,” I argued back, my shoulders sagging in resignation. “There has to be a paper tr—” I froze. “Unless it’s him.”
