“Yes, that’s me.” Her accent curled softly around the words.
“And who’s this?”
The little girl peeked at me.
“This is Sofia,” Elena said. “And this”—she shifted the baby carefully—“is Tomás.”
“Nice to meet you, Sofia and Tomás. You’re the cutest patients I’ve seen all day.”
Sofia’s mouth twitched like she wanted to smile but wasn’t sure she was allowed.
“You think you broke your wrist? When did that happen?”
She shifted, adjusting Tomás. “A few days. I fell. In the kitchen. I’m clumsy.” Her laugh was brittle.
My gut wrenched. I’d heard this script too often. And, this time, I couldn’t hide behind charts and clinical notes. Recognition and shame curled through me—not for Elena, but for how close I’d come to walking in her shoes.It could have been me.
“OK. Let’s take a look.”
She held out her hand, and a bruise flashed at the edge of her sleeves, too long for the heat of a Texas summer. I pushed the fabric up. The shape of a hand pressed into her skin in sickening yellows and purples.
“Elena,” I said gently, like speaking to a cornered kitten in a rainstorm. “Someone hurt you.”
“I fell,” she insisted.
“No,” I said, my voice soft and quiet. “You didn’t.”
Panic flashed across her face. “Please don’t call the police. If they go to the apartment, he’ll know I said something.”
I leveled my gaze at her. “I see this a lot more than you think. You’re safe here. We can help you get out.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I have no place to go. No family. No money. No papers to get a job.”
“What about the shelter?”
“There’s never space.”
“So, you’ve tried to leave before?”
She nodded. “They ask too many questions. I’m afraid of being deported without my children.”
“Let me try calling the shelter for you, all right? Sometimes spots open up. If not, we’ll look for another option.”
I completed the exam quickly but thoroughly, finding more hidden bruises and scars. Her wrist wasn’t broken, but badly sprained.
When I stepped away, I leaned my forehead against the cool hallway wall for half a second and let myself seethe. She’d stayed for too long already. I wouldn’t discharge Elena without a plan.
I dialed the women’s shelter. It rang twice before an automated system offered a menu of options. I jabbed numbers before finally hearing the voice of a real human. I provided the bare-bones details and ground my teeth at the response.
“I’m sorry,” the man on the line said. “We’re at capacity. Our family units have a waitlist. I can put her name down?—”
“How long?” My voice came out flat.
“A week? Maybe longer. We don’t have the beds.”
I hung up before I said something that would get me written up again. The last time I’d made this call, I’d told the man on the other line that he was a useless sack of shit. He’d reported me, and I’d had to spend an afternoon getting lectured by HR.
No beds. No space. No help for women like Elena. But I needed to get her out.
