The neonatologist inhaled carefully. “The times here don’t fully match what I’m hearing in the room.”
The doctor stepped in then, too fast.
“There was confusion during the delivery. That’s hardly unusual in a crisis.”
But the younger nurse lifted her head.
Mariana had forgotten she was still there, small and pale beside the counter, fingers pressed so tightly together they looked bloodless.
“It wasn’t confusion,” the nurse said.
Her voice shook, but not enough to erase the meaning. “We stopped before she came in. We stopped because he said there was no point.”
The room became strangely hushed after that.
Not empty, not frozen, just compressed, as if all sound had been squeezed into the space between one breath and the next.
Camila stared at the nurse as though language itself had turned against gravity.
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