The doctor’s name was Dr. Fuentes. She was small, maybe fifty, with reading glasses pushed up on her forehead and the kind of calm that only comes from years of seeing the worst of people. She pulled me aside while the nurses worked on Valeria and placed Santiago under warm lights.
She didn’t speak loudly. She didn’t need to.
“Mr. Torres. The marks on your wife’s wrists are consistent with restraint. There is bruising on her upper arms as well. Your son is severely dehydrated. His fever is not from illness — it is from neglect. No fluids. Inadequate feeding. He was left to cry in a cold room.”
I heard every word. And yet somehow each one hit me twice — once on the way in, and again on the way down.
“They wouldn’t let me call you,” Valeria had whispered when I first shook her awake. Her eyes barely opened. Her lips were cracked. “Every time I reached for the phone, your mother took it. She said you were busy. She said you’d left us because you finally came to your senses.”I had to hold the wall.
