If the doctor had walked back in at that moment and told you your son had been cured by a miracle, you still might not have felt more detached from reality than you do hearing that word in this sterile hospital room. The monitors continue their steady mechanical beeping. Beyond the wide window, the late afternoon sun stains the gardens gold. The city glitters in the distance, oblivious. And in the middle of that polished order stands a child in mismatched shoes claiming your dying son needed holy water.
You let out a short, broken laugh that doesn’t sound like laughter at all.
“This is a hospital,” you say. “Not a church.”
Lupita shrugs, as if those things are not mutually exclusive in the part of the world she comes from. The nurse steps forward and gently takes the girl by the shoulder.
“Come on,” she murmurs. “You know you can’t just go into the private rooms.”
