Rafael, still shaken, asked that no one leave. He ordered that management be called. He wanted to know who that woman was who had done what an entire team couldn’t manage in the darkest moment of his life.
Carmen closed her eyes for just a second.
She seemed tired in a way that had nothing to do with the night’s work.
Half an hour later, while Diego struggled inside the incubator and the glass fogged up with his parents’ strained breath, a supervisor arrived with an old file in her hand.
I had found it in the files, in a folder marked as transferred personnel.
In the photograph, Carmen was not wearing a cleaning uniform.
He was wearing blue medical scrubs.
Her hair was hastily gathered as always, but her back was straight, her eyes were lively, she had a badge on her chest, and she wore a tired smile, like someone who knew the weight of a difficult night.
The caption below the photo read: Carmen Ruiz Ortega. Neonatal Nurse.
It took Rafael several seconds to understand.
He looked again at the woman in front of him. The bucket. The mop. The worn shoes. Then the photo. Then back to Carmen.
“You were a nurse,” he said, incredulous.
—I was.
—Why are you cleaning floors?
The question was asked without malice, but it sounded brutal.
Carmen barely smiled. Not with joy. One of those smiles that appear when a wound has already healed on the outside, and yet it still hurts every time someone mentions it.
—Because life sometimes takes away your uniform and doesn’t ask you what you’re going to do next.
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