Someone else mutters prayers.
Your hands are shaking, and you hate how your grief instantly becomes rage at anyone who dares speak certainty in a room that just grew teeth.
Camila shifts inside the coffin, not panicked, not startled.
She presses her ear to Julián’s chest like it’s a pillow she’s known all her life.
Her little arm tightens around him, and you see her lips move.
She’s whispering something you can’t hear.
You lean closer, and your heart nearly stops when you catch the words.
“Papá,” she breathes, soft as ash.
“Don’t go yet.”
Julián’s fingers twitch against her back.
Not a big movement. Not dramatic.
Just enough to make the room gasp as one creature.
Just enough to turn every adult’s face into the same shocked mask.
A man steps forward, trying to be brave.
He’s one of Julián’s cousins, broad shoulders, shaky hands, the kind of guy who always thinks strength means control.
He reaches for Camila again.
Your abuela swats his hand away like he’s a child touching a hot stove.
“Look,” she says, voice low.
She points at Julián’s neck.
At first you see nothing, because you’re not trained to see life in tiny places.
Then you see it.
A faint flutter.
So slight it could be a trick of shadow, but your body knows better.
Your body knows because it’s screaming: this is not finished.
The ambulance takes forever, even though it’s probably minutes.
Time does strange things when you’re hanging over the edge of a miracle and a nightmare at the same time.
Your phone is in your hand and you don’t remember picking it up.
You call, you shout, you beg, you repeat the address like you’re casting a spell.
Camila stays inside the coffin, stubborn and quiet.
She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t thrash.
She just holds her father and looks up at you once, eyes huge, not scared, almost offended that you didn’t understand sooner.
“He’s still here,” she says, like it’s the simplest fact in the world.
You want to ask her how she knows.
You want to demand it, shake it out of her like an answer in a jar.
But you can’t, because Julián makes that sound again, that faint pull of breath, and your whole world tilts.
The room fills with whispers, and then the siren finally arrives, slicing through the night like a promise.
Paramedics push in with cold air clinging to their uniforms.
They stop short when they see what’s happening, because even professionals have human faces before they put their masks on.
One of them, a woman with tight hair and tired eyes, steps closer and asks, “Where is the patient.”
Three people point at the coffin like it’s an altar.
The paramedic’s gaze drops to Camila.
She softens instantly, voice gentler.
“Sweetheart, I need you to move so I can help your dad.”
Camila shakes her head once, slow.
“No,” she says. “He likes when I hold him.”
Your throat burns.
You crouch beside the coffin, and your voice shakes as you speak to your daughter like you’re negotiating with fate.
“Mi amor,” you whisper, “if you love him, let them help him breathe.”
Camila’s jaw tightens, a tiny adult expression on an eight-year-old face.
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