As the surgical doors closed behind her, a wave of claustrophobia tightened across her chest.
Laura noticed her trembling hands. “We can step outside, Mariana.”
Mariana closed her eyes.
She remembered Lucía as a teenager, teasing her because Mariana always modestly described herself as “just a doctor.”
“Someday you’ll realize that saving a life is never ‘just’ anything, Mom,” Lucía had told her.
Mariana opened her eyes, took a slow, steady breath, and adjusted her surgical mask. “No. I’m staying.”
And she did.
First ten minutes.
Then an hour.
Eventually, the entire four-hour procedure.
Three months later, she completed her first solo surgical procedure since the accident.
When she emerged from the scrub room and pulled off her gloves, Andrew smiled at her. “How do you feel?”
“Exhausted,” Mariana laughed quietly. “Completely exhausted.”
“Then it went perfectly,” Andrew grinned.
Daniel Mendoza, the young resident whose life she had saved thirteen years earlier, was waiting in the hallway with a small vase of white flowers.
