THE CALL THREE WEEKS LATER
I had almost forgotten about them when the phone rang.
“Pedro? It’s Carmen.”
Her voice was different.
Stronger.
“You went to the doctor,” I said.
“Yes. I insisted. I told him exactly what you said.”
She paused.
“I have severe sleep apnea. And cardiac episodes during the night. The doctor was blunt—if I had waited longer, it could have ended very badly.”
I closed my eyes for a second.
“And now?”
“I have a CPAP machine. The first nights were strange. Marcos kept staring at the mask and the tubes. But he didn’t wake me up. He just stayed beside me.”
She laughed softly.
“And now he sleeps next to my face again. Like before. It’s as if he was waiting until it was safe.”
That was the word that stayed with me.
Safe.
