her lab coat and handed Mariana information about physician reintegration programs. “No one expects you to walk into an operating room tomorrow, Mariana. But if you want to come back to medicine, there is a path forward.”
Mariana returned home in a daze.
She still didn’t know whether she had the strength to become a surgeon again.
But for the first time, one distinction was perfectly clear.
Leaving the hospital seven years earlier had been her choice.
Remaining isolated ever since had been his.
That evening, Alejandro texted that strategy