Carmen follows a moment later, covering her mouth with one hand. You do not cry. Not because you do not want to.
Because the shock is holding you together by force. You look down at the rabbit in your lap and understand with nauseating clarity that for two years no one has placed anything in your hands except medicine, documents, and pity.
A child just offered you comfort without first asking what you were worth.
By noon, your real doctor arrives.
Not the neurologist Mauricio has been parading through the house, but your actual physician, Dr. Salazar, a hard-eyed woman who has known your blood pressure for decades and your stubbornness even longer. She enters already angry.
“Who changed his muscle relaxants?” she demands.
No one answers at first because the question lands on too many others at once. Over the last six months your body has not merely stalled. It has receded. Your mornings have grown foggier.
The words that sometimes came in fragments at night vanished entirely after your afternoon medication. You thought it was failure—your body punishing you for refusing therapy and hating dependence too much to work with it honestly.