03/04/2026
"No. He eats normally. He takes his formula, his purees⌠and yet he just loses more and more weight. You can already see his ribs. IâŚ" Rosaâs voice broke. "I see strange things, Doctor. Things I don't know how to explain. But I feel like that baby⌠is dying."
Carmen looked at the crowded waiting room. She had responsibilities, patients, shifts that couldn't be abandoned. And yet, the sentence stuck in her like a needle: he is dying.
"Give me the address," she finally said, more softly. "I'll go when my shift ends. Only to evaluate him. Iâm not promising anything."
The address hit her like a slap: Lomas de Chapultepecâone of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city.
At eight o'clock at night, Carmen left exhausted, climbed into her old Nissan Tsuru, and drove to the other side of the city as if crossing an invisible border. The sidewalks became cleaner, the trees taller, the streets quieter. In front of a wrought-iron gate, a guard looked at her with suspicion until he heard her name over the intercom and opened up.
The cobblestone path led to a mansion of glass and steel that shone like a diamond under the exterior lights. Carmen felt, for a second, that her white coat was too simple a costume for such a stage.
The door opened before she even knocked. Rosa was there: young, impeccable uniform, eyes swollen from lack of sleep.
"Thank you for coming, Doctor. Thank youâŚ" she whispered, pulling her inside almost desperately. "They are upstairs. The masters are waiting for you."
The interior looked like it was taken from a magazine: marble, modern art, expensive silence. Carmen climbed the curved staircase to a huge room decorated in blue tones, with a carved crib, a digital monitor, and toys arranged like an exhibit.
But as soon as she saw the baby, everything else became nothing.
SebastiĂĄn ValdĂŠs was awake, staring at the ceiling. He had a strange paleness, like fine wax. His arms were thin, too thin, and the diaper looked larger than it should. Carmen had seen malnutrition caused by po