We sat side by side in the waiting room, like two acquaintances sharing a bench at a station. He was flipping through a magazine without really turning the pages. I would stare at the floor, counting the tiles, as I did when something made me uncomfortable.
“Elena Navarro,” the nurse called.
I went in alone.
The tests were routine: tension, analysis, usual questions. Nothing I hadn’t done before. But when the doctor came back with the results, something in his expression made me tense.
He sat down in front of me.
“Mrs. Navarro… there is something we must comment.
I felt an emptiness in my stomach.
“Is it serious?”
The doctor hesitated for just a second.
—We have found a lesion. We need to do more tests, but everything indicates that it could be an advanced stage tumor.
The world stopped.
—¿… what?
“I don’t want to alarm you without absolute confirmation,” he continued, “but we must act quickly.
I didn’t hear anything else.
The words “advanced stage” echoed in my head like an endless echo.
Eighteen years.
Eighteen years of silence.
Eighteen years waiting… something.
And suddenly…
Time was running out.
