Chapter 5 - DANIEL MENDOZA
Daniel asked to meet me six weeks later.
I said yes.
We met at St. Catherine's cafeteria.
I almost canceled three times.
Walking through those doors felt like walking into an old version of myself.
Smell of sanitizer.
Elevator chimes.
Scrubs.
Pages overhead.
My body remembered before my mind did.
For a moment I couldn't breathe.
Then a young man approached.
Tall.
Dark hair.
White coat.
Nervous.
“Dr. Torres?”
I stared.
Somewhere inside his adult face—
I saw the pale ten-year-old boy.
“Daniel.”
He smiled.
Then started crying.
That solved my nerves.
“Doctors aren't supposed to cry in cafeterias.”
“I'm a student. Lower standards.”
I laughed.
We sat.
He told me what happened after his childhood injury.
Rehabilitation.
School.
The scar across his abdomen.
His fascination with medicine.
Then:
“I tried to find you when I got into medical school.”
“Why?”
“To tell you.”
“What?”
“That you were the reason.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“You were.”
“Daniel, hundreds of people influenced you.”
“Yes.”
Good answer.
“But you were one.”
I accepted that.
Then he said:
“Mr. Ruiz came to speak at our medical innovation seminar last year.”
My stomach tightened.
“Alejandro?”
“Yes.”
“He used your name.”
“How?”
“He said Helix's trauma platform was based partly on ‘principles developed in collaboration with Dr. Mariana Torres.’”
My hands went cold.
“Collaboration?”
“He said you preferred to remain private because of health issues.”
Of course.
“He showed a photo.”
“What photo?”
Daniel pulled out his phone.
Old corporate slide.
My headshot from St. Catherine's.
Under it:
Dr. Mariana Torres — Clinical Strategy Adviser
I stared.
My face.
My title.
A job I did not know I had.
“He was selling me,” I whispered.
Daniel looked ashamed.
“I didn't know.”
“No.”
“Dad didn't either.”
“I know.”
Then Daniel asked:
“Are you coming back?”
The question frightened me.
“I don't know.”
He nodded.
No disappointment.
Good.
Then:
“Can I tell you something?”
“Yes.”
“When I was ten, everybody kept saying I was brave.”
My throat tightened.
“You told me I didn't have to be.”
I remembered.
“You said bravery was your job.”
He smiled.
“I think maybe somebody needs to tell you that now.”
I looked at him.
“You don't have to be Dr. Torres again to prove anything.”
And there it was.
A twenty-three-year-old medical student giving back something I'd given him thirteen years earlier.
I cried into terrible cafeteria coffee.
May you like
Healing is undignified.
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