The doctor stopped. She looked at my mother the way you look at something you can’t quite believe is real. Then she looked at me.
And I realized — she had been waiting for this moment. She had suspected. She had needed to see it with her own ears.
“I’m going to need to file a report,” Dr. Fuentes said evenly. “And I would ask that you contact the police, Mr. Torres. Tonight.”
· · ·
Brenda grabbed my arm in the hallway.
“You’re really going to let some doctor destroy this family over your wife’s exaggerations?” she hissed. “Mamá is sixty-three years old. You would put her through that? For her?”
“For her,” I said. “And for my son. And for every day I spent on that bus believing the people I loved were being cared for.”
“She turned you against us.”
“No.” I pulled my arm free. “You did that yourselves. Four days at a time.”
I filed the report at 4:47 in the morning.
