“Mark…”, Bette mumbled, glancing at him.

“Come on!”, Carmen yelled at the man who lied dead on her table, “Don’t do this to me!”.

Mark put her hands on Carmen’s shoulders.

***

The man’s wife and daughter

– widow and orphan, they’re a widow and an orphan now, remember, Carmen? –

stood up from their chairs in the waiting room and watched Carmen with eyes full of hope.

Carmen stopped in front of them, her shoulders slightly slumped. Her surgical uniform was now covered with a white coat. Her hands were shoved deep into her pockets, her head was slightly bowed. The expression on her face, gentle and substantially unreadable.

“Mrs. Balford?”, Carmen said, quietly.

The middle-age woman smiled tentatively.

“Yes. Where’s the doctor?”.

Carmen’s expression didn’t falter.

“I am the doctor”.

“Oh, I’m sorry”, the woman smiled sheepishly.

“I operated on your husband”, Carmen murmured, in an even voice.

The woman was tormenting a white napkin.

“How is he?”, she asked.

“He didn’t survive”.

The woman’s smile disappeared, slowly, as if it had been washed away.

“Wh-what?”, she stuttered, and her eyes grew teary.

Carmen tried hard to sound professional, but inside, she was yelling at the top of her lungs.

“We were able to restore blood flow to the heart…”.

Mrs. Balford started to shake and her daughter put her arm around her waist, trying to hold her up, and trying hard to fight back a set of tears that was already flowing copiously.

“…But he developed a lethal arrhythmia and we couldn’t resuscitate him”.

“Wait…”, the daughter said, blinking several times, “…I’m sorry, I don’t understand. A what?”.

Carmen shook her head.

“I’m sorry”.

The daughter grabbed Carmen’s white coat, crying hard in disbelief.

“Excuse me. I’m sorry”, Carmen repeated, and started to step back, realizing that she couldn’t avoid her own tears any longer.

She spun on her heels and started walking along the corridor.

Behind her back, she heard the daughter’s broken voice.

“What did you say? What?”.

Mrs. Balford slid on the floor and covered her face with her hand.

“Oh, my God!”, she cried out loud.

Carmen didn’t turn back. She just couldn’t.

”…It’s the blind leading the blond
It’s the cops collecting for the cons
So where is the hope and where is the faith … and the love?”