“I didn’t know about it.”
“Grandma talked about that money like it was our whole future. I buried my sister on Saturday. Now there’s a letter naming you.”
Nothing I said persuaded her.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She hung up. I dressed and drove to the hospital.
***
¿Dr. Patel esperó fuera de la sala.
“Your patients have been reassigned,” she said. “I need your badge.”
“Why?”
“You married an 18-year-old patient and now stand to inherit her money.” Her jaw tightened. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“But I transferred her care…”
“Marrying a patient crosses a professional boundary. Transferring her care didn’t erase that.”
“Am I losing my job?”
“That’s what the review has to determine.”
Walking out without my patients felt unreal. I had spent years preparing to work in those rooms, yet I suddenly had no permission to enter them as their doctor. I wondered how I could explain that to anyone who knew how much the job meant to me.
