The silence of a six-year-old girl who had stopped dreaming. Lucía woke up every morning at 7 a.m. Not because she wanted to, but because a nurse came in, drew back the curtains, and said in a professional, indifferent voice, “Good morning, dear. It’s time for physical therapy.” Lucía didn’t answer; she just stared at the ceiling, the same white ceiling she had been staring at for eight months, ever since the doctors had spoken the words that had broken her father’s heart: “Spinal cord injury. She’ll never walk again.”
Carlos didn’t accept it. He couldn’t accept it. He was Carlos Mendoza, the owner of one of the largest construction companies in Spain. He built skyscrapers, bridges, airports. How could he not cure his own daughter? He hired the best doctors from Barcelona, Zich, and even brought a specialist from Boston.
The mansion was filled with state-of-the-art equipment. The entire room had been converted into a rehabilitation center, but Lucía remained there, in that chair, her eyes like frosted glass. The problem was that Carlos treated his paralysis the same way he treated his construction projects: spreadsheets, schedules, specialists. He never asked how Lucía was doing.
He never asked her if she was afraid, if she was angry, if she missed running around in the garden like she used to. For her, emotions were irrelevant variables. Results mattered. And Lucía, Lucía, had given up not only on walking, but even on trying. She listened to the adults talking about her legs, her spine, her nerves, as if she were a broken puzzle.
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