“Clara,” she gasped. “Clara Mendes.”
Her knuckles were white around the seatbelt, her eyes darting to the window as thunder cracked overhead. Rain hammered the windshield so hard I could barely see the road.
“How far apart are the contractions?” I asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.
She winced, pressing a trembling hand to her belly. “Five… maybe four minutes.”
My heart kicked into overdrive. San José Hospital was still twenty minutes away—on a good night.
“Hang on, Clara. You’re doing great,” I said, trying to sound steadier than I felt.
She gave a broken laugh between breaths. “I was… supposed to have my sister with me. But she—she’s gone.”
Something about the way she said it—hollow, final—made the hairs on my neck stand up.
Lightning flashed, illuminating her face for just a second. That’s when I noticed it: a dark stain spreading across her coat, low on her abdomen.
“Clara,” I said, my voice tightening, “how long have you been bleeding?”
Her eyes flicked up to meet mine in the mirror. And what she whispered next made my blood run cold.
“I’m not supposed to be alive.”
“Carolina,” she gasped. “Oh God, it hurts so much.”
“It’s almost time, Carolina. Just breathe like they showed you, okay?”
“I didn’t go to class,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I couldn’t. I don’t have anyone…”
A lump rose in my throat. I thought of my own daughter—about the same age as this girl.
“Hey, you’ve got me now,” I told her gently. “You’re not alone. We’ll get there.”
The rain slowed traffic to a crawl, but I knew the backstreets better than anyone after twenty years behind the wheel. Carolina groaned softly in the back seat.
“I won’t be able to pay,” she blurted suddenly. “I spent everything on the apartment deposit. I’m so sorry.”
“Forget it,” I said. “Right now, all that matters is you and your baby.”
When we finally reached the hospital, I jumped out and ran inside for help. Two nurses rushed out with a wheelchair and took her straight to the emergency room. Before disappearing behind the doors, she turned back.
“Wait! What’s your name?”
“Roberto!” I called. “Roberto Méndez! But don’t worry about that—just go!”
I stood there in the rain for a while, then returned to my taxi. The meter, which I’d never started, blinked zero. I turned it off and drove home, thinking about that brave, lonely girl about to become a mother.
