Because she did.
“Stop acting like you don’t have a heart condition…”
Yeah.
She wasn’t supposed to know that: her or my mother.
But she went looking for me.
And found more than she needed.
I thought back to my doctor’s days ago. Routine. Private office in Marseille. Clean. Expensive.
Our family doctor stood across from me, stethoscope still around his neck, brows slightly furrowed.
“Take a breath again.” He put his stethoscope to my back
He listened longer this time.
Too long.
Then he stepped back.
“There’s a murmur,” he said.
I shrugged. “So?”
“It could be nothing,” he replied, calm but measured. “Or it could be something structural.”
I didn’t react.
Didn’t care.
“I want to run an echocardiogram,” he added. “Today.”
I exhaled through my nose.
“Do what you need to do.”
They took me to a different room.
Dim lights.
Cold gel on my chest.
Screen flickering with images of my heart, I didn’t care to understand.
After it was over, the nurse cleaned me with alcohol pads and then stuck a sticky heart monitor to my chest.
Later, back in his office.
He slid paperwork across the table.
“You have to wear that monitor for fourteen days,” he said.
I glanced down.
Didn’t even really read it.
