She was declared dead at 7:54 PM

The emergency cesarean section delivered two healthy, crying, alive babies. The first weighed 2.580 kilos, the second 2.490. They were quickly wrapped, examined, and given a quick clean. One had a serious face, as if he had arrived in the world with the expression of a little old man. The other kicked with an almost comical ferocity. Their mother was not with them.

At 7:54, Dr. Patricia Olvera took off her gloves, looked at the operating room clock and said the phrase that no one ever wants to hear.

—Time of death: 7:54.

Mauricio was called into the hallway. A thanatologist appeared. Someone touched his shoulder. In the delivery area, the two newborns were breathing in their insulated cribs, wrapped in white blankets, their tiny fists clenched against a world that had just taken away the only person who had loved them even before they met.

Nurse Angélica Torres, whom everyone called Angie, was 26 years old and had been working in the maternity ward for three years. She had never lost a mother on her shift. She stood still by the door when the doctors left, when the noise subsided and the room was left with that eerie silence that recent tragedies leave behind. She looked at the two babies. Then she looked at Elena. She had read something months before, an article in a medical journal, about a rare phenomenon, almost debated, almost denied: mothers who showed a response after skin-to-skin contact with their newborn. Some said it was a coincidence. Others, that it was a reflex. Others, that nothing could be proven. Angie didn’t feel like debating theories in front of a woman who was still warm.