Eduardo Ramirez parked the luxury car, a dark sedan gleaming in the Andalusian sun, in front of what had once been a dignified home on the outskirts of a small white village near Seville. Now, 12 years later, the crumbling walls, faded paint, and half-fallen ceiling told a story of abandonment and misery he never imagined he would find. The air smelled of dust, damp plaster, and the unkempt jasmine that climbed the broken fence.

Dressed in his impeccable Italian-cut suit, which probably cost more than the entire apple, he held a heavy mallet in his trembling hands. Sweat beaded his forehead, not from the heat, but from the mixture of anger, guilt, and an anxiety that oppressed his chest. He was trying to find courage for what he had come to do, a show of strength that he had been mentally rehearsing throughout the trip from Madrid.

It was then that the door, distorted, creaked when it opened. And she appeared.

The woman who had loved more than her own life, the reason for her success and her misery. Now she was there, too thin, with  worn clothes hanging from her frail figure. Her eyes, those dark eyes that had once shone with passion and laughter, were now tired, marked by the dark circles of someone who had fought alone for too long.

Behind her, peeking timidly out from behind her skirt, two little girls hid in fear. They watched this strange man in  expensive clothes, holding a tool that looked like something out of a nightmare.

“What are you doing here, Eduardo?” asked Gabriela. His voice was not a whisper, but a sharp blow, charged with a mixture of surprise, disbelief, and a deep, ancient anger.

He didn’t respond immediately. The words stuck in his throat. The sight of her, so broken, so different from the woman he remembered, and yet so painfully the same, disarmed him. Instead of speaking, he raised the gavel. The movement was almost automatic, an act of pure directed frustration.

He began to hit the most damaged wall of the house, the one that threatened to collapse on the porch.

The thud of metal against brick echoed through the neighborhood. The pigeons nesting on the broken roof flew out in panic. The girls screamed and clung even tighter to their mother.

“Have you gone crazy?! Stop now!” she shouted, running towards him, trying to protect what little she had left.

“I’m doing what I should have done 12 years ago,” Eduardo replied, his voice hoarse, still punching. Each impact was a blow against himself, against the coward he had been. “I’m fixing what I broke.”

Gabriela tried to grab his arm, but he was stronger. The mallet kept coming down, demolishing pieces of wall that had almost fallen down, while she shouted that she didn’t need her charity after so long.

“Charity!” Eduardo stopped abruptly. The sudden silence was almost as violent as the noise. He stared at her, his chest rising and falling. “Do you think this is charity?”

He dropped the mallet on the ground with a clatter. The dust rose at his feet. She wiped the sweat from her face with a silk handkerchief, soiling it with dirt. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a thick, yellowed envelope. His hands were visibly shaking as he handed him the papers.

“I know about the baby, Gabriela. I always knew.”

The color disappeared from Gabriela’s face. She went white as paper, as if he had slapped her. The two girls, frightened by their mother’s sudden silence, quietly asked who this man was and why Mom was crying.

Eduardo knelt on the dirt floor, not giving a damn if the pants of his suit worth thousands of euros got dirty. He opened the envelope slowly, showing old medical exams, hospital reports. His name was stamped on every page.

“12 years ago you were pregnant. And I left like a coward.”

“Those girls aren’t yours,” Gabriela whispered, tears finally streaming down her cheeks. “They are five and three years old. You know it.”

“I know they’re not mine,” he replied with a broken voice. The pain he had held for a decade threatened to drown him. “But I also know that you lost our baby. Single. In the hospital. A week after I left.”

The silence that followed was only broken by Gabriela’s soft cry, a restrained cry that spoke of a pain too deep to be expressed in screams. The neighbors, attracted by the noise and now by the silent drama, began to peek out of the windows and doors, whispering about the scene that was unfolding in the street.

“How… how did you find out?” asked Gabriela, sitting on the rubble next to her, the force abandoning her.

“Doña Carmen. The nurse who took care of you in the hospital in Seville. She is in the hospital now, very ill. He looked for me last week.” Eduardo wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, a rude gesture that contrasted with his clothes. “He said you shouted my name during preterm labor. That you asked someone to call me, but your phone no longer gave a signal. I had changed my number.”

The older girl, with brown hair and curious, intelligent eyes, slowly approached, overcoming her fear. “Mom, why are you crying?” she asked in her sweet voice.

Gabriela pulled her two daughters to her, hugging them as if she wanted to protect them from all that pain of the past, a pain they didn’t understand. “It’s complicated, honey. This man… I knew Mom a long time ago.”

Eduardo watched the two girls. The youngest, blonde and blue-eyed, looked a lot like Gabriela when she was a child. The eldest had different, more serious features, but smiled shyly at him.

“Do you have children?” asked the older girl.

“No,” Eduardo replied, the word coming out with more pain than he expected. “I’ve never had them.”

“Why not?”

He looked at Gabriela before answering, seeing that she too, in spite of everything, was waiting for the answer. “Because the only woman I wanted to be the mother of my children… I hurt her a lot. And by the time I realized the mistake I had made, it was too late.”

Gabriela got up suddenly, shaking the dust off her  clothes. His pride returned like a shield. “It’s not too late for anything. You built your life. You became rich in Madrid, you have everything you ever wanted. You don’t have to come here to pretend you care about what happened to me.”

“Pretend!” Eduardo also rose, his voice loud for the first time, echoing with the frustration of 12 years. “Do you think I could forget? Do you think a single day went by without me thinking about you?”

“So why did it take you 12 years to show up?”

The question hung in the air, heavy as the smell of wet earth that was beginning to rise. Dark clouds formed in the sky, threatening to unload the storm they both felt inside.

Eduardo unbuttoned his jacket and took it off, throwing it on the seat of his luxury car. Left alone in the white shirt, rolling up his sleeves, he took the mallet again.

“Because he was a proud idiot,” he said, his voice lower now. “An idiot who thought you were better off without me.”

He began to work again, this time more carefully, removing only the really dangerous parts of the wall that hung over the entrance.

“And because when I finally mustered up the courage to come back… you were already with another man.”

Gabriela froze. The girls looked at each other, realizing that something important was being said.

“Were you spying on me?”

“Spying, no. But I did return to the village a few times. A few years ago… six years. I saw you in the park, in the market. I saw him playing with them.” Eduardo did not stop working as he spoke, the rhythm of his blows marking his words. “I saw that they seemed happy. I thought it was better to leave things as they were. I had no right to spoil that.”

“And where is he now?” asked Eduardo, finally asking the question that tormented him, the question that Doña Carmen did not know how to answer.

The older girl, who had introduced herself as Valeria, answered before her mother. “Dad is gone a long time ago. He said he was going to look for a job in Barcelona, but he never returned.”

“Valeria! Go play inside with Isabel,” Gabriela asked in a tired voice.

“But isn’t there ‘inside’, Mom?” said the girl with crushing logic. “Do you remember the house is broken?”

Eduardo stopped working. The mallet fell from his hands. He looked around, and for the first time he really saw the state of the house. The interior. There were no longer internal walls, only rotten wooden structures. What was left of the roof was covered by a leaky tarp dripping dirty water.

In what was once the living room, where they had dreamed of having a family, there was only an old mattress on the floor, a few stacked cardboard boxes, and a small camping kitchen.

“For God’s sake, Gabriela… how do you live here?”

“How can you do,” she replied, lifting her chin with that intact pride he remembered so well. “I never asked anyone for help. I never humiliated myself.”

“This is not humiliating yourself, Gabriela. This is… this is surviving.” He took the latest generation mobile phone out of his pocket and began to dial a number.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling a friend who has a construction company here in Seville. We’re going to start with this today.”

Gabriela ran and snatched the phone from her hand. “I don’t want your pity, Eduardo! We’re fine like this!”

“Good?!” he pointed to the leaky roof. “Your daughters sleep here when it rains!”

“They sleep at my mother’s house, on the street above,” she shouted, angrily returning her mobile to him. “We get ready.”

He stared at her. “And you? Where do you sleep when it rains?”

She didn’t answer, but he already knew the answer by how she looked away. She would stay there, protecting the few things they had.

The two girls came running back, excited for the first time. “Mom, mom, grandma Guadalupe is coming!” announced Isabel, the youngest.

Eduardo saw a gray-haired lady coming down the street with firm steps and an unfriendly face. She came with a broom in her hand, as if she were ready to sweep him away, and an expression he knew well. It was exactly like Gabriela when she got angry.

“Good afternoon, Doña Guadalupe,” he greeted, trying to smile.

“Eduardo Ramírez,” she replied without an ounce of sympathy. “I thought it was just a neighborhood rumor. The ghost of Madrid is back.”

“It’s true, Doña Guadalupe. I came back.”

“You came back for what? To finish destroying what is left of my daughter?” The girls approached their grandmother, who hugged them protectively.

“I came back to fix things,” Eduardo said.

“Fixing with a sledgehammer,” Guadalupe pointed to the tool. “Typical of men. They believe that everything is solved with brute force.”

Gabriela intervened before the discussion heated up further. “Mom, he… He brought some papers. Envelope… that matter.”

Guadalupe’s face changed immediately. Anger gave way to an ancient sadness. She knew exactly what her daughter was talking about. “Ah. Then you found out.”

“Did you always know?” asked Eduardo, feeling a new weight in his stomach.

“Of course I knew,” Guadalupe’s voice trembled. “I was the one who took my daughter to the hospital when she started bleeding. Me, who held his hand when the doctors said there was no remedy. And me, who took care of her in the following weeks when she cried in her sleep and shouted your name.”

Eduardo felt as if he had been punched. He sat down on a piece of wall that was half drooped, hiding his face in his hands. “I didn’t know,” he murmured. “I swear to God I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know because you didn’t want to know,” Guadalupe replied, relentlessly. “My daughter called you 15 times that week. 15 times, Eduardo! You didn’t answer.”

“I had changed my number, Doña Guadalupe. I got that job in Madrid and…”

“And you thought it was better to cut all ties, right? Start from scratch. Leave the past behind,” she added.

Gabriela spoke for the first time in several minutes, her voice low and curt. “Remember what you said in our last fight? That I was a burden. That it held you back. That you were never going to be able to grow up in life with me by your side, in this town.”

His words resounded like a slap in the face. Eduardo remembered perfectly that horrible night, all the cruel things he said in the heat of anger, frightened by the job offer and the responsibility.

“I was young, Gabriela. He was a proud idiot who…”

“That he was a coward,” Guadalupe added. “And you still are, from what I see. You show up here after 12 years with money and you think you’re going to buy forgiveness.”

Valeria, who had been quiet paying attention to the adults’ conversation, approached Eduardo, who was still sitting in the rubble. “You’re the man in the photos that mom hides.”

Everyone was silent. Gabriela turned red with embarrassment.

“What photos, Valeria?” asked Guadalupe, now confused.

“The photos that mom looks at at night and cries. They are in a wooden box. Under the bed. There are a lot of papers too, old letters.”

“Valeria!”, Gabriela spoke seriously to her daughter.

“It’s just the truth, Mom. You always cry when you look at them.”

Eduardo felt his heart race. After all these years, of Alejandro, of misery… She still kept photos of them together.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Gabriela said quickly, nervously. “They are just memories. Everyone has memories.”

“Memories of what?” asked Isabel, innocently.

Gabriela looked at Eduardo, then at her mother, not knowing what to say to a 3-year-old girl.

“Memories of when Mom was younger,” Eduardo said softly, standing up. “And he met a guy who wasn’t very smart.”

“Were you mom’s boyfriend?” asked Valeria, directly.

“It was more than that,” Guadalupe replied before anyone could stop him. “They were married.”

“Married?!” the two girls spoke at the same time.

“Mom!” protested Gabriela.

“What? They have the right to know who this person is who appeared here demolishing our house.”

Eduardo got up and crouched down at the height of the girls. “A long time ago, I was married to your mother. But we fought and I did some very bad things. That’s why she doesn’t like to talk about it very much.”

“And why did they fight?” asked Valeria.

“Because I thought I knew everything. And I didn’t listen to what she had to tell me. And when she needed me most, I wasn’t here.”

Isabel, at three years old, did not understand the conversation very well, but Valeria, older, seemed to be processing the information. “And now… are they going to get married again?”

“No, daughter,” Gabriela replied quickly. “People grow up and take different paths.”

“But they still love each other,” Valeria insisted.

The question remained in the air. No one answered. But the tears in Gabriela’s eyes and the way Eduardo looked at her spoke louder than any words.

The rain, which had been threatening, began to fall slowly. First a few drops, then stronger. Within minutes, it was raining heavily, water hitting the torn tarp on the roof and turning the dust on the floor into mud.

“Let’s go to grandma’s house!” said Gabriela, gathering the girls.

“And him?” asked Valeria, pointing to Eduardo.

“He has a car, he can take refuge,” Gabriela replied, pulling them into the street.

But when they reached the sidewalk, they saw that Eduardo had not gone to his luxury car. It was leaning against the wall of the house, under the most torn part of the tarp, soaking along with the debris. Water trickled down his hair, sticking the white shirt to his body.

“Eduardo! You’re going to get pneumonia!” shouted Guadalupe from the corner.

“Okay!” he replied. “I deserve it.”

Gabriela stopped in the middle of the rain, looking at that man who was once everything in her life. He was there, his suit ruined and his formal shoes sinking into the mud, stubborn as he always was.

“Come with us,” she said quietly.

“You don’t have to.”

“I’m not asking you. I’m ordering you. Come.”

They ran up the street in the rain. Guadalupe’s house was simple, but tidy and warm. It smelled of freshly brewed coffee and fabric softener. It had a small living room, a kitchen, and two rooms. The walls were filled with photos of the granddaughters. Eduardo noticed that there was no photo of Gabriela from the last 12 years.

“Take off those  wet clothes,” Guadalupe ordered. “I’m going to see if I have anything left from the late Antonio.”

He returned in a plaid shirt and sweatpants. “It was my husband’s. You must stay.”

Eduardo changed in the bathroom. The clothes were a little big, but they were dry and clean. When he returned, he found Gabriela making coffee in the kitchen and the girls playing in the living room with rag dolls.

“Thank you, Doña Guadalupe.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I just don’t want you to get pneumonia and die at my door. It would be a lot of work.” In spite of everything, Eduardo smiled. Guadalupe always had that direct way of speaking.

“Gabriela told me about your company,” Guadalupe said, serving coffee for everyone. “They say that you really became rich in Madrid”.

“I did well in life, yes.”

“And how did a simple bricklayer become a millionaire businessman?”

Eduardo looked at Gabriela, who was pretending to be very focused stirring the sugar in the coffee. “Remember that app Gabriela suggested I create? To connect masons and small reformers with customers?”

Gabriela stopped stirring the coffee and stared at it.

“That one you said was nonsense? Who was going to hire a bricklayer for a cell phone?” she said.

“That same one.” Eduardo lowered his head, embarrassed. “Three years after we broke up, I created it. Today it has more than 2 million users in Spain”.

The silence in the kitchen was heavy. Guadalupe looked from one to the other, realizing that there was more history there.

“Was the idea hers?” asked Guadalupe.

“Absolutely. She thought of everything, even the name. ‘ConectaObra’. I was too proud to admit that she was right.”

Gabriela rose abruptly from the table. “I need to see the girls.” He left the kitchen, leaving Eduardo alone with Guadalupe, who was watching him with discerning eyes.

“Why did you come here, Eduardo? Really.”

“To ask for forgiveness.”

“And do you think you’re going to make it?”

“I don’t know. But I need to try.”

“My daughter suffered a lot because of you. When they separated, she cried for months. When she lost the baby… she entered into a sadness that I thought would never come out.” Guadalupe sighed. “And when Alejandro appeared in her life, I thought that she was finally going to be happy again. And it was… for a while.”

“He seemed like a good man,” Eduardo said quietly.

“It was. Friendly, hardworking. He loved the girls as if they were his daughters. But he never achieved Gabriela’s heart completely. There was always a piece that belonged to you.”

Eduardo felt a squeeze in his chest.

“What happened to him?”

“He got a job offer in Barcelona. A salary three times higher than what he earned here. He asked her to go with him, to take the girls. She refused.”

“Why?”

“Because this town has memories. It has you. She could never really leave.” Guadalupe took a sip of coffee. “Alejandro realized that he was fighting a ghost and gave up. He left alone. And since then, she is raising the girls alone.”

“Not alone. You have you,” Eduardo said.

“He has me. But yes, without a man nearby and without accepting help from anyone. Proud just like her father. Just like you.”

In the living room Gabriela’s voice could be heard playing with her daughters, putting funny voices to the dolls. It was a sound that Eduardo had not heard in 12 years and that awakened a devastating nostalgia.

“She still wears the ring,” he observed, remembering seeing it on her hand.

“It’s not the wedding ring. It’s the silver engagement ring you gave her when they started dating. She’s never taken it off.”

Eduardo closed his eyes, remembering the day he bought that simple ring at a craft stall. They were 19 years old and he had saved up for 3 months to buy it.

“Doña Guadalupe, can I ask you something?”

“You can.”

“Do you think that… that there is any chance that she will forgive me?”

Guadalupe looked at him for a long time. “She already forgave you, Eduardo. A long time ago. The problem is that she hasn’t forgiven herself.”

“How so?”

“My daughter carries the guilt of letting you go. She thinks that if she had told you about the pregnancy earlier, you would have stayed. And she thinks it was her fault that she lost the baby, because she was so nervous and sad about your departure.”

“But that’s not true. I was the one who left!”

“I know. You know it. But she doesn’t. And as long as she doesn’t forgive herself, she can never believe she deserves to be happy.”

At that moment, Valeria appeared at the kitchen door. “Grandma, my mom is crying.”

Guadalupe and Eduardo got up at the same time. They went to the living room and found Gabriela sitting on the floor, hugging Isabel, who was wiping her mother’s tears with her little hand.

“Mom, why are you sad?” asked Isabel.

“I’m not sad, daughter. Sometimes adults cry when they remember important things.”

Eduardo slowly approached and sat on the floor next to them, borrowed clothes that were too big for him. “Gabriela. I need to tell you something.”

She looked at him with red eyes. “What?”

“I never remarried. I never had other children. I could never love anyone after you.”

“Eduardo…”.

“Let me finish. All these years I thought I was living my life, fulfilling my dreams, but everything I achieved tasted like failure, because you weren’t there to share it with me.”

Valeria sat on the other side of her mother, paying attention to the conversation.

“And you know what the worst part was?” continued Eduardo. “Knowing that everything I got was because of an idea from you. Every new client, every contract closed, every award I won… it was all a reminder that I had been too foolish to recognize your intelligence when we were together.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” asked Gabriela.

“Because I want you to know that I’ve matured. That I’ve learned to recognize when I’m wrong. And that the greatest lesson of my life was losing you.”

Isabel, who did not understand the adults’ conversation very well, but noticed that it was something important, took Eduardo’s hand and her mother’s hand, joining them on the carpet.

“Done. Now they’re friends again.”

Everyone laughed through tears. The girl’s innocence brought momentary relief to the tension of the moment.

“Is that how peace is made?” Eduardo asked Isabel.

“That’s how my teacher teaches me. When two people fight, they have to shake hands and apologize.”

“And does it work?”

“It always works,” Isabel replied with the absolute certainty of her three years.

Gabriela looked at her hands, still joined by her daughter, and for a moment she allowed herself to remember how those large, calloused hands fit perfectly into hers.

“Isabel, go play with Valeria,” he asked softly.

“But I want to see them make amends.”

“We’re going to make amends, daughter, but this is adult conversation.” Guadalupe took the two girls to the room, leaving Eduardo and Gabriela alone in the living room.

“Gabriela, I…”, he began.

“No,” she interrupted him. “Now it’s my turn to speak.” He got up and went to the window, looking at the rain that was still falling outside. “You’re right about one thing. I never told you about pregnancy in time. I was afraid. Afraid you’d think it was a ruse to keep you.”

“I would never think that.”

“Yes, you would think so. You were obsessed with that job vacancy in Madrid. You talked every day about how your opportunity was to show what you were capable of. And I didn’t want to be the ballast that held you back.”

Eduardo approached her, but did not touch her.

“And when I found out I was pregnant, you were already different with me. More distant, more impatient. You talked about the future as if I wasn’t part of it.”

“I was nervous about the new job. It was nothing personal against you.”

“Of course it was personal, Eduardo. You looked at me as if I were an obstacle. As if my simple village life wasn’t enough for the big plans you had.” His words were like blades. Eduardo knew that they were true, even if they hurt.

“When you left, I tried to tell you on the phone. I called 15 times in three days. You didn’t answer any of them.”

“He had changed his number…”

“I know now. But back then, I thought you were ignoring me on purpose. That you had decided to cut all ties with me.” Gabriela turned to him, and he saw all the pain of the last 12 years reflected on her face. “On the fourth day I started bleeding. My mom rushed me to the hospital. The doctors said she was losing the baby.”

“Gabriela…”, he tried to touch her, but she backed away.

“And you know what the worst part was? It wasn’t the physical pain. It was being there alone, losing the son of the man I loved, and not being able to talk to him. It was shouting your name during childbirth and not having anyone to hold my hand, only my mother.”

Eduardo felt the tears running down his face uncontrollably. In all those years, he had imagined several versions of what happened, but he had never thought about the painful details.

“I’m so sorry. Gabriela, I’m really sorry.”

“I feel it too. I regret not having insisted more. I regret letting my pride speak louder. I’m sorry I let you go without a fight.”

They stood there, in the small living room in Guadalupe, crying together for the first time in 12 years. Crying for the baby they lost, for the time they wasted, for the words they never said.

“What do we do now?” asked Eduardo, his voice breaking.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if you can go back after so long.”

“I’m not talking about going back. I’m talking about starting over.”

“Eduardo, I have two daughters. They are my priority. I can’t afford to hurt myself again. That they get hurt.”

“And who said I’m going to hurt you?”

“You’ve already done it once.”

“He was a 22-year-old boy. A scared, insecure boy who didn’t know how to handle responsibility. Today I am a 34-year-old man who learned that success is worth nothing if you have no one to share it with.”

Gabriela shook her head. “It’s very complicated, Eduardo. Too much.”

“I am not asking you to marry me tomorrow. I ask you for a chance. An opportunity to prove that I can be the man you always deserved.”

Before Gabriela could answer, Valeria appeared in the living room. “Mom, it stopped raining. Can we go home?”

Gabriela looked out the window. It had really stopped raining, and the last rays of sunlight of the day were peeking through the clouds. “Sure, honey.”

“And he’s going with us?” asked Valeria, pointing to Eduardo.

“He has to go home,” Gabriela replied.

“But… what about our house? It’s all broken.”

Eduardo crouched down at the girl’s height. “Valeria, if your mom allows it, I can help fix your house.”

“Really?”

“Really. But only if your mom wants to.”

Valeria ran to Gabriela. “Mom, let him fix our house, please, please!”

“Valeria, that’s not how things work.”

“Why not?”

Gabriela sighed. How do you explain to a 5-year-old girl all the complications of adult relationships? “Because… When one adult helps another, sometimes that creates commitments.”

“What kind of commitments?” asked Eduardo, standing up.

“You know very well what guy. Do you think you can get here after 12 years, build a new house, and I’m going to be indebted to you for the rest of my life?”

“I don’t want you to be beholden to me. I want you to accept what is rightfully yours.”

“How so?”

Eduardo returned to the kitchen and took the wet folder he had left on the table. He opened it and took out some papers that, miraculously, had not been ruined by the rain. They were company incorporation documents.

“Do you remember our company? ‘Construcciones Ramírez y Hernández’?”

“I remember her. You closed it when you left.”

“I didn’t close anything. I just moved to another city. The company continued to operate. Grew. It became a group of companies. And you were always a 50% member.”

Gabriela took the papers with trembling hands. “This… This cannot be true.”

“It’s true. It’s all there. 12 years of accumulated earnings in an account that is in your name.”

“How much?”

Eduardo wrote a figure on a piece of paper in Guadalupe’s shopping book and showed it to her. Gabriela sat heavily in the chair. The figure had seven zeros.

“This is a joke.”

“It’s no joke. It’s yours. It’s always been yours.”

“But why? You could have changed the contracts. You could have taken me out of society.”

“Because I knew that one day I would return. And when I came back, I wanted to make sure you got everything you deserved. The idea was yours.”

Guadalupe, who had returned to the kitchen, looked over her daughter’s shoulder at the papers. “My God, Gabriela. You’re rich.”

“I don’t want it,” Gabriela said, pushing the papers away. “I don’t want any of this.”

“Gabriela…”.

“Do you know why not? Because it’s not mine. I didn’t work for this. I don’t deserve it.”

“Of course you deserve it!” protested Eduardo. “The company only exists because you had the idea. The app only worked because you thought about every detail. Everything I built was based on what you taught me about treating customers, about pride in a job well done.”

“That’s nonsense and you know it.”

“It’s true. And you know it. Remember when you said that you had to stop seeing customers as numbers, that you had to understand each person’s story, their real needs? That’s what made my company grow.”

Gabriela shook her head, stubbornly. “I’m not going to take money from you.”

“Then don’t accept it as mine. Accept it as our son’s inheritance.”

The silence in the kitchen was absolute. Even the children, who were playing in the room, seemed to feel the weight of the moment.

“How can you say something like that?” whispered Gabriela.

“Because it’s true. If our son had been born, he would be almost 12 years old today. And all this would be theirs too.” Eduardo’s voice was full of emotion. “Accept it. At least for him. For the child we never knew.”

Gabriela abruptly got up from the table and left the kitchen. They heard her leave the house, slamming the door shut.

“Go after her,” Guadalupe ordered.

“I think it’s better to leave her alone…”

“Go after her!” repeated Guadalupe, more firmly. “My daughter spent 12 years on the run. Don’t let him run away again.”

Eduardo found Gabriela sitting on the steps of the house, looking at the wet street. The sun was setting, dyeing the clouds orange and purple. He sat down next to him, saying nothing.

“You have no right,” she said without looking at him. “You have no right to use our son to convince me of anything.”

“You’re right. It was low on my part. I’m sorry.”

They were silent for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of the neighborhood coming back to life after the rain.

“Eduardo, I need you to understand one thing. I’ve built a life here. It’s not the life I dreamed of when I was young, but it’s my life. My daughters are adapted, they have friends, they go to the neighborhood school. I can’t just throw everything away and pretend that the last 12 years didn’t exist.”

“I’m not asking you to throw anything overboard.”

“Yes, you do. You show up here with money, with proposals to rebuild the house, to start over. Do you think it’s easy for me? Do you think it’s not tempting to accept everything and pretend we can go back to who we were?”

“Why would it be fake?”

“Because we are not the same people anymore, Eduardo. I’m no longer that 20-year-old girl who believed in fairy tales. I am a 32-year-old woman, mother of two daughters, who learned to count only on herself.”

“And I’m no longer that proud boy who thought he knew everything. I’m a man who learned that it’s worth nothing to succeed if you don’t have a family to share it with.”

“Family,” Gabriela stared at him. “Do you want a ready-made family, Eduardo? Is that it? Are you tired of being alone in Madrid and decide to go back to your ex-wife, who happens to have two beautiful daughters?”

“It’s not that.”

“So what is it?”

“It’s just that I never stopped loving you. And these weeks that I spent here in the village before I dared to come, watching you from afar, made me realize that what I always called ‘success’ was really just a way to fill the void you left.”

Valeria appeared at the door of the house. “Mom, grandma sends for dinner.”

“Let’s go, daughter.”

“Is he going to have dinner with us?”

Gabriela looked at Eduardo, clearly conflicted. “He has to go, Valeria.”

“But why? Granny made food for everyone.”

“Because he lives far away.”

“Where does he live?”

Eduardo answered before Gabriela. “I live in Madrid, Valeria. It’s a long way from here.”

“And are you leaving today?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I hope not. I liked you.” The girl’s simplicity touched the hearts of the two adults. Valeria re-entered the house, leaving them alone again.

“The girls liked you,” Gabriela said.

“They are incredible. You educated them very well.”

“I educated them alone,” she stressed.

“I know. And you did a wonderful job.”

“Don’t ruin it,” Gabriela whispered. “Please. Don’t win his heart and then leave. They already suffered disappointment with Alejandro. They would not stand another.”

“Who said I’m leaving?”

“You will leave. In the end, you always leave. It’s your nature.”

“Gabriela, I want to stay.”

“Do you want to stay? How long? A week? A month? Until you get tired of small-town life and remember all the important commitments that await you in Madrid?”

“I want to stay forever.” The words came out before he could think about it, but as soon as he said them, he knew it was true.

“Forever is a long time,” Gabriela said.

“It’s not enough.”

Guadalupe appeared at the door. “They’re going to stay there all night! The food is getting cold!”

They went in for dinner. The table was set for five people. Guadalupe, Gabriela, the two girls and Eduardo. It was the first time in 12 years that he sat at the table with his family. During dinner, the girls asked a thousand questions. They wanted to know what Madrid was like, if it had a big house, if it had a nice car. Eduardo responded patiently, always careful not to look like he was showing off.

“And do you like to live alone?” asked Valeria.

“No. I don’t like it at all.”

“Why don’t you get married again?” said Valeria.

“Valeria!” Gabriela reprimanded her.

“But it’s just curiosity, Mom.”

Eduardo smiled. “Because the only person I wanted to marry was already married to me. And I ruined everything.”

“But… they can marry again!” suggested Isabel, innocently.

“That’s not how it works, daughter,” Gabriela explained.

“Why not?” It was a simple question, asked with the pure logic of a child, and no one at the table knew how to answer convincingly.

After dinner, Eduardo helped Guadalupe wash the dishes while Gabriela bathed the girls.

“He’s scared,” Guadalupe said quietly.

“I know.”

“It’s not fear of you. It is fear of herself. Fear of believing again and being disappointed.”

“What can I do to show that I have changed?”

“Time. Patience. And above all, evidence. Proof that you will not run away at the first difficulty.”

“And what would that evidence be?”

“Stay. At least for a while. Show them that you’re serious about wanting to be a part of their lives.”

“Do you think she would allow it?”

“I think he is dying of desire. But he will never admit it.”

When Gabriela returned from the living room with the girls in her pajamas, Eduardo was putting away the last dishes.

“Mom, can I ask a question?” said Valeria.

“You can.”

“If you and him like each other, why aren’t you together?”

Gabriela sighed. It was the second difficult question of the night. “Because sometimes loving someone is not enough, daughter. People grow, change, take different paths.”

“But now you are on the same path again,” Valeria observed with her childish logic.

“It’s not that simple like that.”

“Why not?”

Gabriela looked at Eduardo, who was watching the conversation without interfering. “Because when two people get hurt a lot, sometimes it’s hard to trust again.”

“But you can try,” Valeria insisted.

“Isabel, go brush your teeth,” Gabriela asked, changing the subject.

“Can I brush his teeth too?” Isabel asked, pointing to Eduardo. Everyone laughed.

“He knows how to brush his own teeth,” Gabriela replied.

“But I want to help!”

“Thank you, Isabel,” Eduardo said. “But I won’t stay overnight. I’ll go to a hotel.”

“Why don’t you sleep here?” asked Valeria. “Granny has a sofa bed in the living room.”

“Because he has his things in the hotel,” Gabriela explained quickly.

“What things? Clothes, toothbrush…”.

“Granny can lend him a toothbrush!” offered Isabel.

Eduardo looked at Gabriela, waiting for guidance from her.

“You better go to the hotel, really,” she said. “Girls have to wake up early tomorrow for school.”

“Mom, tomorrow is Saturday!” recalled Valeria.

Gabriela blushed, realizing that she had been caught in a small lie. “Still. He better go.”

“It’s okay,” Eduardo said. “I’ll go to the hotel.” He said goodbye to the girls, who insisted on giving him tight hugs. When he arrived at the door, Gabriela accompanied him.

“Eduardo”.

“Yes.”

“Thank you. By… for having returned. For having told me about Doña Carmen. I needed to know that… that you had asked for me.”

“Thank you for listening to me.”

They stood there, not knowing how to say goodbye. They were no longer husband and wife, but they were not strangers either.

“Are you going to stay in the city for how long?” she asked.

“It depends.”

“Of what?”

“From you.”

“Eduardo, I know it’s complicated. I know I need to prove that I mean business. But I also know that I won’t be able to leave again. Not this time.”

“And your job? Your life in Madrid?”

“My company has 15 partners now. They can carry everything without me for a while. And my life in Madrid… it is not life. It’s just existing.”

Gabriela bit her lip, a sign that she was nervous. “I need to think.”

“How much time do you need?”

“I don’t know. Maybe forever.”

Eduardo smiled sadly. “So, it’s better to look for a flat to rent.”

He left, leaving Gabriela at the door, watching the luxury car disappear into the curve of the street.

The next morning, Gabriela woke up to the noise of machines. He looked out the window and saw a construction van parked in front of the destroyed house. Eduardo was there, no longer in a suit, but in jeans and a work shirt, leading a team of three masons.

She ran downstairs, still in her pajamas. “What are you doing?”

“Good morning to you too,” he replied, smiling.

“I did not authorize this.”

“I know. But the house was dangerous. If he fell and hurt someone, he would never forgive me.”

“Eduardo, I said I didn’t want charity.”

“And I’m not doing charity. I’m doing public safety. And in addition, I am reforming the part of the property that belongs to me as a partner.”

“Partner?”

“Ramirez and Hernandez,” he said, pointing to a makeshift sign they had hung. “50% yours, 50% mine.”

One of the masons approached. “Boss, we found this here,” he said, showing a small wooden box.

Gabriela recognized her immediately. It was the box where she kept the old photos, the letters that Eduardo sent her and some souvenirs.

“It was under the rubble of the room,” the bricklayer explained.

Eduardo took the box and handed it to Gabriela. “Your daughter was right. You really saved the photos.”

Gabriela hugged the box to her chest. “It’s just nostalgia.”

“It’s nostalgia to save photos. It’s love still not being able to throw them away after 12 years.”

The girls appeared running, encouraged by the movement. “Dad! ¡No… Uncle Eduardo! Are they going to build our new house?” asked Valeria.

“If his mother leaves,” Eduardo replied.

“Leave, Mom, please!” implored Isabel.

“It’s not that simple like that, girls.”

“Why not?” asked Valeria. “The house is broken. He wants to fix it. Where’s the problem?”

Gabriela looked at her daughters, then at Eduardo, then at the masons who were waiting for an answer.

“It’s okay,” he finally said. “But I’m going to pay for the work.”

“With what money?” asked Eduardo softly.

“With the money you said is mine.”

“So, do you accept it?”

Gabriela hesitated. “I accept a part. Enough for the house. The rest is kept for the girls, for their university.”

“It’s okay. As you want.”

The masons went back to work, and Eduardo approached Gabriela. “Can I make a request for you?”

“It depends on what it is.”

“Let me help. Not as a boss. But as… as a bricklayer. Really. I learned the trade from my father, remember? I miss working with my hands.”

Gabriela watched him. He seemed sincere. The man who ran a multinational in Madrid, asking permission to lay bricks.

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes.”

“And then…”

“And then, we’ll see.” It was a vague answer, but for some reason, Gabriela agreed.

During the following weeks, Eduardo appeared every morning and worked until nightfall. He took off his expensive shirt and worked in a T-shirt, sweating under the Andalusian sun. Little by little, he gained the trust of the girls, who began to treat him as part of the family.

Valeria, especially, became fond of him. Every day I asked him if he was going to leave, and every day he answered no. Isabel, the youngest and most extroverted, soon began to call him “Papa Eduardo”.

“Why can’t he be a dad?” asked Isabel one day innocently.

“Because I’m not his dad, honey,” Eduardo explained. “You already have a dad.”

“But he’s not here,” Valeria said, being practical. “And you do.”

“Being here doesn’t make me his dad. Being a dad is much more than that.”

“So, what makes someone a dad?” asked Valeria.

Eduardo stopped nailing a ribbon and sat on the floor next to them. “Being a father is caring, protecting, teaching. Be present in the important moments. It is loving without expecting anything in return.”

“You do all that,” Isabel observed.

“I do it because I love them. But still, I’m not his biological dad.”

“What if Mom marries you? Is that where you become our dad?” asked Valeria.

Eduardo looked at Gabriela, who was pretending to be focused on sweeping up the rubble, but was clearly paying attention to the conversation. “If one day that happens… he would be like a stepfather. A father at heart.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The difference is that a dad at heart chooses to love you. He does not love out of obligation or blood, but because he wants to.”

“So, is a dad at heart better than a real dad?” asked Isabel.

“It’s neither better nor worse. It’s different. The ideal is to have both. But if you can’t, a dad from the heart is a wonderful gift.”

Gabriela stopped sweeping and approached. “Girls, go play at grandma’s house.”

When they were left alone, Gabriela sat next to Eduardo in the midst of the rubble of the house under construction. “Thank you for talking to them like this. With honesty.”

“They deserve honesty. Alejandro… He never knew how to talk to them in this way. He always felt uncomfortable when they asked questions about the family.”

“Maybe because I knew I didn’t have all your heart.”

Gabriela stared at him. “How do you know that?”

“Your mom told me. She said you could never love him completely because I was still there, like a ghost.”

“My mom talks too much.”

“He speaks because he loves you and wants to see you happy.”

“And you think I’m not happy?”

Eduardo looked around, at the half-built house, at the simple life she had built. “I think you’re a survivor. That learned to settle for crumbs when it deserves a banquet.”

“Crumbs?” Gabriela was offended. “Do you think my life is crumbs?”

“I think you’ve limited yourself. You’ve convinced yourself that you don’t deserve more than this.”

“And what do I deserve, in your opinion?”

“You deserve to be loved completely. You deserve to have someone who recognizes your intelligence, who values your ideas, who shares your dreams with you. You deserve to have a beautiful house, economic stability. And, above all, you deserve to be happy without guilt.”

Gabriela lowered her head. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m afraid.” It was the first time she had openly admitted it.

“Afraid of what?”

“Fear of believing again and that you will leave. Fear that girls will become more attached and then suffer. Fear of myself.”

“What is there to fear about yourself?”

“Fear of finding out that I still love you. And of not being able to stop again.”

His words were suspended in the air. It was the first real admission that there were still feelings there.

“What if you don’t need to stop?” he asked softly.

“Everyone needs to stop loving someone at some point.”

“Why? Sometimes… people find their way back to each other.”

Gabriela shook her head. “12 years, Eduardo. 12 years. We’re not the same people anymore.”

“No. We’re better.”

The house was ready six weeks later. It was small, but cozy and solid. With three bedrooms, a bright living room and a kitchen where everyone finally fit.

On the day of the move, Eduardo was helping to carry the last piece of furniture, Gabriela’s old mattress, which would now go to the trash.

“That’s it,” he said, wiping away his sweat.

“It was perfect,” Gabriela said, looking around with bright eyes. The girls ran through the new rooms, screaming with joy.

“And then…,” asked Eduardo, “what’s next? The work is done.”

Gabriela felt a knot of panic. “You… are you going to leave?”

“I told you it was up to you. Do you want me to leave?”

“No!” shouted Valeria and Isabel in unison from the hallway.

Gabriela took a deep breath. She looked at her daughters, looked at the house he had built with her own hands, and then looked at him. At the man dirty with plaster, sweaty, but who looked at her with more love than she had ever seen in anyone.

“No,” she said quietly. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“Not today? Not tomorrow?”

“Not ever.”

“Mom said to stay forever,” Isabel translated, running to hug Eduardo’s leg.

Eduardo smiled, a smile so big that it lit up his whole face. “Then, I think I’ll have to stay.”

“But where are you going to sleep?” asked Valeria, practically. “There are only three quarters. Isabel’s and mine, and Mom’s.”

Eduardo looked at Gabriela, raising an eyebrow.

Gabriela blushed, but she didn’t look away. “I think… I think Mom’s room is big enough for two.”

Valeria smiled, satisfied. “I knew it. They’re going to get married again.”

“One day at a time, daughter,” Gabriela said, laughing.

“One day at a time,” Eduardo repeated, drawing her to him.

Six months later, they were married in the small backyard of the new house. It was a simple ceremony, only with Guadalupe and some neighbors. Valeria and Isabel were the bridesmaids, dressed in matching suits.

When the councilman said “You can kiss the bride,” Isabel yelled, “Mom and Dad kiss!”

And as Eduardo kissed Gabriela, he knew he wasn’t fixing up a house alone. He was rebuilding a home. It had taken 12 years, a trip from Madrid to misery and back to love, but finally, I was exactly where I needed to be. I had learned that true success is not measured in euros in a bank account, but in the strength of the walls you build around the people you love.