As soon as I entered the apartment, the familiar scent of lavender and fresh coffee enveloped me. It was like stepping back in time. Every detail of the place—the stacked books, the antique rug, the pale blue curtains—felt like a gentle echo of the life we had shared.
But then I saw her.
On the living room wall, above the small velvet sofa, was a framed photograph. And what I saw in it made my body freeze.
It was a child. A boy with brown eyes, dark hair, and a sweet smile. He was maybe four years old. And he was in Althea’s arms, who smiled at the camera with the same sparkle in his eyes I hadn’t seen in over five years.
But what took my breath away wasn’t the photo itself. It was the subtle, devastating detail—that boy… had my smile.
“Who is he?” I asked, feeling my throat close up.
Althea looked away, taking a deep breath.
“That’s Daniel.”
“Your son?” —
She nodded, unable to look at me.
A whirlwind of thoughts hit me like a wave. What was that? She was infertile. I remembered every appointment, every test, every tear. I remembered the nights I held her, trying to erase her pain.
“But… the doctors… said that…”
“I know what they said,” she interrupted, her voice low and trembling. “And they were right. I couldn’t have children.”
I fell silent. So, who was that child?
She turned to me, tears streaming down her face.
“I adopted him.”
The words hung in the air.
“After we separated,” she continued, “I entered an adoption program. I thought I would never have the courage to love anyone again. But one day, when I went to visit a shelter in Tlaquepaque, I saw this boy sitting in a corner, drawing with a broken pencil. He looked at me… and I saw something there.” A loneliness I knew.
Althea smiled through her tears.
“He had been abandoned too. He had lost his parents in an accident. I hugged him, and it was as if something inside me awakened again.”
She lowered her eyes.
“His name was Daniel. I didn’t change it. He was already Daniel. And, ironically… it was the name you wanted to give our son, remember?”
I felt the ground disappear beneath my feet. I remembered the nights we talked about children, about names, about the future that never came. Daniel. The name that remained between us like an unfinished dream.
I stared at the photo, unsure of what to say. The child smiled innocently, oblivious to the weight of that story.
“He looks like me,” I murmured, almost without realizing it.
She took a deep breath.
“I know. That’s why it took me so long to tell you. Because every time I saw him smile, I saw a little bit of you too.”
The rain outside beat heavily on the windows, as if the sky was crying too.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I asked, trying to control my trembling voice.
“Because I thought I didn’t have the right to hurt you again,” she replied. “I knew you wanted to be a father, but not with me. And when I finally managed to adopt, I thought you’d already moved on.”
She ran a hand through her hair wearily.
“I lived with guilt for years. I thought I freed you from the burden of an ‘imperfect’ woman, but in the end… I was the one who carried the pain.”
I was speechless. Everything I felt—anger, compassion, sadness—was jumbled together in an impossible knot to undo.
“I never wanted to be free of you,” she finally said. “I just wanted to see you happy. But I don’t think I ever understood how much you suffered inside.”
She looked at me, surprised, and then, for the first time in many years, our eyes met without rancor.
“He’s sleeping,” she said softly. “Do you want to see him?”
I nodded.
We continued to the small room at the end of the hallway. The walls were covered in colorful drawings: houses, trees, and a figure of a woman and a man holding hands with a boy in the middle.
“He said it’s us,” Althea whispered. “Me and my mommy and the angel she dreams of.”
I felt a shiver run through my body. The boy slept peacefully, hugging a teddy bear. I approached slowly, and without thinking, I lightly touched his hair.
“He’s beautiful,” I murmured.
Althea nodded, her eyes welling up.
“He’s the best gift life has ever given me.”
We stood there for a while, in silence, watching that little miracle breathe peacefully. And in that moment, I realized something I’d never understood: true love isn’t about what fate takes from us, but about what we’re still capable of giving, even after losing everything.
That night, before I left, Althea walked me to the door. The rain had stopped, and the air smelled fresh of wet earth.
“Thank you for letting me in,” she said.
She smiled.
“Maybe it was fate that brought you here today. I thought about you a lot, you know? Sometimes Daniel would ask me why he didn’t have a father. I said his father lived in heaven… but the truth is, heaven always had your face.”
My heart sank.
“If you want, I can visit him from time to time.”
She hesitated for a moment, but then nodded.
“I think he’ll appreciate that.”
We said goodbye with a long, silent hug. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like the past was no longer an open wound, but a scar I could now touch without pain.
The following months brought a new routine. I visited Daniel on weekends. We played ball, built models out of cardboard boxes, and he called me “Uncle Andrés.”
Althea watched from afar, always with that tender smile. Sometimes we’d stay up late talking, reminiscing, laughing at the silliness of youth. The friendship, which had once been love, was reborn in a new way—serene, mature, beautiful.
One day, while I was helping Daniel build a castle out of blocks, he asked me:
“Uncle, why don’t you and Mom live together?”
I was speechless. Althea, who was in the kitchen, also remained still.
“Because…” I began slowly, “sometimes people who love each other need to live in different houses to learn to understand each other again.”
He frowned thoughtfully, and then said something that disarmed me:
“Then learn quickly, so you can be together.”
I looked at Althea. She smiled, tears in her eyes.
Time passed. Daniel grew up, and I became an inseparable part of his life. Visits became dinners, dinners became short trips, and without realizing it, we were once again a family—imperfect, but real.
One Sunday, during a picnic in Metropolitan Park, Daniel ran to get flowers. When he returned, he gave one to me and one to his mother.
“Now you have to get married again,” he said, laughing.
Althea laughed too, but there was something different in her eyes—an old, sweet sparkle, the same as when we were young.
That night, when we left him for the night, she called me to the porch. The wind was light, and the sky was clear.
“You know…” she said, “sometimes I think God never intended for us to have a biological child. He intended for us to have Daniel. He was just waiting for us to meet again.”
I looked at her, and for the first time in years, I felt everything make sense.
“I think destiny was just waiting for the right time,” I replied.
She smiled, and then, wordlessly, we embraced. Time stood still. The past, with all its pain, seemed to finally find peace in the present.
Five years after that rainy night, the photo on the wall had changed. Now there were three faces in it: hers, mine, and Daniel’s, smiling with the same brightness as before—only this time, without absences, without guilt, without secrets.
And every time I look at that photo, I remember what I learned too late: that true love doesn’t have to be perfect to last; it just needs to be sincere enough to begin again.
Because sometimes, the deepest mistake we make isn’t losing the one we love—it’s thinking love is over, when it was just waiting for a new reason to exist.
