My name is Lina. I’m twenty years old, a senior majoring in design, and people often tell me I seem older than my age.
Maybe it’s because I grew up with just my mother—strong, resilient, and unwavering. My father passed away early, and she never remarried. She worked endlessly to raise me on her own.
Santiago had endured his own storms. He had a steady career, a broken marriage behind him, and no children. He rarely talked about his past, only saying,
“I lost something precious. Now I just want to live honestly.”
Our relationship unfolded slowly—quiet, genuine, without chaos. He treated me with patience and tenderness, as if I were something delicate he wanted to protect. People whispered, wondering why a twenty-year-old girl would fall for a man two decades older, but I didn’t care. With him, I felt safe.
One day, he told me,
“I want to meet your mother. I don’t want us to hide anymore.”
So I brought him home. Santiago wore a white shirt and held a bouquet of marigolds—the flowers I’d mentioned were my mother’s favorite. I held his hand as we walked through the old gate of our house in Tlaquepaque. My mother was watering her plants when she saw us.
