The door opened, and Doña Esperanza’s smile froze when she saw Pablo.

For a moment, her face went blank. As if she were seeing a ghost.

“Who is this boy?” she asked, her voice too high-pitched.

“Mom, we need to talk,” Ricardo said. “It’s about Mateo… and about Pablo.”

Doña Esperanza tried to deny it, but when she saw the two boys together, she paled. She leaned against the doorframe.

“Coincidences,” she murmured, without conviction.

“They were born on the same day,” Daniela said. “In the same hospital. They have the same mark. The same scar on the same finger.”

Mateo tugged at his grandmother’s skirt. “Grandma… this is my brother. Don’t you remember him?”

Doña Esperanza pushed him away abruptly, as if the word “brother” burned her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! That boy has nothing to do with us.”

Ricardo followed her inside. Daniela came in with the children behind her. Pablo stared at the furniture as if it were from another planet.

“Tell me the truth,” Daniela demanded. “I’m his mother.”

“You’re Mateo’s mother,” Doña Esperanza shouted. “Only Mateo’s!”

And then, the silence was broken. As if the secret could finally breathe.

Doña Esperanza slumped onto the sofa and covered her face.

“I just wanted to protect them,” she said, her voice aching.

“What about?” Ricardo asked, trembling with rage.

“The birth was complicated… Daniela lost a lot of blood… she was unconscious for hours. The doctors said there were two babies. But one… one had respiratory problems.”

Daniela felt like the ground was disappearing beneath her.

“And what did you do?” she whispered, her strength gone.

“A nurse said there was a woman… Consuelo… who could take care of him. They told me it was for the best. You were young… I thought…”

“It wasn’t your decision!” Ricardo exploded.

Pablo began to cry. Mateo hugged him urgently, as if his small body could protect him from the adults’ hatred.

“Now we’re together,” he whispered.

Daniela looked at Pablo and saw, all at once, five years of hunger, of fear, of sleepless nights. Five stolen years.

They left the mansion without looking back. In the car, Daniela promised, with a voice that was no longer fear but a vow: “We’re going to take care of you. You’ll never be alone again.”

They searched for Consuelo. They found her in the hospital, admitted for a diabetic crisis. When she saw Pablo, she wept as if her heart had been restored.

“My son… where were you?”

“With my family,” Pablo replied, and that word hurt Daniela in a strange way: because it was true… and because for five years, Pablo’s family had been that woman.

Consuelo listened to the story and, instead of getting angry, looked at Daniela with a mature sadness.

“He always said he had an identical brother in his dreams,” she murmured. “I thought it was his imagination.”

Daniela took Consuelo’s hand. “You loved him when no one else did.”

“I still love him,” Consuelo said, stroking Pablo’s hair. “It’s just that… I’m poor.”

Ricardo shook his head firmly. “Poverty doesn’t define the heart.”

That night, the decision became a reality: Pablo and Consuelo would come with them.

It wasn’t easy. Pablo ate quickly, as if someone were going to take his plate away. He put bread in his pocket. He hid when he broke something. Once, he broke a vase and crawled under the bed, trembling.

“Now they’re going to kick me out,” he sobbed.

Daniela lay down on the floor, at his level. “No one is going to kick you out. Never. Do you hear me? You’re my son.”

“Really?” he asked fearfully. “Even if I’m bad?”

“Even if you make mistakes. Even if you yell. Even if you break things. A real family doesn’t fall apart.”

Pablo came out from under the bed and hugged her with a strength that seemed too much for a child.

And then came the other battle: Doña Esperanza.

Furious, she threatened to cut off the financial support that covered the mortgage. Daniela felt dizzy when she realized that part of her “stability” came from that controlling hand. But she looked at the children—Mateo clinging to Pablo like a happy shadow—and knew what to do.

“We’ll manage,” she said. “We’ll work harder, live in a smaller house. But we won’t abandon them again.”

And they kept their word.

They moved to a modest house with a yard and fruit trees. Consuelo started a vegetable garden as if planting were a way to heal. The children ran, laughed, and made plans for a tree house. For the first time, Pablo had a bed of his own… and yet he still preferred to sleep near Mateo, as if his body reminded him of the day they had been separated.

In time, Doña Esperanza appeared at the new house. She looked different: less haughty, more human. She knelt in the dirt beside Consuelo to plant tomatoes. And when Pablo, with the maturity of a wounded child, looked her in the eyes, Doña Esperanza broke down.

“Can you forgive me?” he asked, his voice trembling.

Pablo thought, seriously, like someone who had already learned to survive.

“Aunt Consuelo says that if someone is truly sorry… they can be forgiven,” he said. “But… now you’re going to love me too.”

Doña Esperanza wept as if she finally understood the magnitude of her mistake. “I’m going to love you very much. And my two grandchildren.”

That night, they ate pizza sitting on the floor because they hadn’t yet set the table. Pablo took a slow bite, savoring it as if it were something sacred.

“It’s the best pizza of my life,” he said.

“Why?” Doña Esperanza asked.

“Because it’s the first time I’ve eaten pizza with my whole family together.”

There was a silence filled with tears. Not of sadness… but of that good kind of pain that comes when something broken begins to mend.

Little by little, Pablo stopped saving food. He began to laugh like a child, not like a small adult. At school, the teachers said the twins complemented each other: one taught focus, the other taught play. And Consuelo, who could barely read, enrolled in classes so she could help with homework. Continue reading…