He kisses the top of your head.
“Me too.”
Two years after the engagement, you are folding laundry in the living room when Lucía runs in, waving a piece of paper.
“Look what I made!” she shouts.
You take the paper and see a drawing of your family. Five stick figures holding hands. A house with a red door. A sun with a smiling face.
At the top, in careful crayon letters, it says: “My Family.”
You stare at it for a long moment, blinking back tears.
“Do you like it?” Lucía asks, worried by your silence.
You pull her into a hug.
“I love it,” you say, voice thick. “Can I keep it?”
She nods proudly.
“I made it for you,” she says. “Because you are part of us now.”
You hang the drawing on the fridge next to the calendar, the one that still has notes in Mateo’s handwriting.
Dance recital. Dentist. Anniversary dinner.
Your life is written into those squares now, permanent and planned for.
One evening, Mateo asks if you are happy.
You are sitting on the porch watching the girls play in the yard. The sun is setting. The air smells like jasmine.
“Yes,” you say simply, because it is true.
He takes your hand.
“I never thought I would get this again,” he admits. “After Mariana left, I thought that was it. That I used up my chance.”
You squeeze his hand.
“You did not use it up,” you say. “You just had to wait for the right one.”
He looks at you with so much love it makes your chest ache.
“I would wait a hundred years if it meant finding you,” he says.
You kiss him then, soft and slow, and the girls make exaggerated gagging noises from the yard.
You laugh and pull away, flipping them off playfully when Mateo is not looking.
They giggle and run back to their game.
Life is not perfect.
There are still hard days. Arguments about bedtime. Fights over screen time. Moments when the girls test boundaries just to see if you will stay when things get difficult.
But you do.
You stay through the tantrums and the tears and the teenage years that loom on the horizon.
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