Ricardo did.
He apologized to me.
To Mateo.
To our daughters.
Even to Javier.
That conversation between the brothers was messy. There were arguments, tears, accusations, and decades of resentment neither of them had known existed.
Ricardo also began therapy.
For the first time, he confronted something else that had been hurting our family long before Mateo’s birth.
His obsession with having a son.
He dismantled the elaborate blue nursery he had created as if Mateo were some long-awaited prize. He bought Renata a new bed because she had been sleeping on an old one while we saved money for the baby boy’s room.
That realization hurt.
Because I had played a part too.
Not in Ricardo’s accusation—that belonged entirely to him.
But I had accepted pregnancy after pregnancy when I was already exhausted.
I had smiled whenever relatives said, “Maybe this one will finally be a boy.”
Without intending to, I had allowed my daughters to grow up hearing that our family was incomplete.
But it had never been incomplete.
They had always been enough.
Three months later, Ricardo asked if I would return home.
He didn’t arrive carrying flowers or making grand promises.
He brought documents from therapy, a parenting plan, and a much quieter version of himself.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me because I feel guilty,” he said. “I only want to know whether there’s still a possibility.”
Mateo was sleeping nearby.
I looked at our son.
Then at Ricardo.
“There’s a possibility that you can become the father our children deserve.”
Ricardo’s face tightened.
“And us?”
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