He is not talking to you.
He is talking to your mother.
That alone makes the neighbors lean harder into their windows.
You feel Elena come to your side before she even reaches you. She does not hug you right away. She knows you too well. She knows you are still standing in the wreckage of a hope you were ashamed to keep this long. Instead she places one warm hand between your shoulder blades and lets it rest there like a brace.
“We’re here, Mamá,” she says quietly.
The sentence nearly undoes you.
Not because you doubted they would come. Because for twenty-one years you were the one arriving for everyone else—wire transfers, medicine money, roofing money, tuition money, electricity money, hospital money, funeral money, “just until next week” money. You became the person who solved what no one else wanted to solve. Now, for once, someone has arrived for you.
The man in the navy suit stops three paces from the gate and gives your mother a formal nod.
“Mrs. Teresa Salazar?” he asks.
Your mother lifts her chin. “Who wants to know?”
