Lucía listened.
"And how many kind people were around me all along."
She squeezed my hand.
We reached the car, but I didn't get in immediately.
Across the street, a little girl was helping her father carry a bag of groceries. He pretended the bag was impossibly heavy, making her giggle.
I watched them for a moment.
Then I thought of my father's letter.
You are allowed to leave.
I'd spent years believing that leaving meant failure.
Now I understood that sometimes leaving was the first act of faith in yourself.
The following Sunday, my family gathered at my apartment.
Mamá brought tortilla española.
Lucía arrived with flowers.
Elena brought a chocolate cake that leaned dramatically to one side.
Teresa appeared with a bottle of sparkling lemonade and insisted on discussing absolutely nothing related to accounting.
We opened the windows.
Music drifted through the rooms.
Someone spilled water on the kitchen counter.
