He had built a construction and investment company from almost nothing. When he was twenty-one, he had borrowed money from a friend to buy his first rundown property. He repaired it himself, sold it, and reinvested everything.
I still remembered those early years.
He worked until midnight.
He ate cheap sandwiches standing over the kitchen sink.
Sometimes he came home with dust covering his shoes and his hands bleeding from some construction accident he refused to report.
“Someday, Mom,” he used to tell me, “I’ll buy you a house where you won’t have to worry about anything.”
I always laughed.
“You already gave me everything I needed.”
He would shake his head.
“No. I haven’t.”
Years later, he bought the mansion.
Four million dollars.
Eight bedrooms.
Six bathrooms.
A sweeping staircase.
A heated pool.
A dining room larger than the apartment where I had raised him.
And somehow, despite all that wealth, I never felt like it was my home.
Vanessa made sure of that.
She decorated every room without asking me.
She replaced the curtains I liked.
She removed the old photographs of Neftalí as a child because she said they made the house “look like a memorial.”
She even moved my sewing machine into a storage room.
