My name is Lina , I’m twenty years old, and I’m a final-year design student.
My friends always say I seem more mature than I am, perhaps because I’ve lived alone with my mother since I was little—a single woman, full of strength and determination.
My father died young, and my mother never remarried; all these years she has worked tirelessly to raise me.
Once, while participating in a volunteer project in Guadalajara , I met Santiago , the head of the logistics team. He was over twenty years older than me, kind, calm, and spoke with a depth that surprised me.
At first, I only appreciated him as a colleague, but little by little, my heart began to beat faster every time I heard his voice.
Santiago had been through a lot. He had a stable job and a failed marriage, but he had no children. He didn’t talk much about his past, only saying,
“I lost something very valuable. Now I just want to live honestly.”
Our love grew slowly, without scandals or drama. He always treated me with care, as if protecting something fragile.
I knew many people commented, “How can a twenty-year-old girl fall in love with a man more than twenty years her senior?” but I didn’t care. With him, I felt at peace.
One day, Santiago told me:
“I want to meet your mother. I don’t want to keep hiding anything.”
I felt a knot in my stomach. My mother was strict and always worried, but I thought: if this is true love, there’s nothing to fear.
That day I took him home. Santiago was wearing a white shirt and carrying a bouquet of marigolds , the flower I told him my mother has always loved.
I took his hand as we walked through the old gate of the house in Tlaquepaque . My mother was watering the plants and saw us.
At that moment… she froze.
Before he could introduce them, she ran to him and hugged him tightly, tears streaming down her face.
“My God… it’s you!” he exclaimed. “Santiago!”
The air grew heavy. I froze, completely bewildered. My mother was still hugging him, weeping and trembling. Santiago seemed stunned, his gaze lost, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Are you… Thalia?” he stammered in a hoarse voice.
My mother raised her head and nodded strongly:
“Yes… it’s you! My God, after more than twenty years you’re still alive, still here!”
My heart was pounding.
“Mom… do you know Santiago?”
They both looked at me. Neither of them said anything for a few seconds. Then my mother dried her tears and sat down:
“Lina… I must tell you the truth. When I was young, I loved a man named Santiago… and this is him.”
Silence filled the room. I looked at Santiago, his face pale and confused. My mother continued, her voice trembling:
“When I was studying at a technical school in Guadalajara , he had just finished university. We loved each other very much, but my grandparents didn’t approve of our relationship; they said he had no future.
Then… Santiago had an accident, and we lost all contact. I thought he had died…”
Santiago sighed, his hands trembling:
“I didn’t forget you for a single day, Thalía. When I woke up in the hospital, I was far away and had no way to contact you. I came back, but I learned you’d already had a daughter… and I didn’t dare approach you.”
I felt my world crumbling. Every word tore at my heart.
“So… my daughter…” I gasped.
My mother looked at me, her voice breaking:
—Lina… you are Santiago’s daughter.
The silence was absolute. He could only hear the wind rustling through the garden trees. Santiago took a step back, his eyes red, his hands hanging limply at his sides.
“No… it can’t be…” she whispered. “I didn’t…”
My whole world felt empty. The man I loved, the one I believed was my destiny… turned out to be my father.
My mother hugged me, crying:
“I’m sorry… I never imagined…”
I said nothing. I just let the tears fall, salty and bitter like fate.
That day, the three of us sat for a long time. It was no longer a boyfriend introduction, but a reunion of souls lost for more than twenty years.
And I… a daughter who found her father and lost her first love, could only remain silent, letting the tears continue to fall.
That afternoon passed heavily, like an endless rain.
The last rays of sunlight filtered through the garden trees, scattering across the old tiled floor, yet none of us noticed. Each of us was imprisoned in our own thoughts—painful, tangled, and overwhelming.
Santiago was the first to stand up. He looked at me for a long time, his eyes filled with remorse, love, and a deep, unspoken guilt. Then, unexpectedly, he knelt down in front of me. Both my mother and I froze.
“Lina… my daughter,” he said, his voice trembling. “I don’t deserve to be called that. I wasn’t there for you for twenty years. I let you grow up without knowing who I was.”
I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. I wanted to scream, to ask why fate had to be so cruel, but my throat tightened. In the end, I could only whisper,
“I… need time.”
My mother sat beside us, her thin shoulders shaking. For all these years, she had carried an enormous secret within her—both a shield and a burden.
She reached for Santiago’s hand, then pulled away, as if afraid that one touch might shatter everything again.
“I never told her because I thought you were dead,” my mother said hoarsely. “I didn’t want her to grow up with an unfinished memory, with a hopeless waiting.”
Santiago nodded, his eyes red. “I understand. And I don’t blame you. I only blame myself… for not trying harder.”
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in my familiar bedroom—the place that had witnessed my entire childhood—yet it felt strangely foreign.
Every memory of Santiago—our gentle conversations, his thoughtful advice, the warmth in his gaze—now carried a different meaning.
He was no longer the man I loved, but the father I had never known.
The days that followed were filled with silence. Santiago didn’t dare call me, only occasionally asking my mother how I was.
I avoided him—not out of hatred, but fear. I was afraid of my own emotions, afraid to realize that my first love, though transformed, had left a scar too deep to erase.
A week later, I decided to face the truth. I asked Santiago to meet me at a small café near my design school. When he walked in, I noticed how much older he looked—not because of age, but because of worry.
We sat across from each other in silence for a long time. Finally, I spoke.
“I don’t know how to address you… I mean, I don’t know what to call you.”
He gave a sad smile. “You can call me anything. I won’t force you.”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t blame you. But I can’t pretend nothing happened either. I need to learn how to get used to this truth… slowly.”
A fragile spark of hope appeared in his eyes. “If you just give me a chance to be part of your life—even from afar—I’ll be grateful.”
From then on, everything moved at a gentle pace.
Santiago began to appear in my life as a father: asking about my studies, listening to my worries about my graduation project, quietly standing in the background at my small exhibitions.
He never crossed any boundaries, never mentioned our past feelings, as if that memory were something sacred that needed to be buried deep.
As for me, little by little, I learned to think of him as “father,” even though my lips still weren’t ready to say the word out loud.
I realized that losing one kind of love didn’t mean losing everything. I had found a missing part of myself—a root I once believed never existed.
One afternoon, the three of us sat together in the courtyard of our house in Tlaquepaque.
My mother smiled—a peaceful smile I hadn’t seen in a long time. The wind brushed softly through the garden, making the bright marigolds sway.
In that moment, I understood that no matter how cruel fate can be, it still leaves people a path forward. Not as lovers, but as a family—late, broken, imperfect, yet real.
And I, Lina, finally learned to accept that some loves are born only to be lost, so they can make room for something greater and deeper—the truth of where we come from, and who we truly are.