We got married two years later. I was 22. He was 24.
At first, it was wonderful. But when our son arrived, everything changed. Javier got a job at a construction company. He earned a good wage, but it was never enough. There was always something: an investment, a course, a “sure thing” that needed capital.
I kept cleaning houses. Sometimes three or four a day. I’d come home with cracked hands and a wrecked back. But I did it for my son. And, back then, also for Javier.
Until my uncle died.
My uncle Mauricio was my mother’s older brother. He never married. He never had children. He lived alone in an old house on the outskirts of the city. The family saw him as the “odd one out.” The loner.
But he always treated me well. When I was a child, he gave me candy. When I grew up, he listened to me. He was the only one who came to my wedding.
When he died two years ago, I was pregnant and going through a terrible time. Javier had lost money on a failed investment. We argued every night.
I didn’t go to the funeral. I didn’t have the money for the bus fare.
Two months later, I received a letter from a lawyer. My uncle had left me something in his will: a commercial lot in the city center.
A lot that, according to the lawyer, was worth almost four million dollars.
I was in shock. I didn’t understand. Why me? Why not my mother, or my uncles?
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