The girl tapped the tablet again.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. You’re not authorized to enter.”
Authorized.
As though I were some stranger trying to force herself into a life where she no longer belonged.
Then I saw him.
Mateo stood near the garden in a tailored black suit, smiling for photographs. I walked toward him. The moment he noticed me, the smile vanished from his face. Irritation replaced it.
“What are you doing here?” he muttered through clenched teeth.
“I came to your wedding, son. They wouldn’t let me inside.”
His eyes darted nervously toward the cameras nearby.
“You seriously thought you were invited?”
Then Ximena appeared beside him, wrapped in a white designer gown that looked torn from a bridal magazine. She wore the kind of delicate smile some women use to humiliate others without ever raising their voice.
“Mateo, darling, don’t drag this out,” she said smoothly. “The family pictures are about to start.”
Family pictures.
I stared at the boy I had adopted when he was three years old. The frightened child I met inside an orphanage in Querétaro. The little boy who once clung to my skirt and whispered, “Are you leaving me too?”
I never left him.
I gave him my last name, my home, my savings, and my entire future. I worked long shifts at a stationery shop and sold tamales on weekends to afford his school tuition and university education. When he needed surgery, I sold my mother’s earrings without hesitation.
“Mateo,” I whispered painfully, “I’m your mother.”
His jaw tightened.
“A real mother would respect my choices.”
Ximena sighed dramatically.
“Doña Teresa, please don’t take this personally. We simply wanted an elegant wedding with guests who fit the atmosphere.”
Fit the atmosphere.
I remembered the first time Ximena tasted my homemade chicken soup and commented that it smelled like a depressing roadside café. I waited for Mateo to defend me. He never did. After that came the jokes about my perfume, my old car, my hugs, even my phone calls.
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