Chapter 20
Time has a way of moving faster the older you get.
One minute Elena is seven, punching boys who pull her hair.
The next she’s twelve, rolling her eyes at everything we say.
Then sixteen, driving us crazy with her moods and her friends and her music.
Then eighteen, graduating high school at the top of her class.
Full scholarship to Parsons School of Design in New York.
She wanted to follow in my footsteps.
Of course she did.
We moved her into her dorm in August.
Carried boxes up three flights of stairs.
Made her bed.
Put her clothes away.
Ethan cried the whole time.
Tried to hide it.
Failed miserably.
“Dad, stop,” Elena said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like I’m moving to another country. It’s New York. You can visit every weekend.”
“I know,” he sniffled. “But my baby is growing up.”
She rolled her eyes again.
But I saw the way she squeezed his hand.
The way she kissed his cheek.
She loved her daddy.
More than anything.
We left her that night.
Walked out of the dorm.
Got in the car.
Ethan cried all the way back to Chicago.
I held his hand.
Cried a little too.
Our baby was gone.
All grown up.
Building her own life.
The house was too quiet when we got home.
Too empty.
Ethan wrapped his arms around me.
“We still have each other,” he said.
“Always.”
And we did.
Twenty years of marriage.
And it just kept getting better.
We still worked together.
Still designed and built beautiful things.
Still traveled.
Still made love like newlyweds.
Still laughed at the same stupid jokes.
Still held hands everywhere we went.
People always asked us what our secret was.
How we stayed so happy after so long.
We never had a good answer.
Because there was no secret.
We just loved each other.
Respected each other.
Chose each other.
Every single day.
Even on the hard days.
Especially on the hard days.
Diego got married three years after Elena left for college.
A nice woman named Maria.
A teacher.
Quiet.
Kind.
Good for him.
They had a son.
Named him Gustavo.
After Dad.
Dad cried at the baptism.
Said it was the proudest moment of his life.
Mom agreed.
Abuela—now ninety-five and still sharper than ever—said the boy had Salazar written all over him.
She was right.
Little Gustavo had the same fire in his eyes that all Salazar men had.
He’d be trouble.
Good trouble.
The kind that made the family proud.
Dad retired that year.
Thirty-five years with the feds.
Another ten consulting.
He’d earned it.
He and Mom bought a small house in Florida.
Spent their winters in the sun.
Their summers in Chicago with the grandkids.
They were happy.
Finally.
After all the stress.
All the trials.
All the pain.
They’d earned their peace.
I turned fifty that year.
Fifty.
Half a century.
It sounded so old when I was young.
But now that I was here… it felt just right.
I’d done so much.
Loved so deeply.
Built so much.
Survived so much.
And the best was still ahead.
Elena called me the night before my birthday.
“Mom, I’m coming home for the weekend. I have something to tell you. And Dad. And the whole family actually. It’s big.”
“Okay, baby. We’ll be here.”
“Okay. Love you, Mom.”
“Love you too, Elena.”
I hung up.
Looked at Ethan.
“Any idea what that was about?”
He shook his head.
“None. But knowing our daughter… it’s either the best news we’ve ever heard… or we’re about to become grandparents way too soon.”
I laughed.
“God, I hope not. She’s only twenty-two.”
But secretly… I kind of hoped so too.
Grandkids.
The next generation.
Another Salazar to love.
Another reason to keep fighting.
May you like
To keep building.
To keep living.
