Weeks later, after I allowed myself to breathe without the weight of Diego looming over us, I received a letter. The thick paper crackled as I opened it. My heart raced as I unfolded the note, familiar handwriting scrawled across the page.

It was from his mother. “Catalina,” it began, each letter a weighty reminder of the life we had built. She was reaching out, a request for reconciliation, a plea I had never anticipated. “We need to talk.”

But it was the last sentence that sent chills down my spine: “I found something belonging to Diego. Something that changes everything.”

“What?”

The edges of my world began to blur again — an old photo? A letter? A memory that had been hidden?

Before I could think, I found myself reaching for my phone, dialing her number. My hands shook as I pressed the call button, heart racing with the possible outcomes. And as the line rang, I knew, in that moment, things would never be the same.

I placed my free hand on Ana’s head as she slept beside me, the weight of her innocence anchoring my thoughts. I had worked so hard to escape the past, to carve a new future. But it was a future now shadowed by something lurking beneath the surface. And when she picked up, the words that spilled out from her lips would bring everything crashing down.

“Catalina, I don’t know how to say this: Diego isn’t the father.”