Lucia burst through the front door, eyes wide with excitement as she scanned the crowded room.
“Feliz Cumpleaños!” we all shouted, making her giggle wildly as she raced toward Mama, throwing her tiny arms around her grandmother with enough impact to topple them both.
“Mi princesa,” Mama murmured, cupping Lucia’s little face. “Seven already! You’re getting too big.”
Lucia nodded solemnly. “I’m practically a grown-up.”
Isabel rolled her eyes dramatically. “Another grown-up who doesn’t clean her room.”
Lucia laughed, squirming free and running straight toward me. She crashed into my legs, hugging me tightly around the waist. “Vale, there’s a bounce house! Did you see?”
“Of course I saw,” I teased, smoothing back her hair gently. “Who do you think ordered it?”
“Really?” Her eyes widened, suitably impressed, but then they turned thoughtful. “Is it because you want to bounce too?”
“Maybe,” I admitted, biting back a smile. “Mostly, I got it so you’d think I’m the best aunt ever.”
She nodded enthusiastically and pulled me toward the back yard. “You are. But come on—I need face paint too. Mama said you were doing it.”
“Right,” Isabel called loudly, overhearing. “Because Valentina always follows through on plans she volunteers for.” She paused dramatically, handing out juice boxes like they were party favors. “Maybe she’ll even stick around for cake this time.”
I shot her a look.
We’re still working on it ...
But I didn’t argue. Mostly because she wasn’t completely wrong. I could pretend it didn’t sting, or I could just accept it—accept that trust and forgiveness took more time than I wanted them to. And that was okay. Because as exhausting as it was to admit, Isabel had earned the right to be skeptical.
Outside, the bounce house towered like a giant neon-colored castle, packed full of shrieking, hyperactive children who’dclearly had way too much sugar. I set up shop on the patio table with a colorful palette of face paints and brushes that I was maybe a little too excited to use. Lucia sat down, instantly listing off her very specific face-painting demands—something involving unicorns and rainbows and possibly glitter.
A lot of glitter.
I hated glitter. With a passion usually reserved for people who chewed loudly in movie theaters or men who wore socks with sandals. Glitter was everywhere, infecting everything it touched, impossible to remove. It was basically the herpes of craft supplies. But Lucia’s eyes had near sparkled with her request, and I’d never exactly had a lot of willpower when it came to my niece.
“Vale,” she said after a moment, squirming impatiently while I attempted something vaguely unicorn-shaped on her cheek. “Did you know Mama said I could have a sleepover at your house next weekend? Uncle Marco said we can feed the ducks! He promised, so don’t let him forget.”
Uncle Marco.
I paused mid-brushstroke and glanced at Marco. He was standing across the yard near the patio railing, still wearing his suit and tie, sleeves neatly cuffed at the wrist, looking entirely out of place surrounded by my uncles in their shorts and faded T-shirts. They crowded him like he was some rare species, bombarding him with questions about his job, sports, and probably whether he preferred beer or tequila—the usual De La Vega interrogation tactics. Marco handled them easily.
“Really?” I asked. “Well, we’d better stay true to that promise, huh?”
She nodded, and we both looked at Marco again.
He’d come straight from the office, not even pausing long enough to ditch his suit jacket or loosen his tie, even though it was a thousand degrees outside and humid enough to feel like arainforest. He’d done this more times than I could count—made room in a schedule that had zero room left in it, all for Lucia. All for this family.
He didn’t even complain about it—not that he complained about much besides my occasional habit of leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor (which was admittedly annoying, but still).
I knew he’d spent the afternoon buried in paperwork, phone calls, negotiations—the kind of tedious tasks I’d spent my entire life actively avoiding. But he’d made sure he’d gotten here anyway, on time, even managing to grab Lucia from school.
Sometimes, when I was feeling especially reflective (overthinking at 3:00 a.m., when I couldn’t sleep), I wondered why he did all this. I wasn’t exactly naïve. I knew Marco cared—more deeply and quietly than anyone I’d ever met—but the ways he showed his care never failed to catch me off-guard.
He never mentioned his quiet acts of kindness. Never pointed out when he was doing something purely because he knew it mattered to me. He just did them, silently and without fanfare, like it was a given. Like caring about someone meant quietly absorbing their burdens without making a show of it.
It had taken me weeks—literal weeks—of endless yelling matches with the hospital billing department to figure out why Mama’s medical payments weren’t going through. Isabel had panicked, worried we’d be fined for late payments, or worse, kicked out of treatment entirely. It had been chaos, phone call after phone call, hold music permanently etched into my brain, until some exhausted-sounding lady on the other end had finally sighed and said, “Ma’am, your balance was paid in full weeks ago by someone named Grey.”
Marco.
Of course, Marco.
