My daughter immediately objected.
“Mom, you’re 60 years old! Why get married now? People will talk.”
My son was calmer, but he also had his doubts.
“Your life is peaceful as it is… why complicate it?”
It wasn’t easy for Manuel either.
His son was worried about money, inheritance, and what people would say.
But Manuel and I understood something that no one else seemed to grasp.
At this age, we weren’t looking for riches.
Or a big wedding.
We just wanted someone who, at the end of the day, would ask:
“Are you okay today?”
After many arguments and tears, we made a decision.
We got married.
No big party.
No music.
Just a simple meal with a few close friends.
I wore a dark red dress.
Manuel wore a perfectly pressed vintage suit.
Some congratulated us.
Others looked at us disapprovingly.
But at sixty, I no longer wanted to live according to what others thought.
And so our wedding night arrived.
Even saying those words made me smile shyly.
The room was clean.
The sheets were new.
I sat on the edge of the bed, my heart pounding.
As if I were twenty again.
Manuel came into the room.
He closed the door softly.
He sat down beside me.
His hands trembled slightly.
“I never thought I’d experience something like this again,” he whispered.
I smiled.
Nervously.
Excitedly.
I slowly began to unbutton his shirt.
But when the fabric fell and I saw his chest…
I stopped abruptly.
I felt a strange pain in my chest.
Because what I saw there… reminded me of everything time had stolen from us.
Why did that moment of happiness suddenly turn into a silent sadness?
What secret was Manuel hiding under his shirt?
And why did that night, which was supposed to be the start of a new life, almost break both our hearts?
…because what I saw there was not the body I remembered.
Not the strong, firm chest of the young man who used to run to meet me under the jacaranda trees.
Manuel’s skin was marked.
A long, pale scar crossed his chest from shoulder to sternum, like a quiet lightning bolt frozen in time.
His ribs showed more than before.
His body was thinner, more fragile.
For a second, I didn’t see the man in front of me.
I saw everything we had lost.
Forty years.
Forty years of absence, of separate lives, of nights spent wondering “what if…”
And suddenly, it hurt.
Not because of how he looked…
…but because of how life had changed him without me there to witness it.
Manuel noticed my silence.
His hand instinctively moved to cover the scar.
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