PART 2
Elena allowed him to visit the following Thursday, for one hour, at their apartment in Narvarte.
Sebastián arrived with no expensive gifts, no elaborate flowers, no designer toys. He came empty-handed — because for the first time in his life, he understood that there were things money could not reach.
Mateo opened the door with his arms folded, looking him over like an inspector. Nicolás watched from the armchair, clutching a broken toy car. Valentina ran to Elena and hid behind her skirt, though she kept stealing glances at Sebastián.
The apartment was small and warm, full of drawings pinned to the refrigerator, children’s backpacks, well-used books, and an orange cat named Pancho who settled onto Sebastián’s shoes as though conducting an evaluation.
For the first few minutes, Sebastián didn’t know what to do. He had negotiated contracts worth five hundred million pesos, faced hostile boardrooms, and closed deals with formidable adversaries — but he didn’t know how to talk to a small girl who wanted to show him twelve drawings of an astronaut cat.
Valentina was the first to approach.
— Did you know my mom when she was younger?
Sebastián looked at Elena.
— Yes. I knew her back when she still laughed more.
Elena looked away.
Mateo heard it from the table.
— My mom does laugh. Just not when she’s worried.
The phrase landed like a small, precise accusation.
Sebastián crouched in front of him.
— Then I hope I’m not making her worry anymore.
Nicolás, who had said nothing, extended the broken toy car.
— Do you know how to fix things?
Sebastián picked it up carefully. He didn’t know. But he sat on the floor, examined the tire, pressed a small piece until it clicked, and handed it back.
Nicolás turned the wheel.
It worked.
— Thank you, — he said quietly.
That word nearly undid him.
Elena saw it from the kitchen and had to turn away so no one would notice she was crying.
The hour stretched to two hours and twenty minutes. When Sebastián left, Valentina asked whether he would come back.
“Yes,” he said. “If your mom lets me.”
Elena didn’t smile, but she didn’t say no either.
One week later, the paternity test came back: 99.998% match with all three children.
Sebastián held the document for several minutes, unable to move. He hadn’t needed the proof to know, but seeing it in writing felt like being given permission to feel all the pain he had kept frozen.
That evening he went to Margarita’s house.
His mother was waiting as though nothing were wrong, dressed in white, organizing a charity dinner.
“I need you to tell me what you did to Elena,” Sebastián said.
Margarita showed no surprise. She simply set her glass on the table.
— I did what was necessary.
— She was pregnant.
— And it wasn’t convenient.
Sebastián felt the air become unbearable.
— They were my children.
— They were a threat to your future. That girl was going to drag you down, fill your life with diapers, problems, and emotional poverty. I saved you.
Sebastián slammed his hand on the table.
— You stole five years from me.
Margarita rose from her chair.
— Don’t speak to me that way. Everything you have exists because I protected the Rivas name.
— No. Everything I lost exists because you confused love with control.
Then Margarita made her final mistake.
— If that woman thinks she’s going to keep your money by using those children, she’s wrong.
Sebastián looked at her with a coldness she had never seen in him before.
— Don’t ever call them “those children” again. They’re Mateo, Nicolás, and Valentina. They’re my children. And from today, you will not go near them.
Margarita went pale.
— You wouldn’t dare.
Sebastián took out his phone.
— Amanda, proceed with everything. Fraud, forgery, threats, tampering with family documents. I also want an order prohibiting any contact with Elena and the children.
Elena knew nothing of it until Sebastián appeared at her apartment that night.
His face was wrecked. He didn’t ask to come in. He stood in the hallway.
“It was my mother,” he said. “She fabricated all of it.”
Elena closed her eyes.
For years she had lived hating him and missing him simultaneously. For years she had believed Sebastián had simply walked away. And now the truth didn’t give her back the past — it only redistributed the pain.
“I waited for you,” she whispered. “I waited for you to find me. To tell me it was a lie.”
“I was a coward,” he admitted. “I thought you left because I didn’t know how to love you. And in part, that was true. I worked too much, came home late, left you alone. My mother took advantage of a crack I had made myself.”
Elena cried without sound.
— I can’t undo five years, Sebastián.
— I know.
— And you can’t simply become a father overnight.
— I know.
— If you want to be there, it has to be consistent. Saturdays with pancakes, school meetings, three in the morning fevers, tantrums, homework, the park. No grand promises. Just showing up.
Sebastián nodded, his eyes red.
— Tell me the time.
— Saturday. Seven in the morning. Valentina wakes up at six-thirty.
— I’ll be there.
— Don’t be late.
— Not anymore.
