Chapter 4 - Teresa’s Impossible Proposal
The ambulance arrived within minutes.
I followed it to the hospital.
For hours, I sat outside the emergency room.
I called Mariana.
She arrived before midnight.
Neither of us spoke.
At two in the morning, a doctor came out.
Teresa was stable.
But something was wrong with her heart.
I sat beside her bed the next morning.
Her eyes opened slowly.
“You're here.”
“Of course.”
She smiled.
“You look terrible.”
“So do you.”
She laughed softly.
Then she became serious.
“Listen to me.”
“I am.”
“If something happens to me…”
“Don't talk like that.”
“Let me finish.”
I nodded.
She squeezed my hand.
“You need to build your own life.”
“I already have.”
“No. You have a business. That's not the same thing.”
“What are you saying?”
“I'm saying you can't keep measuring your future by what I own.”
I looked away.
She noticed.
“You know I can see you thinking.”
“I've changed.”
“I know.”
“Then trust me.”
“I do.”
That answer surprised me.
She trusted me.
Even though she had known the truth from the beginning.
The next six months were quieter.
Teresa retired completely.
I worked less.
We ate breakfast together every morning.
Sometimes she told stories about her husband.
She showed me old photographs.
One evening, she brought out a picture of herself at twenty-five.
She was beautiful.
I stared at it.
“You were trouble.”
“I was worse than you.”
“I don't believe that.”
She laughed.
“My husband did.”
She told me how they built the stationery business from nothing.
How they had lost money.
How they nearly lost the house.
How they rebuilt.
Then she said something that stayed with me.
“People think wealth means having something nobody can take away.”
She looked toward the window.
“It's not.”
“What is it?”
“Knowing who stays when there is nothing left to gain.”
I didn't answer.
She looked at me.
“Are you afraid of me?”
“No.”
“You should be.”
She smiled.
I laughed.
But there was sadness in her eyes.
A few weeks later, she gave me the keys to a small workshop she owned.
“I want you to have it.”
I refused.
“It's yours.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don't want to owe you more.”
She looked proud.
“That is the first time you've refused something valuable.”
“I've learned.”
“Yes.”
She took back the keys.
But she kept watching me.
By then, I had started realizing something terrible.
If Teresa died, I wouldn't just lose an opportunity.
I would lose the person who had become my family.
The thought frightened me.
I began visiting her doctor appointments.
I kept track of her medications.
I cooked when she was tired.
I stopped asking about money entirely.
One evening, she caught me repairing a broken cabinet.
“You know,” she said, “you could have left years ago.”
I looked at her.
“Why would I?”
“Because you came here for a reason.”
I froze.
She continued.
“You came because you thought I was wealthy.”
“I know.”
“You came because you thought I would die before you had to face what you'd done.”
My hands went still.
“Teresa…”
She raised a hand.
“I don't need an apology tonight.”
“What do you need?”
“Nothing.”
She looked at the cabinet.
“Just finish that.”
I did.
She never mentioned it again.
But something between us changed.
She knew everything.
And she still chose to stay.
Six years after the day we met outside the pharmacy, Teresa woke up early.
She made coffee.
She watered the plants.
She fed the birds.
Then she collapsed in the garden.
This time, there was no recovery.
She died that night in the hospital.
I held her hand until it became cold.
Eight days later, I sat beside Mariana in a notary's office.
The reading began.
The house was left to Mariana.
The savings were divided among several charities and former employees.
The furniture business investments went to people Teresa had helped.
Her jewelry was distributed among family members.
I received nothing.
Not even the house where I had lived for six years.
Mariana looked at me.
I said nothing.
The notary closed the folder.
Then he reached beneath his desk.
He placed a wooden box in front of me.
I recognized it immediately.
I had built it myself.
Teresa had apparently kept it hidden for years.
The notary rested his hand on the lid.
“She left very specific instructions.”
I opened it.
The first thing inside was a handwritten letter.
At the top was a date.
Six years earlier.
The day after I had first eaten tacos with her.
The first sentence read:
May you like
“I know why he helped me outside the pharmacy.”
My heart stopped.
