As Valentina took her first steps, my business was also learning to walk.
What began as a simple table in the living room ended up becoming a small workshop.
Then a store arrived.
And later, a company.
Each new achievement reminded me that effort always finds its reward, even if the path is much longer than expected.
Even so, there was something she could never forget.
Every birthday.
Every Christmas.
Every important celebration.
I always thought about my parents.
I wondered if they would ever think of me.
If only they knew they had a granddaughter.
If they ever regretted the decision they made so many years ago.
For twenty years I never received a call.
Not a single letter.
Not a single news item.
Until one morning something unexpected happened.
While reviewing some documents in my office, I found an old photograph that had been stored inside a book for years.
In it, I appeared with my parents in front of our old house.
Behind the photograph was a phrase written in my mother’s handwriting:
“No matter what happens, this will always be your home.”
Those words left me completely paralyzed.
After so many years…
Why had he written that?
That same afternoon I made a decision that I had been putting off for too long.
It was time to return.
Without imagining that, upon crossing that door again, I would discover a truth capable of changing everything I thought I knew about my own family.
PART 2: on the next page.
Part 2: A return full of questions
All the way back to the village I felt a mixture of nervousness, curiosity, and fear. Twenty years had passed since I’d last traveled that road. The landscapes were still familiar, but I was no longer the same young woman who had left with a backpack full of uncertainty.
Now I drove my own car, had built a successful company, and could offer my daughter a life I had never imagined. However, deep down, a part of me still hadn’t healed from that wound.
