30. Epilogue Beatriz
Epilogue: Beatriz
One year later.
That’s how long I’ve been waking up to Alejandro, and his kisses to my temple before he opens his eyes.
A year of Sunday lunches with my father that don’t feel like walking a tightrope.
A year of road trips and FaceTimes and him flying back just to make it to the last fifteen minutes of my parent-teacher night before taking a red-eye out again.
A year of laughter—real, full, and quiet.
Camila and Gael had their baby four months ago.
He’s all cheeks and big eyes and a little tuft of hair that sticks straight up, like it doesn’t understand gravity yet.
Drea finally gave in to Niko after six months of him trying every charm he owns; now she calls him “annoying” with a smile and he pretends not to preen.
Everything is moving in the direction it’s supposed to, like the world finally remembered how to be kind to us.
I stand in our kitchen and watch Alejandro slice a mango the way he does everything, with focus and care. The knife glides under the flesh, juice beads run down his hand. He looks up at me with that half-smile that lives on his mouth now, always.
“Bee?” he asks. “You want the pretty slices or the ugly ones?”
“Ugly,” I say, because ugly means the pieces he mangled a little when he got impatient, and those always taste better.
He pushes the plate toward me with a little flourish. “Para ti.”
I set it down and curl my fingers around the edge of the counter because my knees are not to be trusted. The words push against my teeth, wanting out.
“Alejandro?”
“Sí, mi amor.” He keeps looking at me like there’s no one else on this planet.
“I’m pregnant.”
The knife hits the board and skitters. He doesn’t even look at it.
His eyes find mine and widen so fast it steals my breath.
For a heartbeat he goes still. Then the stillness breaks—smile first, then a laugh that mixes with relief and surprise, then he’s around the island and I’m in his arms, feet off the ground.
I yelp and laugh at the same time as he spins me, the kitchen blurring around us. When he sets me down, he’s already kissing my face, my cheek, my forehead, my mouth. Both his hands are firm on my jaw like he doesn't want me to disappear.
“Bee,” he says against my lips, the word a prayer. “Bee, gracias. Gracias.” His voice breaks, and so do I.
“You’re happy?” It comes out watery.
He laughs again, this time a little wild.
“Happy? I—there’s a better word but I don’t have it.
You just told me I get to be a father. You just told me we made a person.
” His eyes shine. “I swear I’m going to do this right.
I’m going to love this baby the way I love you—completely, every day, even on the hard ones. Especially on the hard ones.”
I press my forehead to his. “I know.”
He drops to his knees on the tile and lays both palms over my stomach like he’s holding the sun. He kisses me there, so slow and careful... reverent even. Something in my chest opens so wide it’s hard to breathe.
He stands and kisses me again, softer. “How long have you known?”
“Two days. I took three tests because I didn’t trust the first two. I was going to wait for the doctor’s call, but I couldn’t hold it in anymore.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” He grins, thumb brushing away a tear I didn’t notice falling. “We need to celebrate.”
I look down at the plate of mango and then at his face. “We are.”
“No, no. Out.” He wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand and laughs at himself. “I’m a mess. I don’t care. Get dressed. I’m taking you somewhere with food and drinks I will not let you sip even once.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” I say, trying to sound offended and failing because I can’t stop smiling.
He kisses me again like he can’t help it, then taps my hip. “Go, Bee. Pretty dress. Comfortable shoes. We’re telling the world.”
I change into a simple sundress—the soft one he likes because it swishes when I walk—and slide sandals on.
I put on mascara and then wipe it off because it’s pointless today.
When I come back, he’s at the door with keys in one hand and my favorite cardigan in the other, in case the restaurant is too cold. He always remembers.
In the car, he can’t stop touching me. His hand rests on my thigh, fingers drawing slow circles like he’s trying to write a message into my skin. At every red light he steals a kiss. He keeps glancing over, like I might disappear if he looks away too long.
“Stop staring,” I say, laughing.
“Impossible.” He squeezes my hand. “You’re glowing.”
“It’s ninety degrees.”
“Glowing,” he repeats, smug.
I shake my head and settle against the seat. Outside, Miami moves like it always does, fast and bright and too loud, and yet it feels like the whole world has narrowed to us in this car, in this moment. I rest my palm over my stomach. He notices and covers my hand with his, soft and gentle.
He takes us to a small place we love a few blocks off the water.
There are plastic chairs, white Christmas lights that stay up all year, and music low enough to talk over.
The owner knows Alejandro by name now and never makes a big deal out of it, which is why we keep coming back.
We sit by the window and share arroz con pollo and the best street corn I’ve had outside a parking lot.
He orders sangria and then pushes it to the far corner where I can’t reach it and orders me fresh juice.
Every few minutes he leans across the table to kiss me like he forgot he just did it.
“To my wife,” he says quietly, lifting his glass. “To the mother of my child.”
My face crumples again, but in a good way. I clink juice against his and press my knee into his knee under the table.
We talk about everything and nothing. Whether I’m going to start craving weird combos like pickles and cake.
What names we will not be using because of rude kids we grew up with.
Where we’ll put a crib that won’t look ridiculous next to his giant trophy shelf.
He keeps saying 'our baby' like he can’t get enough of the word.
“Do you want to tell anyone yet?” he asks, soft.
I think about Drea and her big mouth and bigger heart, about Camila with the newborn and the way she cried when I gave her a onesie that said “Miami Squad.”
“Not yet,” I decide. “I want one night where it’s just ours.”
He nods like that’s exactly what he wanted to hear. “Then it’s ours.”
After dinner, we wander. The sun slides down into warm pink and everything looks dipped in honey. A street vendor pushes a cart with a bucket of flowers tied to the side. Yellow catches the corner of my eye and I stop without meaning to.
Alejandro notices. Of course he does. He peels off a few bills, plucks a small bloom, and tucks it behind my ear, fingers lingering at my jaw.
“I finally learned the difference,” he says, and his smile tips just enough to tell me he’s remembering the boy he was.
I touch the petals. "I loved those weeds all the same.”
He kisses me right there on the sidewalk while people step around us, and nobody cares because we look like we own this kind of happiness. Maybe we do.
Back home, he carries me from the car like I’m fragile, even when I roll my eyes and tell him I have legs.
He kisses my shoulder at the front door and my cheek in the kitchen and the inside of my wrist on the stairs.
In our room, he sets the flower on my nightstand and touches my stomach again, as if he can’t help checking.
“Hi, bebé,” he murmurs. “Soy papá.”
I cry again. Because, of course I do.
We collapse on the couch with a blanket thrown over our legs. He pulls me against his chest. His hand strokes slow patterns along my arm; I know every one of them by heart.
“We’re going to be so annoying,” I say into his shirt.
“Already are,” he says, completely satisfied.
I tilt my face up. “Tell me what you were thinking the second after I said it.”
“That I should sit down before I fall.” He grins. “And then that I wanted to run into the street and tell strangers.”
“You would, too.”
“I might still.”
I snort and wipe my cheeks again. “We can tell Papi and Drea tomorrow.”
He nods. Something soft crosses his face. “He’s going to cry.”
“He will pretend he’s not.” I smile. “And then he’ll show up with a car seat and say it was on sale.”
He laughs, low and pleased, then goes quiet. “Bee?”
“Hm?”
“Thank you for choosing me.” His voice is rough. “A year ago, you promised, and every day since, you keep choosing me. But now…” He searches for the word and gives up. “Now this.”
I slide up and kiss him, slow. “Every time. Even when you snore.”
“I don’t snore.”
“You do.”
“Lies.”
“Recordings,” I shoot back. He groans and hides in my neck and I laugh, and the sound makes the baby feel closer somehow, like a secret that will soon be a person who laughs with us.
We sit in that bubble until the sky darkens.
He orders dessert to the house because I say the words “churros” and “maybe ice cream” and he takes both as a mission.
When it arrives, we eat at the counter, sharing bites off one plate, because apparently we’re incapable of using two like normal adults.
He wipes sugar from my lip with his thumb and then kisses the spot because he wants to.
I let him because he’s my husband and I can, forever.
Later, I take the flower from my nightstand, open the drawer of my vanity, and pull out a thin notebook I keep for letters to future us. I open to a clean page and lay the yellow petals inside. Alejandro comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist.
“You’re pressing it?”
“Obviously.”
He drops his chin to my shoulder. “You’re still extra.”
“And you still love me.”
“Más que nada,” he says into my hair.
We change into sleep clothes and climb into bed. I stretch on my side, and he folds around me like he was designed for it. My back fits to his chest; his palm finds mine. Our fingers lace and stay.
Just when my eyes are closing, he kisses my shoulder again. “Tomorrow we’ll tell everyone. Drea will scream. Niko will pretend he knew. Camila will cry and then immediately start a group chat called Tía Squad.”
“Accurate,” I murmur, smiling into the pillow.
“And tonight,” he adds, voice dropping, “I am going to hold you while you sleep. I’m going to talk to our baby in my bad-whisper voice and tell them stories about a girl who saved me without trying.”
I roll to face him. “She didn’t save you.”
“She did,” he says, stubborn and sweet. “And now, you did it again.”
I slide my hand to his cheek. “You saved me, too.”
He presses his mouth to my palm. “We can take turns.”
We lie there a while, and he drifts first, his breaths deep and even.
I watch him—this man I loved as a boy, the one I lost, the one who found me again.
I think of the ceremony, the way my father placed my hand in his and said, without saying it, that he trusted him now.
I think of the proposal on that field. I think of yellow weeds in a math book.
It all led here—to this ordinary, holy night, where I’m newly pregnant and my husband is drooling on the pillowcase a little.