PART 3
Lucía, Mauricio, and two of his children walked in.
The four of them froze when they saw that scene: their father, who should have been alone, was surrounded by bikers singing, laughing, and raising glasses in his honor.
Lucía was the first to react.
“Dad! I’m sorry, I’m sorry… we got so terribly late… there was traffic, a meeting, and then Nico felt sick…”
Mauricio added, stumbling over his words:
“My phone died, Dad. We were coming, we really were.”
Ernesto did not answer right away.
Not out of anger. Out of clarity.
He looked at them like someone finally seeing a photograph without the filter of affection.
For years he had excused them before they even spoke. He had always explained their absences, defended their hurry, minimized their forgetfulness. But that night, with that table full of strangers who had decided to show up without owing him anything, the contrast was too brutal.
Raúl and the others remained silent.
No one wanted to invade that moment.
Lucía came closer with guilt in her eyes.
“Dad, we didn’t know you were going to… well… that you would be waiting so long.”
Ernesto gave a sad smile.
“That is exactly the problem, my daughter. You never know. You never imagine how much a person waits.”
The words fell softly, but heavily.
Mauricio lowered his gaze.
One of the grandchildren, a skinny teenager with a phone in his hand, looked at his grandfather with genuine shame.
“I’m sorry, Grandpa,” he murmured. “I did want to come.”
Ernesto looked at him, and his expression softened a little.
Because the real pain did not come from the children. It came from the adults who had learned to always put him last.
Lucía looked at the table, the cake, the helmets on the chairs, the warm smiles of those strangers.
“Who are they?” she asked almost in a whisper.
Raúl was the one who answered.
“The people who didn’t want to let your father have dinner alone on his birthday.”
No one raised their voice, but the blow landed directly.
Lucía covered her mouth. Mauricio closed his eyes with a guilt that could no longer be disguised.
Ernesto took a deep breath.
And then he did something none of them expected.
He calmly moved one of the plates.
Then another.
“There is still room,” he said.
Lucía looked up, surprised.
“Dad…?”
“If you are going to sit down,” he continued, “if you are truly going to be here, then sit down for real. Without rushing. Without looking at the clock. Without making me feel like this dinner is an inconvenience to you.”
Lucía’s eyes filled with tears.
“Yes, Dad.”
Mauricio also sat down, silently.
The bikers naturally made room, moved a couple of chairs, ordered another round of tortillas, and someone joked that a Mexican party always found a way to squeeze in a little more.
What followed was not perfect.
There were no magical apologies that erased years of absences. There were no dramatic sermons or novel-like reconciliations.
But there was something real.
There were words that were finally said.
Lucía confessed that since Elena’s death, it had hurt her so much to see her father alone that, instead of coming closer, she had pulled away because she did not know how to handle her own guilt. Mauricio admitted that for years he had assumed his father would “always be there,” as if parents were eternal until one day they no longer are.
Ernesto listened to everything.
And when he spoke, he did not speak from resentment.
“I don’t need expensive gifts or pretty promises. I just need that if you say you’re coming… you come. And that you don’t love me only when it is convenient for you, but when it is needed.”
No one argued with that.
The teenage grandson, shyly, took out his phone.
“Grandpa… the video I was going to show you really was funny.”
The entire table burst into laughter.
“Go on, play it,” Beto said.
And so, between grilled meat, sodas, old stories, quiet tears, and a badly made cake, the night ended up becoming something no one at La Herradura would ever forget.
When the bill came, Ernesto wanted to pay.
Raúl was faster.
“Don’t even try, boss. This round is on the gang.”
“I can pay it,” Ernesto said.
“Of course you can,” Raúl replied. “But today isn’t about that.”
