Chapter 6 - Reclaiming the Castle
Walking back through the side gate of the Zapopan mansion two days later felt surreal.
This time, there was no loud music. No laughter from parasitical friends. No smell of rotting trash.
The heavy iron gate was unlocked by a court marshal, who handed me the master set of keys. I looked at Valeria, who stood beside me, holding Mateo’s hand. Mateo was wearing brand-new clothes, his cheeks filling out, a small toy car clutched tightly in his hand.
"Are you sure you want to live here?" I asked Valeria quietly. "We can sell it. We can buy a small house by the ocean, far away from Zapopan. I don't want this place to haunt you."
Valeria looked up at the three-story house—the house built with my three years of sweat, sacrifice, and isolation on the high seas.
"He tried to turn this house into our prison, Gabriel," she said softly, taking a step forward onto the manicured lawn. "If we run away from it, he still wins. We are going to turn it into our home."
We spent the next month stripping away every trace of Roberto’s presence.
I hired a local crew of workers—paying them fair, honest wages—to completely remodel the property. The back yard where Valeria had been forced to suffer was dug up entirely. The cold concrete patio and the trash dump were broken apart with jackhammers and replaced with a wide, green garden filled with bougainvillea, fruit trees, and a wooden playground set for Mateo.
The interior rooms were repainted in warm, bright colors. Roberto's expensive, ostentatious furniture was sold at auction, and the proceeds were donated to a local shelter for victims of domestic abuse and human trafficking.
One evening, after a long day of working alongside the painters, I sat on the brand-new back porch watching Mateo run across the fresh grass. He was laughing—a loud, clear, ringing sound that I had dreamed of hearing during those long, lonely nights in the ship's engine room.
Valeria came out, carrying two cups of warm tea. She sat down beside me and leaned her head against my shoulder.
"He spoke his first full sentence today," she whispered.
"What did he say?" I asked, putting my arm around her.
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"He pointed at the garden and said, 'Papa built this for us.'"
Tears welled up in my eyes, but for the first time in months, they were not tears of rage or grief. They were tears of peace.
