The last two weeks were very hard.

She could hardly eat anything.

I moistened her lips with water.

I tucked in her blankets.

I read newspaper headlines out loud so she could feel that the world was still entering through her door.

One night she grabbed my wrist with a strength I didn’t know she still had.

“Forgive me.”

“For what?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“For not paying you.”

Something inside me broke.

“You don’t owe me anything, Doña Carmen.”

She barely shook her head.

“Yes, I do. But it’s not money that you’re going to receive.”

I didn’t understand those words.

Two days later, when I arrived, the neighbor across the street was standing at the door with red eyes.

I knew the news before she spoke.

“She passed away at dawn, son.”

I entered the house feeling like my feet would not respond.

Everything was exactly the same.

The cup on the table.

The old radio.

The cane leaning beside the bed.

But she was no longer there.

The funeral home had taken her a few hours earlier, and her children—whom I had never seen—had said on the phone that they wouldn’t arrive until the next day.

The neighbor handed me a yellowed envelope.

“She told me to give this only to you.”

My name was written on it in Doña Carmen’s trembling handwriting.

I sat on the bed and opened it with shaking hands.

Inside there was a single letter and a small key.

The letter said:

Diego,

If you’re reading this, then I’m gone, and I can finally tell you the truth without you interrupting me with your habit of saying, “Don’t worry.”

Yes, I owed you money. A lot. More than a student should lose because of a stubborn old woman like me. And every time I saw you sweeping, cooking, taking me to the hospital, or coming back with groceries even when I had nothing to pay you, I felt ashamed. Not because you helped me, but because your hands reminded me of someone I failed too.

I had to pause for a moment.

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