“I’ve heard you are traveling during the holidays. So, you won’t be around for my party?” The woman batted her eyelashes coquettishly. At least, it was her attempt to do so.

Daniel cleared his throat.

“Ah, thanks for the invitation… but I’m visiting my grandparents.”

“You must really like it there, you go every year.”

They had just bumped into each other in the market, there was no need to make conversation beyond some polite greeting.

“I guess so. Then… see you around, Monnie.”

He didn’t like Monnie very much. However, her new year’s parties were famous and when they were teenagers it meant something to be invited by her, so he’d never missed them the past years.

Perhaps he was getting old, and things were different now. Daniel didn’t particularly feel like partying with people he didn’t like. Besides, his childhood neighbors weren’t around either…

Or was it really for the breakup? He’d mocked Long Wei for moving overseas after he broke up with his girlfriend, but to be fair Long Wei and Thalia had been together for years and engaged to be married, so it was a different level of seriousness. Daniel himself acknowledged that he and Leah weren’t there yet, and that was why she broke up with him.

Going to his grandparents’ house in December was unusual, but it didn’t have to do with Leah. Of course not. 

Valeria was having her graduation ceremony and receiving her diploma. Once he’d promised her that he’d go to her high school graduation, and that had never been possible because she wasn’t allowed to graduate with the rest of her classmates, just quietly picking the papers at school on a different day. The girl didn’t have it easy, but she had worked hard these years.

Stepping into the house, he went straight to the kitchen where his mother was preparing dinner and left the bags on the counter.

“Here it is. Everything you wrote down in the list.”

She mumbled something that he couldn’t quite hear.

“Mom, I love you, you know?”

His mother glared at him. This time, she was making a visible effort to show her discontent since he’d come home without bringing Leah, after announcing his girlfriend would be visiting this time. 

“Wash your hands and come help me. Your father will be home soon and I want to be done with this.”

He sighed. “Okay.”

According to his mom, he didn’t take his relationship (or life, by that matter) seriously enough.

Daniel couldn’t blame her. He didn’t think he’d done wrong regarding Leah either, as he only expressed honestly how it was too soon for them to move in together. Then again, those things were different for different people, and four months were enough for some. He just felt as if the pieces of the puzzle didn’t quite fit in.

Such things happened, it couldn’t be helped.

***

“UNCLE DANIEL!”

The kids running to the gates of the house to welcome him were a small crowd by now. Rosa’s children, Carlos, Ana and Ale, were much taller every time he visited. Not only them, but Manuel too seemed to have grown a few inches.

“Hi kids. I barely recognized you two.” He told the twins, and then turned to the eldest “Carlos, is your mother home?”

“She is still at work. But grandma is inside.”

“Ok. Let’s go in then.”

“Uncle, I will help you.” Manu said, grabbing his backpack.

“No, I will help you!” Ale said.

The twins and Manu were almost the same age, and after Rosa moved back to the grandparents' home after separating from Kike, the children became friends who spent half the time bickering, half the time playing together. Oh, at times like this he knew he wanted to remain as the cool uncle forever and not have kids of his own.

“Daniel, my son, you are finally here!”

His grandmother hugged him when he entered the living room, and then quickly sent him to unpack in his bedroom. “I still have to do the frosting for the cake.”

She was getting really old now, but it didn’t stop her from finding something to get herself busy all the time.

“A cake for me?”

“Of course not. I am helping Maria, and preparing this for tonight.”

Once the ceremony was over, they would have dinner at Valeria’s home. As far as Daniel knew, only his family and some close friends were invited.

“I see. Is she not home? I wanted to say hello, but since Manu is here…”

“Maria brought Manu while she and Valeria went to the hair salon. It won’t be long before they come back.”

Talking about the boy, he was already following him behind to the bedroom, looking very much like a puppy wagging his tail.

“Uncle, are we going on a picnic like last time?”

“If your mom has time, of course.”

“She always has time when you are here. Uncle, you are the best.”

It was more like Daniel always coming around the dates Valeria was done with her semester at university, but the mind of the four-year-old would connect those two separate events and relate them like that.

“Will you come back for my birthday too?”

This kid’s heart was too easy to guess. Daniel felt a little for him. Valeria was busy studying and working ( and probably there was something more to it that she would not tell), because of this she did not have many hours to spare for her son. It was evident Manu loved his mom and wanted her to spend more time by his side, therefore he asked Daniel, observing his logic of Uncle Daniel comes = Mom does not have to go to class.

“That’s in two months, right? I cannot promise, but I will send you a present.”

Manu smiled. In truth, he did not look like Valeria at all, except when he smiled there was some shadow of his mom in him, and it made Daniel particularly fond of his godson.

“Go and play with the others. I will join later, okay?”

“Okay.” 

***

She had cut her hair. Now her dark curls only reached her shoulders. Daniel knew better than to say that the waist-long hair suited her more, and she still looked beautiful anyway. He told her so as soon as the ceremony was over and Valeria ran to meet the group waiting for her.

“Congratulations.” He wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace, after waiting a bit too much for his turn to greet her.

“Thank you. I didn’t think this day would actually come so fast.”

When you don’t see a person over a long period of time, it is normal to be conscious of the changes in her. The friendship between Valeria and him had always been a strange one, where they only met a few days or weeks during the year but could talk until their throats got dry when they had a chance. He fancied himself as an older brother, perhaps because they were both only children at their respective homes, and yet they were far away from each other for long enough that every time he came back Daniel would find Valeria changed and different from what she used to be.

Some nostalgia was inevitable. Even then, from the 8 years-old child he met, to the 24 years-old woman that was laughing and weeping happy tears on his shirt, what had never changed was how dear she was to him.

However, when Rosa announced it was time for all of them to head back home and eat to their hearts’ content, and Valeria took his hand to hurry him to the door of the auditorium, Daniel had to wonder.

Why did he spend so many days and weeks feeling like he walked aimlessly, and now everything felt just right?

“I think we should celebrate it bigger than this.” He whispered later when they were sitting on the table of her dining room.

She raised an eyebrow and he pointed to Manu, who was yawning and would probably be asleep as soon as they had the cake. When the kid was sleeping and abuela Maria at home, she was free from motherly duties...

“What do you have in mind?”

“We can go to Candela.” He suggested with an enticing grin.

The idea was very tempting indeed. Valeria loved dancing, but she had not gone to pubs of any kind in years. Life was divided between studying and taking care of Manu first, and studying and working later. It did not seem right to go to parties with her classmates or other friends when her mother had to take care of the child.

“Okay. This is a special day after all.”

They had no idea things would never be the same after that night.