My father’s second wife arrived on an ordinary day, carrying a kilo of candy and two white poodles in her arms.
My sister and I stared at her, frozen, our minds full of the stories we had heard: “Stepmothers are wicked,” they had told us. We didn’t even thank her.

And yet, she smiled. A smile she would never stop giving us. She was beautiful. Our father said simply: “This will be your new mom.”

Back then, I didn’t understand how uncomfortable that role must have been for her. Our silence was her welcome.

They married in a simple ceremony, and she came to live with us. The house was still steeped in mourning for the loss of our mother — a darkness we had already resigned ourselves to.

On her first day, she opened every window, letting the sun in. She put on music. I remember my sister’s bewildered look, almost wounded by that sudden light.

She cleaned every corner as if she were preparing to receive a king. She filled the house with books. When she passed our mother’s portrait, I thought she would take it down.
But no. She blew off the dust and straightened it gently.

That gesture was enough for me to accept her.

From then on, another life began.
She cooked for hours, preparing dishes we had never seen before, winning our father over even with flavors. My sister spoke to her for the first time, and our mistrust began to soften.
We no longer spoke about the illness that had taken our mother, but her memory remained — in that portrait, and within us.

That woman never asked us to call her “mom.”
And yet, little by little, she became one.
She was there in every sadness, every mistake, every need. She even shielded us from our father’s severity.

Then, one day, he didn’t come home from work.
They found him hours later, at the bottom of a ravine. An accident.

It was our second loss. And our first harsh lesson in life: nothing lasts forever.

We thought she would leave us, now that he was gone.
But she stayed. She rolled up her sleeves. She found work as a cook in a small restaurant. She tried to soften our grief with music, with improvised games, with her dogs running through the house.

And we, locked in our silence, watched her. But she already knew us. She didn’t give up. She kept trying.

One summer day, I asked for my ball.
She smiled. “If you want, we can play together.”
From that moment, something changed.

Her afternoons were made of colorful snacks and kind words.
She didn’t have much, but with little, she created beauty.

I think that was the day I began to love her. And I wasn’t afraid to call it love.

My sister noticed. Slowly, she too began to open up.
In the end, we both loved her. Quietly, perhaps, but with all our hearts.

She understood. No words were needed.

When I finished school, I thought I would have to give up on university. But she had saved money.
She enrolled me.

My sister became a nurse. I became a lawyer.
Piece by piece, we were giving back what she had given us.

At sixty-three, she fell ill.
We took turns by her side. The doctors were not hopeful.

But even then, she kept smiling. “Don’t cry. I prefer laughter,” she said.

She died on a Monday, at the start of summer.

She didn’t want to be buried next to our father.
“That space is for your mother,” she told us.
She chose a quiet spot, under the trees.

When we visit them, we bring red roses for our mother.
A comic book for our father.
And candy for her.

Sometimes second chances are empty.
But some people enter our lives with so much love that they never leave.
Not even after death.