I cared for my paralyzed wife for five years. One afternoon, I forgot my wallet and went back home. When I opened the door… I froze.
What I saw struck me with brutal force, as if the air had suddenly vanished. Everything I had protected, sustained, and revered for so long crumbled in an instant.
My name is Iñaki Salgado, a man in his early thirties, thin to the point of seeming fragile, with deep dark circles under his eyes and a tired gaze that he learned to endure in silence.
My life used to be simple with my wife, Ximena Arriola, in a small adobe house on the outskirts of Puebla, where the air smelled of bougainvillea and freshly baked bread at dawn.
We were elementary school teachers. We didn’t have luxuries, but we did have something more valuable: respect, calm, and an honest way of loving each other.
Everything changed one December, shortly before Christmas.
