“This year, we’re only having dinner with my wife’s family,” my son told me. I simply replied, “perfect.”

The difference was that I finally treated her with respect too.

Months later, Gabriel and I sat on the beach below the villa building a crooked sandcastle.

He looked at the house.

Then me.

“Grandma?”

“Yes?”

“Were you secretly an important person this whole time?”

I laughed and pulled him against my shoulder.

“No, mi amor.”

He looked puzzled.

I brushed sand from his hair.

“I was never a secret.”