Five Years After the Fire

Five years later.

Oregon rain tapped softly against the kitchen’s glass wall. Steady, cold, and mildly annoying.

The pan on the stove hissed quietly, the smell of almost-done corn arepas mixing with black coffee and the chorizo I was frying in the skillet next to it. A slow Latin playlist floated from the speakers, the same old songs Mamá used to play in Bogotá every Sunday morning.

The difference was, the view outside wasn’t a city full of honking cars and people yelling in Spanish, but foggy pine trees and expensive houses pretending they weren’t snobbish.

This house sat on a hill in a private neighborhood near Lake Oswego, about thirty minutes from Portland. Papa called it “a quiet place for your stubborn brain, hija.”

I called it “I got exiled to the woods with very good Wi-Fi.”

“MAX, GIVE ME BACK MY CROWN!”

So much for the calm, competent-young-mother-making-breakfast aesthetic. The scream split the air, high-pitched, dramatic, with a tiny accent that mixed English and a hint of Spanish at the edges.

I closed my eyes for half a second. Inhale.  

Exhale.

“I’m not MAX, I’m KING MAX, Dumbo!” another voice shot back, deeper but just as loud.

I glanced toward the open-plan living room. On the expensive wooden floor, two small creatures with chubby cheeks and the energy of a nuclear device were sprinting around.

Maxime Rafaello Gómez was four, with messy black hair, bright summer-ocean blue eyes, and a dinosaur hoodie I was pretty sure had been clean yesterday. There was a marker stain on the shoulder now.

Behind him, Isabella Maria Gómez ran as fast as her short legs allowed, dark brown hair in two pigtails already lopsided, pink dress with “Princess of Everything” on the front flaring dramatically. Her hazel eyes blazed, little hands clawed forward.

The plastic purple crown was in Max’s hand.

“YOU’RE NOT A KING, YOU’RE A POTATO!” Issa shrieked. “Give me back my crown! It’s mine!”

“No!” Max shouted over his shoulder, giggling. “You said you don’t wanna be a princess anymore, you wanna be… President? Princess can’t be president, Issa. So the crown’s mine now.”

He whipped around the corner of the couch, nearly slipping, then kept running.

Issa screamed. “MAMAAAA! MAX STEAL MY CROWN! HE CALL ME UGLY PRINCESS!”

“I said BAD PRINCESS,” Max corrected, still running. “Different.”

I turned, spatula in hand, staring at the two tiny humans I’d carried home in my body five years ago and who had since officially stolen all my sleep and most of my sanity.

“Maxime Rafaello Gómez,” my voice jumped half an octave, the Latina tone snapping out on its own. “If you make your sister fall again, I swear you’re having steamed broccoli for breakfast for a month!”

He glanced back, those too-familiar blue eyes blinking with pure guilt. “But I’m hungry,” he protested. “And Issa is very annoying.”

Issa was not about to let that slide. She launched herself onto Max’s back and yanked his hair with the precision only a four-year-old drama queen could possess.

“OW! MAMAAAA! BAD PRINCESS IS PULLING MY HAIR!”

“STOP CALLING ME BAD PRINCESS, YOU DONKEY!”

They both tumbled onto the rug, rolling like two tiny pandas high on sugar. Laughing and screaming at the same time. Sometimes I forgot they came from my body and not from a secret lab experiment that mixed Italian DNA with Red Bull.

“Dios mío…” I muttered. I turned down the heat, set the spatula aside, and walked toward them. “Okay, little gladiators, that’s enough.”

Before I could reach them, slow footsteps sounded on the stairs.

“Why does every morning at my sister’s house sound like a small riot?”

Theo, my twin, came down in an oversized white t-shirt and dark joggers, black hair a stylish mess that, if a photographer walked in right now, would give some business magazine a perfect cover: “Heir of G International in His Natural Habitat: Jet Lag, Coffee, and Chaos.”

Max and Issa froze mid-wrestle the second they saw him. Reflex.

“TÍOOOOO!” they screamed in unison, abandoning their hair-pulling drama and sprinting straight at him.

Theo didn’t stand a chance. Two small bodies crashed into his legs, nearly knocking him off balance. He laughed once, then scooped them both up at the same time, one on each arm, like they weighed less than a gallon of paint.

“What is this?” Theo looked from one to the other, pretending to be serious. “Why do your hair look like you just lost a fight with a blender?”

“Max stole my crown!” Issa pointed accusingly at the plastic tiara now somehow hooked on Theo’s elbow. “And he said I’m a bad princess.”

“She pulled my hair first!” Max protested, pointing at the chaos on his head. “She’s dramatic. Like Abuela when she reads gossip.”

I leaned a hip against the kitchen counter, crossing my arms. “Someone please explain how I’ve only been awake for an hour and I’m already as exhausted as if I’d had three investor meetings in three different time zones.”

Theo raised one eyebrow, the exact same shape as mine, obviously. “Because you decided to create two miniature versions of Zach,” he said, “and raise them by yourself?”

I leveled a sharp look at him. “Who gave you permission to say that name in my kitchen?”

Theo lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Let’s just call him… Italian Voldemort.”

Max’s eyes went wide. “Who is Vol–Vol–Volde…?”

“An ugly monster who likes to mess up people’s lives,” Issa answered quickly, very pleased with herself. “Like Max.”

“Hey!” Max protested, offended. “I’m not ugly. I’m cute. Mama says I’m cute.”

I covered my face with one hand. Sometimes I forgot how dangerous it was to have a smart family and children with selective memory who only retained things that boosted their egos.

“Theo,” I called, lowering my hand. “Put them down before your lose your spine.”

“I’m strong,” Theo grumbled, but he still set both kids down on the kitchen counter like two living dolls. They sat side by side, legs dangling, arms folded.

I turned back to the stove, flipping the arepas one by one. Their skins were already golden, crisp on the outside, soft inside. I moved them onto a big plate, added scrambled eggs, sliced avocado, and chorizo.

“What’s your plan today?” Theo asked, reaching for a coffee mug.

“Meeting with a client from Seattle at ten, checking dev team progress at one, and at three I get to pretend I’m not offended when one of the investors hints I’m ‘too young to be a Director,’” I said lightly. “The usual.”

Theo leaned against the counter, giving me his patented “twin brother who thinks he’s wise” look. “You’re twenty-six, Bella. You have an IT firm big players are begging to invest in, but you turn them down because you don’t like the font in their branding. They can say you’re too young all they want; they’re still lining up.”

I gave him a small, sharp smile. “Branding matters. If they don’t have taste, I’m afraid they don’t have cashflow either.”

Issa raised her hand like she was in class. “Hey, what is cashflow?”

“The thing that let me buy your dolls and dinos without asking Abuelo for money,” I answered smoothly.

Max looked very satisfied with that answer. “I like cashflow.”

“Of course you do.” I lifted the big breakfast plate and set it on the island. “Okay, everyone. Breakfast. Before Issa decides Max is her next victim.”

Issa was about to grab the biggest arepa when I gently tapped her hand. “Hands washed first, princesa dramática. You just finished pulling someone’s hair.”

She huffed, but hopped off the counter and ran to the sink, Max trailing after her.

“Mama, Max says I’m not a real princess,” Issa complained as she scrubbed her hands with way too much soap. The foam was nearly up to her elbows. “He say princess don’t have messy hair.”

“Princesses also don’t go around yanking people’s hair, honey,” I said, placing paper towels nearby. “But I see you’re not bothered by breaking rules.”

Max peered out from behind Issa. “But look at her hair, Mama. Look.” He pointed at her wildly crooked pigtails. “It’s like… a chicken on fire.”

“Maxime,” I said sweetly. “Do you know what happens if you keep body-shaming your sister?”

He thought hard. “I… don’t get dessert?”

“Or,” I leaned in, “I’ll let Issa pick all your clothes for a week.”

Issa spun around at lightning speed, hazel eyes glittering like someone had just handed her executive power. “REALLY?”

Max went pale. “No, no, no. I like my own clothes.”

I raised a brow. “So what are you going to say to her now?”

He exhaled dramatically, like I’d just asked him to save the world. “You’re… you’re not ugly princess,” he muttered. “You’re… just messy princess.”

“Max,” I warned.

He bit his lip, caving. “You’re a pretty princess.”

Issa gave a tiny, satisfied whine, then tilted her chin up. “I know.” She patted her own cheeks. “Mama says I’m pretty and dangerous.”

Theo’s gaze met mine over their heads. “You said that?”

I shrugged. “I need her to grow up with standards.”

“You’re raising a villain origin story,” Theo said flatly.

“I’m raising a future boss,” I shot back. “If she decides to destroy the world, at least she’ll do it in a good dress.”

Max was already seated, holding his arepa with both hands like it was a sacred artifact. Issa was drowning her scrambled eggs in ketchup without a single regard for the original flavor. Theo stared at his plate like he’d just been served in a commercial.

“Seriously, Ara,” he said around a bite of arepa. “If you ever get bored of being a tech CEO, you could open a restaurant. Or a cult. I’d join if the food’s like this every day.”

“I already have a cult,” I muttered, pouring myself coffee. “Two members. They call me Mama and refuse to nap.”

As if summoned, Issa lifted her head. “I hate nap.”

Max raised one hand. “I like nap. But only if nobody says I have to.”

Theo let out a low laugh. “You really went and made two humans who are the perfect combination of every annoying thing in your genetics.”

I shot him a look. “Excuse you? Those blue eyes and that steel jaw are not from me, thanks.”

Theo went quiet for a beat, something flickering in his eyes. That name we never said out loud, but that always hung there like a shadow in the corner of the room, slipped between us for a second.

Italian Voldemort.

The source of Max’s blue eyes, that hard jawline, and my children’s terrifying ability to make me want to punch something and laugh at the same time. And… Issa, even though her eyes are my color… her face is basically the girl version of Italian Voldemort.

Theo dropped his gaze back to his plate, breaking the moment without a word. I appreciated that. We had a silent agreement: I didn’t push him to tell me who he’d destroyed in boardrooms, and he didn’t push me to talk about the twins’ biological father.

“I like Oregon,” Issa announced suddenly, mouth full. “Here there is lots of rain. Our house is big. Our forest is pretty.”

“It’s not our forest,” Max corrected. “It’s people’s forest. Abuelo bought the house, not the mountain.”

Theo tried not to smile. “Let me explain, pequeña,” he said to Issa. “Abuelo bought this house so your mom can work without flying Portland–Bogotá every week. So you two can run around in the yard and stress the neighbors out.”

“I don’t stress neighbors,” Issa argued, offended. “I just… make a little noise.”

A little.

Adorable.

I took a sip of coffee, letting the bitter warmth settle in my chest. Outside, fog hung low between the pine trees, swallowing the sound of the road down the hill. Inside, the clink of spoons, the kids’ chatter, and Theo’s lazy comments stitched the morning into something that felt… quiet.

This was my life now. Not the mess back in my early twenties in Boston.

This: a warm kitchen in Oregon, Colombian breakfast, feral twins, and a stack of client emails waiting in the laptop at the end of the table.

I could live with that.

“I love you, Mama,” Max said softly, just chewing. In the middle of all the chaos, the sentence dropped out of nowhere. His blue eyes found mine, honest, open, and absolutely lethal to my emotional defenses.

Issa refused to be outdone. “I love Mama more,” she added quickly. “I love Tío too. Max just a little.”

“HEY!”

I felt the corner of my mouth tip up, warmth seeping slowly into a place that had been empty five years ago. “I love you guys too,” I said, letting my gaze swing from one to the other. “Even when you act like tiny demons.”

“I’m not demon,” Issa protested. “I’m princess.”

“I’m dragon,” Max corrected proudly. “I eat princess.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” I slapped my palm lightly on the table. “After breakfast, shoes on. We’re going to the backyard. You two are running until you’re tired. I’ve got a meeting, and I need you exhausted.”

Theo lifted his plate. “I’ll come, but I’m just going to sit in a chair and pretend to supervise while I answer emails.”

“As long as you don’t teach them how to trade stocks,” I said, getting to my feet. “They’re dangerous enough with crayons and blunt scissors.”

Max looked at Issa with new interest. “Can we buy ice cream shop stocks?”

Issa lit up. “Yes, so we can eat free ice cream every day.”

Theo glanced at me. “This is your fault. You’re the one who taught them the word cashflow.”

I let out a breath, but the smile didn’t fade. “Better they learn how to buy stocks than learn heartbreak from idiots.”

The heartbreak was still there, sometimes. It showed up on certain nights, when the house was quiet and the rain hit too hard. But every time those two laughed, screamed, or wrecked my schedule, the wound faded a little more.

Italian Voldemort’s world was still spinning out there somewhere: between Milan, Monaco, and F1 paddocks that doubled as his family’s playground.

My world was here: in wet Oregon, in a messy kitchen, in hands tugging at my sweater, and in laughter bouncing off these walls.

I’d choose mornings like this a thousand times over a Boston night with a blue-eyed man who never knew how to keep a promise.