💛 “My Ex Blocked Me… But His Mom Didn’t”

The notification lit up my phone: “Mrs. Marta has sent you a message.”

I smiled before opening WhatsApp. Three months after Andrés removed me from his life as if I’d never existed, his mother kept texting me almost daily.

“Mija, did you have breakfast yet? I made you the elote bread you like. Come when you can.”

My friends thought I was strange. “Get over it, he already did,” they kept repeating. But they didn’t understand. Mrs. Marta wasn’t just “my ex’s mom.” She was the woman who taught me to make tamales, who hugged me when I lost my grandmother, who cared for me when I had the flu during those lonely Christmases because my family lived far away.

She was the woman I cared for when she was diagnosed with diabetes—long nights in the hospital, me and Andrés taking turns, except he always had “some work,” leaving me to read the newspaper, massage her swollen feet, and make her laugh with neighborhood gossip.

That afternoon I visited her. Her house smelled like cinnamon and coffee as always.

“Pass, pass,” she said, hugging me with such strength it defied her seventy years. “You look thin. Are you eating enough?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I lied, sinking into the recliner that seemed molded perfectly to me.

She poured me coffee in my cup, sat across, and sighed.

“Andrés asked about you yesterday.”

I caught my breath.

“What?”

“He came by to drop off something and saw your sweater on the hanger,” she said, nodding at the familiar gray one. “He asked if you were still coming. I said yes, of course. You’re family, whether he likes it or not.”

“Ma’am, I don’t want to cause trouble with your son…”

“Oh, mija,” she interrupted, taking my hand. “My son was a fool. A coward. Do you know why he broke up with you?”

I nodded, the familiar knot tightening in my throat.

“Because he was scared.” Her eyes welled. “He was terrified of loving you so much. His father abandoned him when he was ten. Did he ever tell you that?”

No. Andrés always said his dad “died when he was a child.”

“He was terrified of becoming his father. He thought if he got engaged, he’d run. So he left—before it was too late.” She squeezed my hand. “But it was already too late, mija. That boy loves you. He’s miserable without you.”

“So why block me? Why not answer my messages?”

“Because he’s a coward,” she repeated firmly, “like his father.”

Visits continued. Mrs. Marta became my shelter, my therapy, my family. She told me things Andrés never shared: his childhood nightmares, panic attacks in college, moments he cried thinking no one was listening.

“When you were in the hospital,” she told me one day, peeling potatoes for soup, “he’d always ask how you were. Not me, his sick mother—you. He worried about you being tired from caring for me.”

“I wanted to be there.”

“I know, mija. That’s why I love you so much.”

Four months after the breakup, I arrived to see Andrés’ car outside. My first instinct was to leave, but Mrs. Marta opened the door before he could escape.

“Come on in. It’s about time.”

He froze in the kitchen, drinking coffee from his cup.

“Hello,” I said, my voice trembling.

“Hello.”

Mrs. Marta pushed us into the yard. “Talking. And you don’t come out until this is fixed.”

We stayed quiet for a long minute.

“I didn’t know you kept coming,” he finally said.

“Your mom invites me. Did you expect me to dump her too?” I teased.

“I did not abandon you.”

“Oh, no? Because blocking me everywhere feels pretty similar.”

“I blocked you because…” He ran hands through his hair. “…every time I saw your name, every picture, every memory, I died a little. I missed you so much it hurt to breathe.”

“So… what?”

“I came today,” he admitted, voice breaking. “Because I’m terrified of becoming my dad. To promise everything… and then disappear. To hurt you worse.”

“Your mom told me,” I said softly. “About your father. Above all.”

Tears welled up in his eyes.

“My mom adores you. Talks about you every day. ‘Mija did this, mija said that…’ It tortures me. To know the only family I care about chose you over me.”

“She didn’t choose. She loves us both, dummy.”

“No merezco ni a ti ni a ella.”

“Probably not,” I agreed, smiling. “But you didn’t deserve to decide for me either. You didn’t deserve to run away without giving me the chance to stay. To fight.”

“Yet…?”

“If I still love you?” I finished for him. “Andrés, I spent four months visiting your mom, eating at her table, sleeping at your house. What do you think?”

He broke down, holding me as if he’d vanish.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed.

“I know.”

“I’m afraid.”

“I know. Me too.”

From the kitchen window, Mrs. Marta watched with tears in her eyes, smiling as she stirred the mole.

“Have they reconciled yet?” I asked later.

“We’re in it,” Andrés said, still holding my hand.

“So hurry up—the mole is ready.” She pointed to me with a spoon. “And you,” she said, “go sleep in the guest room. I’m not that modern.”

We laughed. At that table, in that warm kitchen, with that extraordinary woman serving dishes, I finally understood:

Love is not always linear. Sometimes it breaks, sometimes it rebuilds. Sometimes it takes the long way—through a wise mother’s kitchen, who refuses to let go of the daughter-in-law who won her heart.

Three Years Later

“Mother-in-law, where did you put the embroidered napkins?” shouted Andrés from the dining room, setting the table for Christmas.

“In the drawer as always, clueless mija!”

Andrés entered with the baby in his arms.

“Mama, your grandson made a masterpiece in the diaper.”

“Oh my gosh, give it to me!” Doña Marta snatched him up, covering him in kisses. “My little angel doesn’t mess around—you just don’t know how to clean him right.”

I smiled at Andrés, the man I almost lost, and he smiled back.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“For not giving up on me. For loving my mom almost as much as I do.”

“Almost nothing,” I corrected him. “I love her more.”

And it’s true. Sometimes love doesn’t vanish. It just changes channels. And the best channel? The one that was always there, waiting—with hot coffee and open arms.