I wasn't there that day.
The children had gone to the golf course without me, and somewhere between the fairways they found the níspero trees.
They know I love nísperos.
The sweetest ones were hanging high, just out of reach. Somehow, they managed to get them down. When they came home, they carried them like treasure.
Not because the fruit was rare. Nísperos are everywhere here for a few weeks each year. They appear quietly, ripen quickly, and disappear before summer begins.
What mattered was that they thought of me. That while running through their own afternoon, they saw the trees and remembered.
The fruit sat in a bowl on the kitchen table for days. We ate some. Others became too soft. But what I remember isn't the taste.
It's the feeling of seeing them walk through the door with armfuls of sun-warm fruit, proud of their discovery.
Sometimes the smallest gifts tell you the biggest things.
And every níspero season since, that's what I think about.
— Silvia, founder of Villa S