I never thought I’d find myself here, sitting in my childhood home in Chile, watching the love of my life teach my abuela how to make kimchi. But life has a funny way of surprising you, especially when you least expect it.
Casandra moves through the kitchen with grace, her dark hair pulled back as she explains the fermentation process in perfect Spanish. My grandmother hangs on her every word, and I can’t help but smile as I watch them from the doorway.
“Pedro, stop lurking and come help us!” Casandra calls out, not even turning around. She always knows when I’m watching her.
“I’m enjoying the view,” I tease, but I join them anyway, wrapping my arms around her waist from behind. She smells like garlic and ginger, and something uniquely her.
“¡Ay, tortolitos!” my abuela exclaims, waving her hands dramatically. “When are you going to give me great-grandchildren? I’m not getting any younger!”
I feel Casandra’s body shake with silent laughter against mine. We’ve gotten used to this question from every member of my family since we arrived for Christmas celebrations.
“Mamá, leave them alone,” my sister Javiera calls from the living room, but I can hear the amusement in her voice.
Later, as the afternoon sun casts long shadows across the patio, I find Casandra chatting with my uncles in rapid-fire Spanish, switching effortlessly to German when my cousin’s Austrian wife joins the conversation. She’s like a linguistic chameleon, adapting to whatever language situation presents itself.
“Tu novia es un tesoro,” my grandfather whispers to me as he passes by, patting my shoulder. “Don’t wait too long, hijo. You’re not getting any younger.”
I roll my eyes, but he’s right. At 48, I’ve spent my life playing fathers on screen, but watching Casandra with my family, I can’t help but imagine what our own children might look like. Would they have her brilliant mind? Her ability to light up any room she enters?
As evening approaches, we all gather around the long table in the garden. Casandra has somehow managed to blend Korean banchan with traditional Chilean dishes, and everyone is raving about the fusion.
“You know,” she says to me quietly, as the family argues good-naturedly about fútbol, “I never expected to feel so at home here. But your family… they’re everything I didn’t know I was missing.”
I take her hand under the table, running my thumb across her knuckles. “They adore you. Almost as much as I do.”
She leans her head on my shoulder, switching to English, her voice barely a whisper. “I wouldn’t mind, you know. What they keep asking about. Children, marriage, all of it.”
My heart skips a beat. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she confirms, squeezing my hand. “I think we’d make quite the team. Our kids would probably speak six languages by age five.”
I laugh, but my mind is already racing ahead, thinking of the ring hidden in my suitcase upstairs. I’d planned to wait until New Year’s Eve, but watching her now, illuminated by string lights and surrounded by my family’s love, I wonder why I should wait at all.
“Te amo,” I murmur into her hair.
She turns to face me, her eyes twinkling. “Saranghae,” she replies in Korean, then adds in Spanish, “But you already knew that.”
As my family’s chatter fills the warm Chilean night, I hold Casandra close and think about how sometimes the universe knows exactly what it’s doing. Here, in this moment, with the woman who bridges worlds and languages so effortlessly, I know I’ve found my home.
And tomorrow, when I get down on one knee in my mother’s garden, I already know what her answer will be – in any of the five languages she speaks.