15. #3
When I returned to the kitchen, Aurora was preparing coffee.
“He’s asleep.”
“He usually passes out after a tantrum.”
“I read about that.”
“Of course.”
She filled the kettle.
“Would you like some?”
“Coffee?”
“I would not offer you poison in front of the children.”
“I would.”
Aurora prepared two cups.
We sat at the table.
Rain filled the silence.
It was the first time we had been alone for so long since my return.
No children talking.
No Mrs. Lurdes.
No Miguel.
Only us.
“What will you do in S?o Paulo?” she asked.
“When?”
“You said you’ll need to travel eventually.”
“I have an in-person meeting next week.”
“How long will you stay?”
“One day.”
“Will you sleep there?”
“Perhaps.”
Aurora nodded as if the information meant nothing.
But her fingers tightened around the cup’s handle.
“Will you tell the children?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“When you’re certain.”
“All right.”
“And don’t say you’ll return the same day if there’s a chance you’ll sleep there.”
“I’ll tell them I may spend one night.”
“They don’t understand ‘may’ very well.”
“Then what do I say?”
“That you are going to work far away and will sleep once before coming back. If you manage to return early, it will be a surprise.”
I made a mental note.
“All right.”
She drank her coffee.
“That is the difficult part.”
“Traveling?”
“No. Making your life fit into theirs without making them believe everything revolves around them.”
“Why would that be bad?”
“Because it doesn’t.”
“For me, right now, it does.”
Aurora set down the cup.
“That isn’t healthy either.”
“They’re my children.”
“And you remain a person. You work, have responsibilities, need to sleep, eat, exist.”
“You made everything revolve around them.”
Her expression changed.
“I had to.”
“And did you lose some part of yourself in the process?”
“That is not for you to ask.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Definitely not.”
I nodded.
But the question remained.
Who was Aurora when she was not restoring artwork or caring for the children?
Did she still dance in the kitchen?
Did she still read romance novels late into the night?
Did she still spend hours in museums, forgetting the world?
How many parts of her had been buried by survival?
And how many had I helped kill?
“I don’t want you to stop existing so I can become a father,” I said.
She looked at me.
“What does that mean?”
“That I can take on some of the routine so you have time.”
“I don’t need a vacation from my children.”
“I didn’t say vacation.”
“It sounds like it.”
“Time for yourself.”
Aurora laughed without humor.
“And what do you imagine I would do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Exactly.”
“What would you like to do?”
“Work.”
“Other than that.”
“Sleep.”
“Other than that.”
She went silent.
She did not know.
Or did not want to tell me.
Perhaps both.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t hand my children over so I can go on dates.”
Jealousy came before reason.
“That wasn’t what I thought.”
“Liar.”
“All right. I thought about it for one second.”
“You have no right.”
“I know.”
“We’ve already had this conversation.”
“I know.”
“Then stop.”
“I’m trying.”
Aurora bit her cheek.
I did not mention it.
She noticed that I noticed.
That made the silence almost intimate.
“Did you truly have no one important?” she asked.
The question came quietly.
“No.”
“Four years is a long time.”
“It was.”
“Some relationships?”
“Yes.”
Her expression closed.
“You don’t need to give details.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Good.”
“None came close to what I had with you.”
Aurora stood.
“I said I didn’t want details.”
“That isn’t a detail.”
“It is to me.”
“You’re jealous.”
“No.”
“You are.”
“You just learned not to analyze my body.”
“I didn’t need to. Your voice changed.”
She picked up the cups.
“The conversation is over.”
“You asked.”
“And regretted it.”
“I would ask about you too.”
“You already did.”
“And you answered that there is no one.”
“Not because I waited.”
“I know.”
“I did not preserve a life for you.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t have time. Then I didn’t want to.”
“Why?”
Aurora placed the cups in the sink.
“Because loving someone began to seem like a sophisticated way of handing over a weapon.”
The rain seemed to grow louder.
I had already heard the sentence in the car.
Even so, in that silent room, it struck differently.
Aurora was not saying she had stopped believing in love.
She was saying I had turned it into danger.
“I’m not asking you to trust what I feel,” I said. “Trust what I do.”
She did not turn.
“I still don’t.”
“I know.”
Tomás called from the bedroom.
Aurora began to go.
“I’ll check,” I offered.
She stopped.
Hesitated.
Then nodded.
I returned to the bedroom.
Tomás was sitting up, disoriented.
“Mommy?”
“She’s in the kitchen.”
“Want her.”
“I’ll call her.”
He caught my hand before I stood.
“You stay too.”
I looked at our joined hands.
“I’ll stay.”
Aurora appeared in the doorway.
Tomás held out his other arm.
She sat on the bed.
I remained on the floor.
For several minutes, we stayed that way.
Aurora stroking his hair.
Me holding his hand.
Neither of us touched the other.
Even so, our son held us together.
It was little.
It was dangerous.
And, in that moment, it was everything.