30
GAbrIELA DUARTE
There were two lines in the test window.
Pink and unmistakable. I sat on the edge of the tub, holding the test in both hands. My heart raced, but the rest of me had gone still.
Pregnant.
I set the test on the sink and stood. In the mirror, my face looked the same as it had minutes earlier. I sat again. I wanted another look, to check that I’d read it correctly, and at the same time to keep that first moment somewhere nothing could touch it.
I opened the calendar and worked through the dates of the past few weeks, before Luca’s trip. I hadn’t been with another man. The doubt lay in the tests he believed, never in who the father could be. I smiled before the fear caught up.
“Hi,” I whispered, touching my belly. “You’ve chosen a complicated entrance.”
Joy came before any answer Luca could give. I wanted this child. I didn’t yet know what to do, how to tell him, or where we’d live. For a few seconds, I could simply sit with my hand on my belly, smiling to myself.
Then I looked at the phone again. Luca believed he couldn’t have children.
I’d read the reports. Two tests, weeks apart. Fifteen years resting on that conclusion. Now there were two lines on the sink, and I didn’t know how to make him look at them before looking at the past.
I’d always imagined children in some distant future. Not at the end of a construction project, with the firm still paying off debts and a relationship that took such effort to move forward. Even so, imagining our child lit a joy the fear couldn’t extinguish.
Beatrice came to mind at once. The pregnancy announced, the betrayal exposed, the man who’d appeared with messages and dates.
I imagined Luca looking at the two lines and seeing not a child, but his deepest hurt happening all over again.
I picked up the phone and called Cris. He answered on the second ring.
“Did you take it?”
“Positive.”
The silence lasted only a moment.
“Are you sure?”
“Two lines.”
“Do you want me to stay on the phone? We’ll go to the lab first thing tomorrow.”
“I need to get back to Como.”
“We’ll go afterward. There are labs in Milan.”
“Cris, Luca believes he can’t have children.”
“The test says you may be pregnant. One step at a time.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“I know, Gabi. But sitting alone imagining his reaction won’t help.”
I closed my eyes.
“He’ll think I cheated.”
“If he thinks that before asking questions and looking at the facts, he hasn’t learned a thing.”
“I don’t want our child’s first moment to be an accusation.”
“You haven’t told him yet. Let’s not turn that fear into a certainty.
“Are you listening, Gabi?”
“I am. Stay a little longer.”
“I will.”
I looked at the test, trying to say something else. Our child. The words brought tears to my eyes.
“Are you crying?” Cris asked.
“I don’t know whether I’m happy or terrified.”
“You can be both.”
“There isn’t room in my life for a baby right now.”
“You don’t have to work everything out tonight.”
I smiled through the tears.
“Not even buy a crib?”
“Especially not that. First, the lab.”
We talked until I managed to drink some water and take off my makeup. Cris didn’t come back to my suite. We agreed to meet in the lobby in the morning; after hanging up, I put the test in its box and left it beside my phone. I barely slept, waking to check that it was still there.
The next morning, we went to the lab. While we waited for the result, I managed to get an earlier private appointment in Milan and canceled the one in Como.
The blood test confirmed the pregnancy. Based on the dates I gave her, the doctor estimated about five weeks and explained how we’d begin prenatal care.
I’d asked Cris to come in with me; I looked at him before mentioning Luca’s diagnosis.
“Does he know yet?” the doctor asked.
“Not yet. He’s away.”
“Is there any risk in telling him?”
It took me a moment to understand that her question wasn’t clinical. I looked at Cris, then at my hands.
“Not physically. The risk is that he won’t believe me.”
The doctor explained the follow-up care and asked me to contact her if any problems arose. I put the instructions with the results. I received a printed copy and saved the digital file the lab sent. Cris waited while I checked my name at the top of the page.
“Now you know,” he said.
“And I have no idea how to tell him.”
“Start by telling him you’re pregnant. Maybe he’ll cry, book another test, and buy fifty cribs.”
“Fifty?”
“Billionaires have no sense of proportion.”
My laugh was shaky. I needed that absurd possibility. I folded the result, then smoothed it out again. Cris pointed to the ultrasound referral.
“Let’s take care of this first.”
Before leaving the doctor’s office, I confirmed the appointment for my first scan after my return to Como. Cris entered it in his phone and looked up at me.
“Am I allowed to remind you, or does that count as interference?”
“You can. But don’t tell anyone.”
“Not even Paola?”
“Especially not Paola. She notices everything, and Luca notices when she tries to hide something.”
“When will you tell him?”
I opened the calendar. The Palazzo opening was in twelve days. Luca would be traveling between London and New York until then, returning two nights before the event. I could call. I could tell him as soon as he got back.
The thought of telling him through a screen made me grip the phone. I pictured his face as he opened the reports in the studio. If he withdrew again, I wanted to be able to take his hand. I also wanted a moment when my work wasn’t being judged.
“I was thinking after the opening. Once the handover’s done and we can be alone.”
Cris didn’t immediately agree.
“Do you want to tell him, or wait for a moment when nothing can go wrong?”
“I want him to be able to hear me.”
“And if he can’t that night? Will you put it off again?”
I looked at the calendar. Twelve days was a long time to rehearse a reaction I couldn’t control. He’d be back before then. I could at least ask him to keep an evening for me.
“I’ll try to talk to him when he gets here. We don’t have to wait for the event.”
“Tell him that.”
I sent:
When you get back, I need to tell you something personal and important. I want to do it face-to-face. Can we keep the night you arrive free?
He replied almost immediately.
Are you safe?
Yes. And happy, though scared.
Then the evening is yours. If you need me sooner, call.
“Call me too,” Cris said.
“You’re already part of this mess.”
“I know. Just don’t disappear once you start working.”
I took his hand.
“I know. Thank you.”
I returned to the Palazzo that evening. Cris was staying in Milan until his morning flight. Luca was in London. He’d found time to ask about the event and the panels I’d presented; I read his messages before going to the garden. In the last one, he asked me to call when I was alone.
I called from the pavilion. His face appeared on the screen, tired in the light of a distant office.
“Are you all right?” he asked at once.
“I am.”
“You look pale.”
“I didn’t sleep much.”
“Is Cris still in Milan?”
“Yes. He flies to Lisbon early tomorrow. I came back alone.”
“He spoke well about the foundation.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“It was. Don’t tell him.”
I laughed, and for a moment I almost told him. I only had to say the words. I’m pregnant. The impossible has happened.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I wish you were here.”
His eyes softened.
“I’ll be back in ten days.”
“I know.”
“After the opening, let’s go somewhere.”
“Where?”
“You choose.”
“Brazil.”
“Brazil, then.”
I touched the screen, imagining his hand on my belly.
“Make sure you keep that night for me.”
He leaned closer to the camera.
“Is this about your message?”
“Yes. It’s not a problem with the work. I think it’s something good.”
“You can tell me now if you want.”
“Not over the phone.”
“All right. But if you change your mind, you don’t have to wait.”
“Trust me.”
He watched me for a few seconds before answering.
“I do.”
I hung up relieved, yet feeling I’d let a chance slip away.
Over the following days, I made sure to eat before meetings, shared the longer inspections with the team, and counted the mornings until his return.
Four days after the Milan appointment, I went for my first ultrasound in Como.
The doctor suggested a transvaginal scan.
I was tense and asked her to start through my abdomen; she explained that so early on, the images might be limited.
We could see signs of the pregnancy inside the uterus, but I could barely make out the gray shapes.
She explained what she couldn’t assess that way and offered the internal scan again.
I preferred to have it at the next appointment.
She recorded the limitation and scheduled my return.
I looked at the printout, trying to find something I recognized.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
“I can’t answer everything yet. We need to complete the assessment and follow how the pregnancy develops.”
Cris was already in Lisbon. I messaged him when I left and put the image in a cream envelope with the lab result. My next appointment was in ten days, after the opening. I hoped Luca would come with me.
The yellow rosebushes were covered in new buds. I chose the pavilion for our conversation. We’d talked about Elisabetta there, danced, and shared dinners far from meetings. I wanted to wait for him with the results on the table, without having to find the perfect words.
Sometimes I imagined him crying. Other times, all I could see was him pulling away. I’d close the envelope before fear could invent the entire conversation. Luca had promised to ask; I needed to give him a chance to keep that promise.
On the tenth day, his plane landed in Milan. He messaged to say he was going straight to a meeting with Lorenzo before traveling to Como.
I put the envelope in a folder and spent the afternoon checking the final details for the opening. As I left the studio, I took it out and slipped it into my coat’s inside pocket.
At seven, I sent a photograph of the roses that had opened. I’m waiting for you in the garden. The message was read. An hour later, I called. It went to voicemail. All Paola knew was that the Milan meeting had run late; Luca’s driver was still there, waiting for instructions.
At 9:17, my phone finally vibrated. It wasn’t Luca. An automated message informed me that my access to the Palazzo’s private wing would undergo a security update that night.
I took the envelope from my pocket. The image and the lab confirmation were still inside. I opened the access message and read it again, looking for a contact, an explanation beyond the automated sentence.
Somewhere between Milan and the garden, Luca had begun pulling away before he’d even heard what I needed to tell him.