42
GAbrIELA DUARTE
I kept my voice steady until I closed the rented apartment’s door.
My mother opened her arms to Camila. The boys came in talking over each other. I asked Cris for five minutes and went into the inner hallway. I leaned against the wall and began to shake.
“Mommy?” Camila called.
I made myself smile.
“It’s just been a long day, sweetheart.”
“Did our dad make you sad?” Heitor asked.
The word still seemed too big in his mouth.
“He’s not grumpy all the time,” Camila protested. “He talked quietly.”
Noah said nothing. He gripped his backpack strap and watched the door I’d just closed.
Cris took the backpacks to the bedroom and helped my mother with dinner. Only after the three had eaten, bathed, and chosen a movie could I sit with them on the rug.
“I know you have questions.”
“Why doesn’t he live with us?” Heitor blurted.
“We separated before you were born.”
“Did he know about us?” Noah asked.
I wouldn’t lie.
“I told him when you were still in my belly. He didn’t believe he was your father.”
Camila frowned.
“But we look like him.”
“He could have taken the test back then, after you were born. I offered. He didn’t want to.”
“He thought you lied?” Noah asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Then he did a bad thing,” Heitor concluded.
“He did. None of it was your fault.”
“Will he live here?” Camila asked.
“No.”
She leaned against me. Noah began twisting the edge of the blanket they shared around his fingers.
“Tonight you’re sleeping here, with me and Grandma. Tomorrow we’ll take care of Camila’s appointment. One thing at a time.”
Noah looked at Cris.
“Are you still our family?”
Cris knelt beside him.
“I’m still here. Who do you think is getting breakfast?”
Only then did they settle down to watch the movie. A few minutes later, I found Cris in the kitchen. My mother had stayed with the three in front of the TV. I filled a glass of water and had to hold it with both hands.
“He knows,” I said.
“He does.”
Cris pulled out a chair.
“Sit down before you fall.”
“I can’t fall apart.”
“You can for five minutes. I’ll hold everything else.”
That was one reason I’d survived. Cris never promised to fix everything. He simply stood exactly where I needed support.
I sat.
“He’ll want a test.”
“He’s asked already.”
“He’ll want lawyers, shared custody, weekends, trips to Italy. He’ll walk into that room with a whole team and turn my children into a negotiating point.”
“We’ll call your lawyer. She’ll guide us.”
“We don’t have his money.”
“No one does. That doesn’t mean he can erase five years.”
I looked into the living room. Heitor was laughing at the movie. Camila lay with her head in Noah’s lap, his small hand resting protectively on her hair.
“I kept them safe.”
“You did.”
“What if bringing them here was the mistake that destroys everything?”
“You did what Camila needed. As for Luca, let’s hear the lawyer before imagining the worst.”
“Money changes how big the battles are.”
“I know. That’s why you won’t be talking to him alone.”
I called my lawyer. She listened, asked me to forward his representative’s contact details, and arranged a conversation for the next morning. She didn’t promise it would all be easy. She said we’d begin with the test, without deciding everything else that night.
I’d just hung up when someone knocked. Cris checked the peephole.
“It’s him.”
My fear turned to anger. I opened the door just enough to step outside, leaving Cris within earshot.
“How did you find us?”
“I asked the driver to follow your car.”
No hesitation, as though he hadn’t promised me the opposite a few hours earlier.
“Leave.”
“I need to speak to you away from the hospital.”
“And I told you not to follow us. You heard me.”
He looked at the door behind me. One of the boys laughed loudly on the other side.
“I didn’t want to lose sight of you again.”
“You didn’t lose me. You threw me out. And you are not coming in.”
He stepped toward me. I backed to the threshold, and Cris appeared beside me. Only then did Luca stop.
“Your lawyer . . .” he began.
“Will hear about this visit too. Go, Luca.”
I waited until he entered the elevator before closing the door. Cris stayed in the living room while I called again. My lawyer recorded what had happened and notified his representative: any conversation would be arranged through them.
The next morning, she asked whether I still wanted the DNA test. I did. I didn’t need to trust Luca to demand that he acknowledge his children.
He came to the office that afternoon. My lawyer sat beside me, his representative by the window. Luca didn’t try to approach.
“I said I wouldn’t follow you, and I did,” he said before anyone could begin. “I have no excuse.”
“Then don’t do it again.”
He nodded. I drew my chair closer to the table.
“How are they?” he asked.
The question made me clasp my hands beneath the table. There was so much to say that I began with what he could have asked five years earlier.
“Camila’s under medical care. The boys are well.”
He looked at the folder I’d brought, then at me.
“How old?”
“Four. Almost five.”
He closed his eyes. I knew the calculation. I knew the image that would follow: me in that room at the Palazzo, pregnant, asking him to listen. For one cruel instant, I wanted him to feel all the pain at once.
“I saw you at headquarters,” he said suddenly. “On the camera.”
It took me a moment to understand. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“You were there?”
“I was. I told them not to let you up.”
At last, an answer to that day’s suspicion. I remembered the desk, the folder against my chest, Lorenzo saying there would be no meeting. Luca had been close enough to come downstairs.
“You let me leave.”
“I did.”
“And you received the documents I left at reception.”
“I received the notification. I didn’t open the file. I didn’t read the letters either.”
My lawyer set down her pen. His representative kept his eyes on the papers.
Luca rubbed his face.
“The laboratory can arrange collection this week,” my lawyer said after looking at me. “I’ll send the options to both parties.”
I nodded. Luca kept his eyes on me.
“After the results, I want to acknowledge them,” he said. “And take responsibility for what I left you to carry.”
“The test will happen. Getting to know the children is a separate conversation.”
“I understand.”
“You said you understood yesterday too.”
He lowered his head. My lawyer noted that any meeting would have to be arranged beforehand. He agreed without trying to minimize what he’d done the night before.
“Lorenzo told me you’d gone to Brazil,” he said. “You and Cris.”
“And that was enough?”
He didn’t answer. His face did.
“You didn’t even ask whether they were born. Whether they survived.”
He said nothing.
“Three babies, Luca. I spent months afraid of losing one of them, and you decided you didn’t need to know.”
I checked the time. My mother was with the children while Cris joined a call with Camila’s team. I’d promised to be back before dinner.
“Do they call Sampaio Dad?” Luca asked.
His voice was low, but I recognized the tension around his mouth. For the first time that afternoon, he seemed more afraid of the answer than of the silence.
“They call him Uncle Cris. He was at appointments, there on the difficult nights, in our home. He came back from Portugal to be near us. I won’t diminish any of that to make this easier for you.”
“I’m not asking you to,” he said. He looked at the folder again without touching it.
He lowered his head.
“They know you’re their father. I told them after the hospital. That doesn’t mean they know you.”
“I don’t want to take them from you.”
“Five years ago, I didn’t imagine what you were capable of when I asked to talk either.”
“I was wrong.”
“And now you’ll have to listen to what I say.”
My lawyer resumed. Luca turned to her, though his hands stayed motionless on the table.
We reviewed the arrangements for collection and simultaneous delivery of the results. The laboratory would be independent, with no ties to the Bellandis. There would be no public announcement. The lawyers would formalize the agreement and discuss the next steps after the report.
As I put away my folder, I added,
“Camila, Noah, and Heitor know who you are. They don’t know every detail. I’ll explain at their pace, without letting them believe the rejection was their fault.”
“I did this to all of you,” Luca said.
My hand stopped on my bag’s clasp. He was looking at me.
“I won’t say it was only you.”
I couldn’t answer. I closed my bag and left with my lawyer.
When I reached the apartment, Noah was in the hall, looking for a building block. He heard my voice and looked up.
“Will he come back?”
I knelt in front of him.
“He’ll probably ask to get to know you.”
“Do we have to let him?”
“You don’t have to hug him or talk if you don’t want to. I’ll stay close.”
“You’ll come too?”
“I will, sweetheart.”
He dropped the block and hugged me. I held him a moment before Heitor shouted that the tower was falling.
I went with Noah to the living room. There would be a test, papers, and conversations I still feared. Just then, I sat on the rug to help save a crooked tower.