47
GAbrIELA DUARTE
I took refuge in the emergency stairwell.
The cold concrete and smell of disinfectant brought back the intensive-care corridors.
Over the years, I’d learned to cry in places people passed through: bathrooms, stairways, parked cars.
Places where no one depended on the expression on my face.
Even surrounded by people willing to help, my body still sought somewhere to hide before my mind could decide.
I sat on a step, hands on my knees. I’d left Luca’s folder on the table, but I still saw the pages side by side: what the lab had recorded, what he’d received. There were later payments authorized by Lorenzo. The source of the first alteration was still unknown.
For five years, I’d imagined dozens of versions of the moment Luca discovered his mistake.
In some, he knelt. In others, I shut a door in his face.
On my most fragile nights, I imagined the truth erasing the words spoken in that room and giving back the man who’d loved me in the garden.
Now I knew it wouldn’t give anything back.
The door opened. Cris came in with two coffees.
“Your mother’s here. She’s with the children in the playroom,” he said. “It’ll be a little longer before the consultation.”
I took a cup.
“The old tests didn’t say what he thought.”
Cris sat beside me.
“What?”
I told him everything. By the time I finished, the coffee was cold in my hands.
“The lab had different results. And they’ve found payments Lorenzo authorized five years ago. They’re still investigating the fraud and the hotel material.”
“That doesn’t change what Luca did.”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
“And do you believe it?”
I turned to him.
“Of course I do.”
“What did you want it to change?”
I touched my face and found tears.
“I wanted the explanation to be enough. I wanted to look at Luca and see only another victim.”
Cris looked at the cup in my hands.
“Do you want me to get him?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Then I’ll stay here.”
I rested my head against the wall. I’d watched Luca compare the reports, trying to explain what Moretti had said. I wanted to comfort him. When I thought of touching his face, I remembered the check.
“If I forgive him one day, will you think I have no self-respect?”
Cris took time to answer.
“I’ll be afraid he’ll hurt you again. But I won’t say you have no self-respect, Gabi.”
Luca found us after Cris messaged him our location. He stopped at the stairwell door. His gaze passed over Cris’s hand on mine and returned to my face.
“Isabel’s ready to talk. Your mother is staying with the children until you get back.”
I stood quickly. In the team’s room, the doctor reviewed Camila’s heart images. The narrowing warranted intervention, and the tests indicated catheter treatment was a suitable option. The team would have a surgical alternative ready if needed.
I asked about delaying, recovery, and the possibility of another procedure as Camila grew. Isabel answered and returned to the proposed date. Luca listened silently until he asked a question.
“Is there any medical reason to wait longer?”
“We can keep the planned date if her condition doesn’t change,” Isabel replied.
I checked the date I’d written down during the video call.
Luca noted it. I asked the doctor to repeat the instructions for the days before admission.
Isabel confirmed the program would cover the treatment and explained that Purchasing was waiting for confirmation of one of the supplies. They needed delivery settled before finalizing the schedule.
“Can the foundation’s logistics team help find it?” Luca asked.
She checked the note about the supply.
“They can check with approved suppliers, without changing the medical specification.”
“Does this change anything for Camila?” I asked.
“The indication and coverage remain the same,” she replied. “We’re trying to secure the material on time.”
Luca asked for the responsible department’s contact details. Isabel would send them directly to Logistics with the specifications. I looked at the proposed date.
“If delivery is confirmed, we can keep the date,” she explained.
It was about two weeks away. I counted the days on my phone’s calendar, trying to imagine how I’d work or sleep until then.
“I want to keep it,” I said.
Luca wrote the Purchasing contact beside the date.
“I’ll put our logistics team in touch with them.”
After the meeting, Cris and my mother took the boys back to the apartment. Camila asked to see the fish in the garden before we left. She sat between Luca and me by the pond.
“Did you fight?” she asked.
We exchanged a look.
“We talked about something difficult,” I said.
“Because of me?”
“No, sweetheart,” Luca said. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
She looked from one of us to the other. I shifted my leg closer and let her lean against me before we went back to the fish.
“Will I get a new heart?”
“The same heart,” I explained. “The doctors will help part of it work better.”
She thought about it.
“Like when you fix an old window?”
“A little like that.”
“Will you count the stars again?” she asked Luca.
“I will.”
“Slowly.”
“Very slowly.”
She pointed to a fish hiding beneath a leaf. Luca leaned forward to find it. I’d already agreed he could be there for the hospital stay; watching him learn what soothed her made that decision more real.
“I’ll get there early that day,” he told me.
“The team still has to confirm the time.”
“When they do, I’ll arrange things.”
I nodded. Camila tugged his sleeve and asked him to look at the water again.
He looked at her. She leaned to see the bottom of the pond, and he held out a hand until she found her balance on the bench. She pointed to a goldfish.
“That one’s Heitor because he’s bothering everybody.”
Luca laughed. The sound made me turn. It was the low laugh I’d known, unpolished and uncalculated. For a second, the five years folded in on themselves.
I stood.
“We need to go.”
In the hall, Camila asked to be carried. I lifted her, but she was heavier now, and the morning’s exhaustion weighed on my arms.
“May I?” Luca asked.
I hesitated. She reached for him. He took her carefully, and she rested her head on his shoulder, playing with the top button of his shirt. I adjusted her sleeve so it wouldn’t catch the blood-draw bandage.
“Like this?”
“A little higher.”
He shifted his arm. She tugged his collar until she found a comfortable position.
“Does your heart sound normal?” she asked.
“As far as I know.”
She put her ear to his chest.
“It’s fast.”
“That must be because I’m carrying someone important.”
“Mommy says I’m not fragile.”
“Your mother’s right. Important isn’t the same as fragile.”
Satisfied, she closed her eyes. Luca lowered his face to hear her murmur.
“Your shirt’s scratchy.”
“Do you want to get down?”
“No. Just here.” She pulled the collar away from her face.
I walked beside them to the elevator. The image of the powerful Luca Bellandi carrying a girl in a yellow dress would have been irresistible to any camera. In that corridor, all I could see was her hand clutching his collar. At the exit, he returned her to my arms.
He waited while I settled my bag on my shoulder.
“She’s more comfortable on this side,” he said, indicating the arm he’d carried her on.
I knew. Still, I shifted her and felt her body relax.
“See you tomorrow,” he said.
I nodded before getting into the car.
That night, tucking Camila in, I remembered how he’d carried her. She’d fallen asleep before we reached the car, and it had taken him a while to realize he could stop talking about stars. She opened her eyes as I adjusted the blanket.
“Is he coming tomorrow?”
“Luca?”
She nodded.
“Tomorrow, at the time we agreed.”
“I want to show him my drawing. But he can’t take it.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
“You can show him, then put it away.”
“Tell him.”
“I will.”
I messaged him her request. He replied:
Tell her I’ll only look. If she lets me, I’ll draw beside her.
The next morning, he arrived with the pencils I’d asked him to bring and waited for Camila to spread her drawing on the table.