45.
OLíVIA SAMPAIO
Laura is born without a heart defect.
At nine, she decides she is going to become a cardiac surgeon.
“Why?”
“To work with Dad.”
“He isn’t a doctor.”
“But he bosses doctors around.”
“You should not say it like that.”
“He does meetings.”
Leonardo walks in.
“What’s happening?”
“Your daughter thinks you boss doctors around.”
“I don’t.”
Laura raises one eyebrow exactly like him.
“Everyone stands when you walk in.”
“Courtesy.”
“Fear,” Manuela comments.
Leonardo rubs his face.
“I am raising two opposition parties.”
“Three,” I say.
“You’re the leader.”
“Worse.”
Laura joins Brave Hearts with her sister.
Not as a patient.
As a volunteer.
She talks to siblings of hospitalized children.
Something Manuela never realized was missing.
“They get scared too,” Laura explains.
The project creates a specific support group for them.
Leonardo places both girls on the foundation’s youth council.
No financial votes.
Unlimited authority to criticize everything.
They use it.
Our family continues growing not in number, but in reach.
Recome?o opens a rehabilitation unit inside the Institute for postoperative patients.
I refused for three years.
I finally agreed when Leonardo presented a plan without my name attached, with no demands, and under independent management.
“You’re trying to seduce me with governance.”
“Is it working?”
“A little.”
“It can increase.”
That phrase refuses to die.
We work together.
We argue.
Count to ten.
Sometimes twenty.
Then go home.
Always.