49.
OLíVIA SAMPAIO
Leonardo turns sixty and announces he doesn’t want a party.
No one believes him.
We organize one anyway.
Nothing extravagant.
Just family and friends in the clinic garden.
The Villar Group is now run through a professional management structure.
Leonardo only chairs the foundation.
Works less.
Complains more.
Still goes to therapy.
Helena retired but referred him to someone else.
He says the new therapist is not as good.
I think he misses her.
Manuela arrives with Caio and their two daughters.
Laura comes with her husband and a baby boy only a few months old.
Leonardo spends his birthday surrounded by grandchildren.
Helena, the oldest, asks for the dragon story.
“Again?”
“Mom says it’s our family story.”
“Your mother exaggerates.”
“Tell it.”
He does.
The dragon voice is still terrible.
At the end, the princess saves the kingdom and the dragon helps rebuild it.
We never changed that part.
After everyone leaves, we sit beneath the tree where we married the second time.
“Sixty,” I say.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“A little.”
“Cruel.”
“Your back agrees.”
He takes my hand.
“Do you regret it?”
“What?”
“Accepting the contract.”
I think.
“I regret that I needed to.”
“So do I.”
“But I don’t regret accepting it.”
“Neither do I.”
“Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if you had believed me in that church.”
“We would have been happy sooner.”
“Maybe.”
“Manuela would have had her father.”
“Yes.”
“Henrique might have told us.”
“Maybe.”
“My father—”
“Leonardo.”
“What?”
“We cannot live inside the life that didn’t happen.”
“I know.”
“We have this one.”
He looks at the clinic.
The house.
The lights where our children and grandchildren spent the day.
“It’s a good life.”
“My favorite one.”
He kisses my hand.
“Thank you for staying.”
“Thank you for learning.”