Chapter 27
I arrived twenty minutes before the agreed-upon time, but stayed in the car, parked across the street.
The two-story house in front of me was unremarkable, surrounded by a low wall and a small garden that was beginning to take on the first signs of night.
A yellowish light shone through the living room curtains, lending the house a welcoming appearance that stood in stark contrast to the empty grandeur of the mansion where I lived.
Maria Rita was there.
My wife and my baby were just a few meters away, yet that small doorway seemed harder to cross than any border my money had ever opened.
Henrique had laid out all the conditions during the call. I was to arrive alone, without security guards, lawyers, gifts, or documents. I could not touch Maria Rita, approach her belly, or remain after she asked me to leave. He and Aline would be listening in on the entire conversation.
I accepted every demand without argument.
I’d spent my entire life entering places with the certainty that I’d be welcomed. Doors would open before I even touched them. People would stand up when I appeared. My last name turned intrusions into visits and orders into favors.
That night, for the first time, I realized that no fortune granted me the right to walk through Maria Rita’s door.
I looked at the passenger seat. It was empty.
I thought about buying flowers, but they seemed offensive.
I considered bringing jewelry or any object that would show how willing I was to make amends for what I’d done, but then I remembered the night I accused her of loving my money.
Showing up with gifts would only confirm that I still believed everything had a price.
I didn’t bring anything… No flowers, no jewelry, no rehearsed promises.
I carried only my guilt.
With two minutes to go before the appointed time, I turned off the engine and got out. The cold wind cut through the fabric of my jacket, carrying the scent of rain gathering in the sky. For a moment, the memory of Maria Rita kneeling on the wet cobblestones froze me in my tracks.
I closed the car door and forced myself to keep going.
Every meter I walked along the sidewalk seemed to diminish the man I believed myself to be. When I reached the gate, my hands were clammy and my pulse was racing so violently that I could barely press the doorbell.
The sound echoed from the other side.
Henrique opened the door a few seconds later. He was wearing a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up and had an impassive expression. He didn’t invite me in right away. He remained in the doorway, blocking my path with his own body.
“Are you alone?” Henrique scanned the sidewalk with his eyes before focusing on me again.
“Yes.” I spread my arms slightly, allowing him to see that I wasn’t hiding any companions or ulterior motives. “I didn’t bring any bodyguards.”
“Your phone.”
I took the phone out of my pocket and handed it to him without question.
Henrique turned off the phone and put it in a drawer near the entrance.
“You’re not going to record this conversation, you’re not going to touch her, and you’re not going to turn this house into a courtroom,” he warned, keeping his hand on the door. “If Maria Rita asks you to leave, you’ll leave. If you try to intimidate her, you won’t be invited back.”
“I understand.”
“You can still back out.”
“I won’t.”
Henrique studied me for several long seconds, searching my face for any trace of the man who had dragged Maria Rita out of her own home. Finally, he stepped aside and let me in.
The smell of home-cooked food hit me first. Sautéed garlic, fresh coffee, and a subtle scent of lavender filled the room.
There were colorful toys scattered across the rug, family photographs on the walls, and a blanket folded over the arm of the sofa.
The house was small compared to the mansion, but every object seemed to have its own special place.
Then I saw her.
Maria Rita was sitting in an armchair by the window.
She was wearing soft-fabric pants and a beige sweater, loose enough to hide any changes in her body.
Her brown hair fell loosely over her shoulders, and her face was still thinner than I remembered.
The dark circles under her eyes remained, but her eyes had regained a different sparkle.
It wasn’t the innocent sweetness that had welcomed me at the altar.
It was the strength of a woman who had learned to carry on after being broken.
Aline was sitting next to her, holding her daughter on her lap. The little girl was absentmindedly playing with a doll, completely oblivious to the tension filling the room. On the coffee table lay a white envelope. I immediately recognized the name of the clinic printed in the corner.
The ultrasound.
My gaze lingered on the envelope for too long. Maria Rita noticed and placed her hand over it, pulling it closer to herself.
The movement was subtle, but it made one thing clear: the image didn’t belong to me.
“Maria…” I took an instinctive step toward her, but stopped when I noticed the way her fingers clenched around the arm of the chair.
“Don’t call me that.” She kept her head held high, though the tension made her shoulders stiff. “You’ve lost the right to use the name you used to say when you wanted me to believe I was safe.”
Pain lanced through me, but I didn’t try to defend myself.
“Maria Rita,” I corrected, maintaining my distance. “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”
“I didn’t agree to see you for your sake.” She ran her hand over the envelope, shielding the photograph inside. “I agreed because I don’t want my daughter to grow up believing that I used her existence to get revenge on her father.”
My daughter…
The word struck me again, but this time it came from the lips of the woman carrying her.
I looked at her belly. Her sweater hid any bulge, but knowing that a little girl was growing inside her made my eyes burn.
“Don’t look at her as if you already have any right to her,” Maria Rita warned, placing her hand on her belly. “You came here to talk to me.”
I looked away immediately.
“You’re right.”
Henrique pointed to a chair a few meters away from her. I sat on the edge, unable to lean back. There was no conference table, no secretaries, no lawyers. Just the woman I’d betrayed and three witnesses ready to stop me from hurting her again.
The silence dragged on.
I’d rehearsed hundreds of phrases throughout the early hours of the morning. None survived Maria Rita’s gaze.
“I know you didn’t kill my mother.” I kept my hands open on my knees, making no attempt to hide the trembling of my fingers. “I have no more doubts.”
She tilted her head slightly.
“Did you find the killer?”
“Not yet.”
“Did you find any footage proving I was in the library?”
“No.”
“Did any witnesses confirm that I didn’t touch her?”
“No.”
“So what’s changed?” Maria Rita leaned forward, and the anger she had been holding back surfaced in her eyes. “Am I innocent because I’m pregnant? Because there’s now a part of you inside me?”
“No.”
“Did you believe me because Henrique walked into that police station wearing an expensive suit and spoke with the authority of a man who knows the law?” She pointed at Aline’s husband without taking her eyes off me.
“When it was only a waitress’s word against the bloodline of the great Eleonora Vasconcelos, I was worth nothing.
All it took was a respected man calling the investigation flimsy for you to start wondering whether I might be telling the truth. ”
Every sentence hit exactly where it was supposed to.
“Yes.” I swallowed my shame without looking away from her. “It took another man to force me to see what I should have seen on my own.”
Maria Rita seemed surprised by the admission, but her expression soon hardened again.
“And is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. There’s nothing I can say to make up for what I did.”
“Then why are you here?”
I drew in a breath, feeling the air scrape against my throat.
“Because I needed to look you in the eye and admit that it wasn’t grief that made me do it, nor just my mother’s death or the blood on your hands.
” I lowered my eyes for a moment, gathering the courage to force the most shameful truth out of myself.
“I did that because, deep down, a part of me believed that a poor woman might have loved me for my money. I used to say I saw no difference between us, but all it took was my mother’s death for all the prejudice I thought I didn’t have to come to the surface. ”
Maria Rita’s hands trembled as she held the envelope.
“Go on.”
“I didn’t see my wife kneeling beside a body.
I saw the girl I’d brought from the rural Northeast surrounded by things she could never have afforded on her own.
” The confession burned my lips, but I didn’t stop.
“I turned everything I gave you into evidence against you. The house, the clothes, the jewelry, my last name. In that moment, I believed you owed me gratitude and that any attempt to remain in my life was driven by self-interest.”
“You didn’t give me your world, Eduardo.” Maria Rita stood up, keeping one hand on her belly. “You lent it to me, and the first time I failed to live up to the image you’d created of me, you took it all back.”
I stood up instinctively, worried when I noticed she was pale, but Henrique immediately stepped between us.
I stopped.
“Sit down, Maria Rita,” Aline said, handing Kelly to her husband before stepping closer. “You don’t have to keep going if you’re not feeling well.”
“I have to.” Maria Rita declined the offer with a gentle gesture and remained standing. “Throughout our entire marriage, he spoke, and I believed him. Today, he’s going to listen to me.”
“I’m listening.” I sat back down, making it clear that I wouldn’t try to approach her.
She inhaled slowly.