8
DANTE
The room had a table for four and a clock that ran six minutes fast.
I checked it twice before realizing the problem wasn’t my phone.
At reception, they gave me the room number and offered coffee. I declined. I took a chair to one side, leaving the two seats facing the door free.
I hadn’t brought a folder.
I’d left the documents at the office. But I had a list on my phone: birth registration, expenses, schedules. I’d written it in the middle of the night and changed the order twice in the car.
I didn’t know what she’d arranged.
I checked the list one last time and locked the screen.
She walked in at exactly ten o’clock. She was carrying her work bag and a small notebook. She greeted me, sat down facing me, and placed her phone on the table, screen up.
“The school might call,” she explained.
I nodded.
I hadn’t thought of that.
Cecília opened the notebook, but didn’t look at her notes right away.
“First of all, I want to make it clear that this conversation has nothing to do with the hotel contract.”
“Of course.”
“And it’s not a conversation about us.”
I kept looking at her.
A lock of hair was caught under the bag strap still on her shoulder. I wanted to tell her. The thought was so intimate, so useless, that I looked down at her hands.
“I understand,” I said.
Cecília took the bag off her shoulder, freeing her hair without noticing, and set it on the next chair.
“What do you want to do, Dante?”
I’d spent two days thinking about my answer. In the car, at the office, lying awake. I reached for my phone.
“I can cover the expenses, get the paperwork in order…”
Cecília looked at my hand.
“I asked what you want to do, Dante.”
I pushed the phone aside.
The list was no help now.
“I want to get to know my son. Be a part of his life. Take on the responsibility I should have taken on before.”
She watched me, offering no help.
“And why now?”
I took a deep breath.
“Because I saw him.”
Her face closed off.
“And that was enough for you to take my word for it?”
“It shouldn’t have been necessary.”
“But it was.”
“It was.”
It sounded too small once I’d said it. Cecília looked at her notebook, then back at me.
“You know what I won’t accept here? You telling me you lost five years because you didn’t know. Talking as if someone kept Bento from you.”
“I know.”
“Let me finish before you answer.”
I shut my mouth.
She squeezed the pen between her fingers.
“I left that chapel pregnant. I had morning sickness, had tests done, looked for work, picked a name. He was born. Learned to hold his head up, to sit, to call for me. He got sick on nights when I had an order due the next day. All of it happened after I told you I was carrying your child.”
Her voice was steady, but I could hear the effort in her breaths between sentences.
“You may be shaken because you met a child. I’m exhausted from living a story you only started looking at this week.”
I lowered my head.
I pictured Cecília awake with our son in a home I’d never seen. She was still watching me.
“Augusto…”
I stopped. Cecília gripped her pen and waited.
I could tell her what I’d discovered. She’d just told me about five years.
I clasped my hands between my knees.
I looked up.
“You told me. I heard you. And I chose not to believe you.”
Cecília went still.
I went on, shame slowing every word.
“No one stopped me from reaching out afterward. I didn’t ask about tests, didn’t find out whether you needed anything, didn’t want to know if there was a child. I chose to keep the version where I was right.”
She looked toward the door for a moment.
When she looked back, her eyes were wet.
“So that’s the story we’re talking about.”
I nodded.
We stayed silent until she was able to continue. There was a box of tissues next to the notebook.
She took one, pressed it to the corner of her eye, and took a breath.
“I’ve spoken to a lawyer. I want guidance on establishing paternity and responsibilities. I’m not improvising this. She’ll contact whoever represents you.”
“I’ll get you their contact details.”
“That’s separate from the visits. And it doesn’t depend on me agreeing to more than we’re discussing here.”
“It doesn’t.”
“If there’s any process to confirm paternity, we’ll agree on it with the professionals. No one turns up at school, at my home, or at work making demands.”
I agreed.
I wanted to say seeing Bento had been enough.
I looked at the pen she was still clutching between her fingers.
I put my hands back on the table.
“I want to do this in a way that protects Bento,” I said. “With whatever guidance we need.”
Cecília jotted down a line.
“He hasn’t been sitting with his bags packed since Tuesday, waiting for a father, Dante. He has a routine. He has my mother, his aunt. His friends. He might like you and still not want to talk to you one day. This isn’t a test you pass and then you’re done.”
“I understand.”
She looked up.
I corrected myself before she had to:
“I’m trying to understand.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, but she didn’t quite smile.
“That sounds more likely.”
I accepted that.
She proposed a first visit the following Saturday morning, at a children’s play space Bento already knew. She would stay with us. One hour, with the option to leave sooner if he was uncomfortable. No sharing photos. No surprise appearances by my family. No big presents.
As I listened, each condition showed me a mistake I might have made without even thinking of it.
“Can I bring something small?” I asked.
Cecília thought for a moment.
“You can. But you don’t have to.”
I held on to “you can.” It would take me longer to hear the rest.
She continued:
“I told him you’re his father. I didn’t tell him what happened at the altar. I won’t put that on a four-year-old. But I’m not making up a story about you traveling, or being unable to come back.”
My throat tightened.
“What if he asks?”
“We’ll explain it in a way he can understand. Carefully. And you’re not going to blame me or your brother just to make the answer easier for yourself.”
“I won’t.”
It was the first promise of the conversation.
I felt the weight of it as soon as I made it.
Cecília closed the notebook but kept her hand on the cover. There was still something else.
“Your mother.”
“I’ve spoken to her. She won’t contact you or Bento.”
“I don’t want Bento introduced as the latest arrival everyone’s entitled to visit.”
“Understood.”
“And Augusto goes nowhere near him.”
I looked up.
It took me a moment to answer. I still thought of Augusto as my brother before thinking of what he’d done. Cecília waited, her notebook closed.
“All right.”
She seemed to be waiting for a question, but I didn’t ask one.
The fast clock said eleven oh five. My phone said ten fifty-nine. Cecília checked the time, too, and began packing up.
There was so much more I wanted to know.
What he’d been like as a baby. Whether he liked fruit, whether he slept well, why he kept drawing those doors. I couldn’t ask everything at once just because I finally felt the lack of answers.
“Can I ask you something about him?” I said.
She paused with the notebook in her purse.
“Sure.”
“What helps him feel comfortable when he meets someone?”
Cecília looked at me for a few seconds.
“Time. And not asking one question after another. He likes showing people what he’s doing, but it has to be his choice.”
I remembered him drawing the notebook close to his body.
“Okay.”
She stood up. I did the same, without moving closer.
Near the door, Cecília held the strap of her purse with both hands.
“Dante, there’s something you need to understand before Saturday.”
I waited.
“I’m not giving you another chance with me. I’m trying to find out if I can give my son a chance without hurting him.”
The words hit exactly where they were meant to.
“I know they’re different things.”
“Then keep them separate.”
She left.
I stayed in the room until I heard her footsteps fade away down the hallway. Then I went to the front desk and returned the access card I’d received upon arrival.
In the car, I opened my calendar to block off Saturday.
I had a work appointment that morning. I called to reschedule it and noted the new time.
Before putting my phone away, I noted the meeting time.
Ten o’clock. One hour. Cecília there.
I wrote down Bento’s name.
I spent some time looking at those five letters.
My son had a place on my calendar.
It was too little to celebrate.
It was too late to put it off again.