14 #3
And a part of me had started counting the mornings with Bento as if they were bringing me closer to that.
In the car, I rested my hands on the steering wheel and sat still.
The garage smelled of damp concrete. An engine started on the far side. I remembered Cecília’s hand on my chest so vividly I had to close my eyes.
***
On the night I told her about my parents’ divorce, it was raining.
Cecília was at my apartment, one of my shirts over her clothes because she’d spilled water on her blouse.
I’d worked through most of dinner, irritated by an old argument my mother had reopened on the phone.
When I finally hung up, the dishes were stacked and Cecília was on the couch, turning pages in a magazine she wasn’t reading.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You already said that.”
I set the phone on the table, out of my reach, and sat down next to her.
“My mom is arguing with my dad over a property neither of them uses.”
“And you got in the middle of it.”
“If I don’t step in, it’ll drag on for months.”
Cecília closed the magazine.
“It could still drag on for months.”
I laughed without any humor.
“You haven’t seen those two fight.”
“No. I’ve seen you get up to answer the phone four times over one plate of pasta.”
I looked at her. She wasn’t reproaching me. She was tired: I’d invited her to spend the evening with me, and she’d spent half of it alone.
I apologized again, this time without immediately trying to justify myself.
We listened to the rain hit the balcony.
I was eighteen when my parents separated.
I understood more than they wanted to tell me, and less than I thought.
For months, every object in the house had seemed part of an argument.
A painting, a car, a set of plates my mother had brought back from a trip.
My father talked about money as if it defined a person’s character.
My mother answered with years, absences, everything she’d given up doing.
I told Cecília about an afternoon when I’d come home and found two boxes in the hallway. One contained photographs. The other, documents for the apartment. My father had pointed to them and said that, in the end, that was what people divided up.
“I was angry at my mother,” I admitted. “Because he stayed there, and she left.”
Cecília ran her thumb along the edge of the magazine.
“Are you still angry?”
“Sometimes. Then I remember that I wanted to leave that house, too.”
It was the first thing I’d said about my parents without arranging it to sound fair.
She brought her hand close to mine. I turned my palm up and held her fingers.
“My father thought he’d given her everything,” I went on. “The house, the trips, security. He couldn’t see what was missing.”
“Can you?”
I took a moment.
“I think so.”
Cecília shifted slightly on the couch.
“I wanted to have dinner with you tonight. The food was good. The apartment’s beautiful. I still wanted you at the table.”
I looked at our joined hands. Along with the shame came a surprising urge to laugh. She’d just given me an answer I could do something with.
“I can turn off my phone.”
“You can.”
I turned it off.
Later I told her what I hated admitting: how I’d learned to look for hidden motives, how someone’s kindness sometimes left me waiting to find out what they wanted in return.
Cecília listened without promising never to disappoint me.
If she needed something, she said, she wanted to be able to ask without having the request used to measure her love.
I pulled her close and promised that she could talk to me.
I remembered saying it. My mouth against her hair. The relief of believing I was different from my father.
***
I opened my eyes in the parking lot.
I hadn’t invented that promise after losing her. I’d made it. And I was the one who’d turned a bank transfer into a verdict on everything she was.
It wasn’t enough to say that my brother knew my fears. I’d known them longer, and yet I’d let them decide for me.
I started the car.
At home I heated a meal I barely tasted. The apartment was tidy, cushions in place, no backpack in the doorway. I’d once called that lack of noise restful. Tonight, I listened to the refrigerator motor start and stop.
My phone rang around ten.
My mother.
“Did you talk to your brother?” she asked after saying hello.
I put down my fork.
“About what?”
“He was here. He said you two are having problems.”
“There’s a document review going on at the company.”
“He seemed hurt.”
I waited for what came next. Leda lowered her voice, the way she did when she thought she was being careful.
“I know this business with the boy has shaken you. I just don’t think you should mix everything together.”
“His name is Bento.”
My mother fell silent.
“I know his name, Dante.”
“Then use it.”
I heard a short breath. I wanted to soften my tone. I didn’t withdraw the request.
“I haven’t told Augusto about him,” she said.
“I hope you keep it that way. His parents are still working this out.”
“His parents. Yes.”
There was feeling in the way she repeated it. I couldn’t tell how much was joy and how much was the late realization that she’d missed everything.
“How is he?”
I thought of the mint leaf, the water running onto Bento’s sneaker, his voice saying the can had moved. I wanted to tell her. I kept the details for a conversation Cecília had agreed to.
“He’s fine. We’re getting to know each other.”
“And Cecília?”
“She’s working. Living her life.”
“Do you think someday…”
“Mom.”
She didn’t finish.
I ran a hand over my face. I’d asked myself the same question in different ways all week. I didn’t want someone else turning it into an ending we seemed entitled to expect.
“Don’t ask Augusto to talk to me about Bento. Or about Cecília. Company matters will be handled at the company.”
Leda agreed, reluctantly, and asked when I’d see her. We set up a lunch for the following week, just the two of us. The call ended without an argument and without the comfort of pretending we agreed on everything.
Then I opened my messages with Cecília.
I wanted to explain that I’d understood what she said at the hotel. I tried out three sentences in my head, rejected a fourth, then realized I was preparing another message for her to read after a day’s work.
The water bottle next to me was empty.
I closed the messages.
On Saturday, I’d see Bento again. I needed to be there that morning even if Cecília never wanted to rest her head on my chest again.
I set the phone down on the table and went to wash the dish.
17
CECíLIA
The worktable wouldn’t fit through the door.
Ivo stopped with one end in the air and a hotel employee holding the other. I gauged the doorway, then looked at the rented worktable, its edges still wrapped in plastic.
“Don’t force it,” I said.
“If you turn it a little…” the employee began.
“The corner will catch. Let’s put it down first.”
They lowered it. Behind us, Joana kept the boxes on the cart clear of the people coming out of the kitchen.
Saturday, just after three. That morning, Bento had spent most of the visit trying to make a paper airplane fly straight. Dante had folded wings under his instructions, and all three planes had landed nose-first on the floor. I’d arrived at the hotel still carrying the calm of that hour.
It lasted until I saw a narrow side table where our assembly worktable should have been.
Another team was using ours in the back hall. Someone had decided the two were interchangeable and reassigned them. The replacement rented in a hurry was too wide for the prep room door.
“Where’s Teresa?” I asked.
“With the musicians,” Joana replied. “I’ve already sent her a message.”
I photographed both tables, the doorway, and the closed boxes. Then I asked Ivo to take the sweets to the walk-in. The refrigeration was as it should be. We needed to clear the hall and find somewhere to finish the pieces we’d brought separately.
“Can you assemble it on the table in the ballroom?” the employee asked.
I looked toward the door where a crew was carrying in the arrangements.
“Not while they’re working on it,” I said.
I needed a clean, steady surface with room around it. This cake had delicate work on the sides. Assembling it among flower boxes and people spreading tablecloths meant asking everyone to watch out for something they couldn’t see.
Teresa arrived with the radio in her hand and listened to the explanation without interrupting.
“I have the approved layout,” she said. “I’ll find out who changed it.”
“We can do that later. Right now I need somewhere to work.”
She nodded and called Elisa.
I was already looking at the next room, where we’d held Wednesday’s tasting. The center table had a smooth top, solid legs, and room for two of us. My back wouldn’t like it, but it would do for a quick assembly. Guests didn’t need to pass through.
“Is that room reserved today?”
Elisa came down the hall with Dante and álvaro. I recognized the maintenance folder the executive carried. I’d known there would be an inspection that afternoon; the notice to vendors about moving around the hotel had said so. Still, Dante changed the air around me.
“What happened?” he asked.
Teresa explained the switch. Dante looked at the worktable stranded outside the door and took out his phone.
“I can have another brought over from the other property…”
“No need,” I said.
He paused, the screen still lit up.
My heart gave an unpleasant thud. Staff all around me, a delivery falling behind, and no desire to manage his reaction to being told no.
I pointed to the room.