21
CECíLIA
The rain started when Bento was putting on his second sneaker.
First came scattered drops on the roof of the play space. Then a roar so loud that he stopped with his foot halfway into his shoe and looked up.
“The sky fell.”
“A whole lot of water did,” I replied.
The visit had started at ten thirty, as we’d agreed. Now it was a few minutes before noon, and the receptionist was gathering cushions from an area near the garden. We waited in the café for a chance to reach the cars without getting quite so wet.
Bento leaned against me. Dante set the backpack on the empty chair and looked at the menu.
“Is he having lunch soon?” he asked quietly.
“Yes. I have food ready at home.”
My son heard the right word.
“Do we have beans?”
“Yes.”
“With broth.”
“With broth.”
Dante smiled into his coffee cup. Bento took an interest in the sugar packet and looked ready to turn it into cargo for an imaginary truck. I handed him a napkin to fold, saving both the packet and the table.
We waited nearly twenty minutes. The rain eased, but still ran down the windows in long streaks. I was looking out at the garden when I heard Dante ask if Bento wanted help with a fold. Bento said no, balled up the napkin, and put it in the empty cup I’d pushed aside.
“There.”
“What is it?” Dante asked.
“An egg.”
“I see.”
He answered so seriously that it made me laugh.
Dante looked up at me. The smile lingered longer this time, and I had the disconcerting impression that I was offering him something without even touching him.
I glanced at my watch.
I didn’t have any deliveries that afternoon. Joana would close the store at the agreed-upon time, and I’d already gone over the morning’s orders with her. At home, there was rice, beans, and chicken that I’d made the night before. There was also an apartment Dante had never set foot in.
“If you’d like, you can have lunch with us,” I said.
He went still for a moment.
I added, before my courage ran out:
“Something simple. Until 1:15, because after that Bento needs to rest and I have things to do.”
“I’d love to.”
He answered without the kind of celebration that would have made me want to take the invitation back.
Bento picked up the napkin ball.
“The egg comes too.”
“The egg stays,” I said. “It’s wet.”
He accepted the end of that brief life more easily than I’d expected.
We left when the rain let up, each in our own car. I sent the address to Dante before starting the engine. I stayed there for a few more seconds, staring at the screen, aware of what I’d just done.
Then I buckled my seatbelt and drove home.
***
The first thing Dante saw when he walked in was a sock on the arm of the sofa.
I picked it up with my free hand while Bento dropped his backpack on the floor. I’d tidied the living room before leaving. In a home with a child, though, things seemed to reappear according to rules I hadn’t yet mastered.
“You can leave your jacket there,” I said.
Dante draped it over the back of the chair. He didn’t look around as if assessing the apartment’s size or its furniture. Even so, I wanted to explain the crooked bookcase, the old stain near the window, the boxes I kept under the table to keep them out of the kitchen.
I didn’t explain.
Bento took off his shoes and went to wash his hands with me. When we came back, Dante was still standing near the chair.
“The bathroom is over there,” I said. “You can wash your hands, too.”
He nodded and went.
While I heated the food, I heard Bento showing him a toy car. My son talked faster at home, mixing instructions with information he considered essential. The back wheel wouldn’t turn. The blue truck wasn’t a truck, it was an ambulance. A little figure needed to lie down because he was sleepy.
Dante took in each update as though he needed the information for an important task.
I stirred the beans and turned down the heat.
For years, a scene like that had seemed so far out of reach that I’d avoided even imagining it. Now it was happening a few steps away, between a forgotten sock and a pot just starting to bubble.
“Can I help with anything?” Dante asked from the doorway.
I looked at the silverware drawer.
“You can set the table. Three plates. The small one with the blue rim is Bento’s.”
He opened the drawer I pointed to, took out the silverware, and looked for the napkins. Bento appeared to correct the placement of his glass. Dante moved it two centimeters to the right, received another instruction, and moved it almost all the way back.
“How’s that?” he asked.
Bento nodded, satisfied.
I turned toward the stove before they could see my smile.
We ate with the TV off. Dante asked me about a cake pan on the cabinet, and I told him about a customer who’d changed his mind about the shape after the cake was finished.
I told the story without thinking much of it.
Only when he laughed did I realize I was talking about my work because I wanted to, without having to explain a problem.
“Did you agree to change it?” he asked.
“I changed the decoration. The circle stayed a circle.”
“That sounds like a reasonable compromise.”
“More reasonable than the first answer that went through my head.”
He laughed again, and I recognized the sound I’d known before I’d learned to fear it.
Bento interrupted to announce that a carrot had fallen on the floor. Dante and I bent down under the table at the same time. Our faces came close in the gap between the chairs, with a child’s plate above us.
I felt the heat rise up my neck.
Dante picked up the piece and sat up straight first. I returned to my seat with a strand of hair stuck in my mouth. I brushed it away, annoyed with myself for noticing his mouth.
My son asked for more broth.
I gave him some.
After lunch, Bento wanted to show Dante his bedroom. He waited for him at the door and called me to come too. I followed them. The bedspread had slipped down, a book lay open under the pillow, and the toy cars took up so much space it was hard to believe any could be missing.
Dante stopped at the doorway until Bento pointed out where he could sit.
He sat on the rug.
The contrast between that man and the little figure placed in his hand made my chest tighten. He didn’t know the character’s name. Bento explained impatiently, then explained again when Dante mixed up two with similar colors.
I leaned against the doorframe.
I could stay there. Not to watch every move. Just because I liked watching.
That thought scared me more than the invitation to lunch.
At 1:10, Dante checked his watch.
“I’ll have to leave soon,” he said.
Bento kept pushing a toy car.
“Take that one over there first.”
Dante made the delivery where he’d been told to and handed back the figure. By the time he stood up, my son had already found another game.
I went with him to the living room.
“Thanks for lunch,” he said, picking up his jacket.
“It was nothing.”
The words came out by habit. I almost corrected myself, because there was nothing small about that lunch to me. Instead, I opened the door.
“Bye, Bento,” Dante called out.
A goodbye came from the bedroom, along with the clatter of falling plastic.
Dante looked at me. For a moment, I thought he was going to say something about us, about what that afternoon might mean. He just repeated his thanks and left.
I closed the door at 1:14.
On the table, his glass was still half full. I took it to the sink and rested my hand on the edge, listening to the toy cars in the bedroom.
I had let Dante in.
And when the time came, he had left without making me ask him to.
22
DANTE
At six twenty on Friday, I learned I wouldn’t be able to make Saturday’s visit.
An electrical failure had left part of a hotel outside the city closed for inspection.
The local team had already moved guests and arranged accommodations for those who’d had to leave.
No one was hurt. We still had decisions to make about operations over the next few days, and an in-person meeting in the morning with management and the people overseeing the work.
álvaro explained the situation to me over the phone. I asked what could be resolved without me and what required my involvement. There was a difficult decision to make about suspending new check-ins and reassigning staff to other locations while the assessment continued. I would go with him.
When I hung up, I opened my planner.
Bento’s name was listed for Saturday.
I stared at those letters, trying to find a way to fit myself into two places. I could tell Cecília I might arrive a little later. I could wait until morning, when I knew more. I could leave them waiting for word while I drove back.
And she’d spend the morning trying to explain it to a child.
I called.
Cecília answered after a few rings. I heard water running before she turned off a faucet.
“Did something happen?”
“I need to reschedule tomorrow’s visit. There’s been a problem at a hotel outside the city, and I’ll be there in the morning. I can’t guarantee I’ll be back in time.”
She didn’t answer right away.
“Do you know when you’ll be able to make it?”
“Sunday, if that works for you. Or a day during the week. I can adjust my schedule.”
“I already have plans with him on Sunday.”
“Okay.”
I heard Bento saying something in the background. Cecília replied that she was on her way.
“I need to look at my schedule properly. He got his notebook ready today,” she said.
I closed my eyes.
“I’m sorry. I can talk to him, if you think that would be better.”
“Hang on.”
She stepped away from the phone. I heard Bento’s name and a quiet explanation. Then his voice came closer.
“Hi.”
“Hi, Bento. I won’t be able to come and play tomorrow. I have to work in another city. I want to arrange another day with you and your mom.”
There was a brief silence.
“But tomorrow is Saturday.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“You come on Saturdays.”
There was no elaborate accusation in the words. It was a rule he’d learned and was now giving back to me, waiting for me to put things right.
“I can’t this Saturday. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t answer.