40
LUCA BELLANDI
I’d learned to turn insomnia into profit.
My schedule crossed time zones. I slept in snatches, took blood-pressure medication, and put off the rest my doctor kept demanding.
At seven, Matteo, my chief of staff, arrived with the day’s documents. “The board approved the expansion. Unanimously.”
“They approve anything that multiplies dividends.”
“Not always.”
One look ended the comment. Matteo had worked for me for three years and still occasionally made the mistake of thinking professional familiarity entitled him to personal observations.
The quarterly figures confirmed another record. We’d bought competitors, opened hotels, and increased funding for the Aurea Foundation. My growing attention to neonatal programs hadn’t come from a board initiative.
After Sofia told me there were three, I’d approved the expansion of a neonatal intensive care unit in Milan. Other projects followed, including the Brazilian institute and its pediatric cardiology teams. I read those requests with an attention I’d denied the documents Gabriela sent.
Each report of children saved brought relief I didn’t deserve. Approving funds for strangers was simple. Looking for the three babies I might have abandoned would take courage.
When I tried to sleep, I still saw the rain beyond the arcade and her face before she got into the car. The pieces of the check had fallen over the photographs I’d shown her. She’d pointed out timestamps, offered contacts. I hadn’t made a single call.
Don’t let a child who isn’t mine learn to call me Dad. The sentence came back whole. I’d said it to hurt her, and never asked what she’d had to tell her children afterward.
“The car is ready,” Matteo went on. “The Aurea Institute visit begins at nine. The press will be at the presentation of the new wing.”
“Cancel the press.”
“They’ve already confirmed you’ll be there.”
“Then unconfirm me.”
He took a careful breath.
“Dr. Isabel arranged the technical tour before the presentation. She wants to show you the wing and discuss the next partnership agreement. Interviews are optional.”
I’d agreed to the visit weeks earlier. No patients would be brought before me to give thanks. I asked him to keep the technical itinerary.
“I’ll do the meeting and the tour. No interviews.”
“Perfect.”
Alone, I opened the drawer. I’d brought the tile fragment, the team photograph, and my copy of the house drawing from Milan. I touched the fold without opening the paper.
I knew she’d gone to Brazil with Cris. I’d never asked her lawyer for the address, never tried to find out whether the children had been born safely. Some nights I typed her name and stopped before searching. The life I imagined for her already had a place for Cris and none for me.
In the third year, I wrote a letter. I said I’d kept the drawing, that the Lisbon office remained intact, that I regretted how we’d ended. I read the whole page again. Not one question about the children. I tore it up and threw away the pieces.
It was easier to imagine her life than discover who I’d become in it. Sofia had never forgiven me.
“You didn’t want to know,” she’d say when I tried to blame Gabriela for the silence. “She sent letters. You’re the one who shut the door.”
I closed the drawer.
At 9:20, I followed Dr. Isabel through the Aurea Institute’s corridors. A few parents recognized me. I returned their greetings, uncomfortable with the gratitude of people I knew nothing about.
“This passage connects the consultation rooms to the new wing,” Isabel explained. “Our meeting is on the other side. The outpatient clinic is running as usual.”
Stars covered the walls, like the ones in the hospital where I’d stayed after the accident. The team had chosen the design. I’d seen it in the proposal but didn’t remember the colors being so pale.
She stopped when someone from reception called her. She asked me to wait by the hallway window; she needed to clear up a scheduling question before the meeting.
A nurse opened the door next to me to take in a folder. I heard a child laugh.
Matteo took a call and moved a few steps away. I stayed where Isabel had asked, phone in hand.
Through the half-open door, I saw three children. Something about the boy by the window tightened my fingers around the phone.
He noticed me looking. The nurse followed my gaze and pulled the door nearly closed, leaving a narrow gap.
Before she did, I saw the girl on the examination table and her brother trying to entertain her with a dinosaur. The boy by the window turned toward me. I stopped hearing the corridor around me.
The gray eyes, raised eyebrow, and pale streak near his forehead brought back photographs of my childhood. The shape of his face reminded me of Gabriela. It was a resemblance, and I couldn’t look at it with the detachment I’d given the test results.
He stepped closer to the girl. The other boy raised the dinosaur, and she smiled. I tried to guess their ages. Almost five, perhaps. Then I remembered I had no right to stand staring at these children. I looked away from the door.
I heard the nurse call Noah. The name meant nothing to me. Somehow that hurt even before I saw who was coming down the hall.
Christofer Sampaio came first, carrying three backpacks and a yellow blanket. I stopped breathing. The woman beside him was speaking to Isabel, a folder held against her chest. Gabriela.
She looked for the room before looking at me. Her hair was tied back, and there was a small scar near her wrist. I knew the way she gripped papers when she needed to concentrate, but I didn’t know that exhaustion. She lifted her face. The conversation stopped midword.
Cris adjusted the backpacks. I saw her look from me to the door and step toward the children. Surprise couldn’t hide the fear that followed. I wanted to say her name and couldn’t.
Three children. The age they would be. A face that had reminded me of hers before I’d seen her.
None of it replaced the test I’d refused, but I could no longer hide behind Marinelli.
I looked at Gabriela knowing that if they were my children, I hadn’t merely lost five years. I’d chosen to live none of them.