46
LUCA BELLANDI
Dr. Marinelli wasn’t answering his calls.
The lawyers submitted the evidence to the authorities and requested preservation of the records. I also requested a complete copy of my medical file. An independent specialist, Dr. Elena Moretti, began comparing what arrived from the clinic with the reports I’d kept.
The office remained open, but the receptionist said the doctor was on leave.
The clinic sent some documents and asked for time to locate the rest. Marinelli didn’t answer the request for clarification.
I wanted to read his silence as a confession; the lawyers reminded me we still needed to hear from him.
On the fourth day of work, Moretti met me with two sets of papers. There were copies of tests performed after my engagement ended, almost twenty years earlier, and records from the sample collected shortly before the opening. She separated the two periods on the table.
The laboratory that had worked for the clinic had retained copies of the old results. Two analyses recorded sperm, though in low numbers. The documents Marinelli had given me said there were none. I checked my name and the dates. The same samples.
“These are different documents,” Moretti said, placing them together. “The laboratory’s archived result doesn’t support the conclusion you were given.”
“And the biopsy?”
“This report describes areas producing sperm. On its own, it wouldn’t establish whether you could conceive naturally. But the other tests record sperm in the semen. That needed to be discussed, not replaced with certainty that it was impossible.”
I remembered returning to the clinic after the engagement ended, demanding an answer with no room for doubt. Marinelli had given me exactly that. I’d taken the papers home and never sought another explanation.
“The team examining the documents will investigate how these versions were produced,” she added. “I can explain what the results mean.”
I sat before her, hands still on my knees.
“Could it be a technical error?”
“Samples can vary. That doesn’t explain two incompatible versions identified as the same test. Documents are still missing, but this discrepancy needs explaining.”
“So there was never that certainty?”
“These results didn’t justify saying natural conception was impossible. They wouldn’t have justified promising it would happen either.”
I’d confirmed paternity of all three before entering that room. Still, I had to reread the line that dismantled the certainty I’d used to reject them.
“And the new sample?”
I’d provided it at the beginning of that week, following the independent lab’s instructions. The new test had identified sperm too. Moretti brought the page closer but stopped me drawing a conclusion about all the intervening years.
“This result describes the current sample. We’ll assess it with your history and the other tests. A low count needs follow-up; it isn’t the same as sterility.”
I asked for copies. This time, I wrote down what still needed clarification.
There was no relief. Only a kind of nausea. Outside the clinic, I found Matteo waiting in the car with a tablet.
“The audit found two payments in the records of a consulting firm hired by the group,” he said. “Five hundred thousand euros in total. The documentation refers to services from Marinelli; Lorenzo authorized the expenses. The contracts don’t explain what was delivered.”
“When?”
“Five years ago. One a week before your test for the opening, the other after Gabriela left Italy.”
“And the tests from almost twenty years ago?”
“We haven’t found any connected payments yet. As for the more recent sample, the clinic hasn’t located a corresponding laboratory result. There’s a disposal record. The team is checking the entries and speaking to the people who worked there.”
I looked again at the payment dates. They pointed to Lorenzo during the period when Gabriela had tried to tell me about the pregnancy. They didn’t yet explain the first false report, but they were enough to demand answers I’d never sought.
“Give the investigators the name of the employee who handled my visit. She may know what happened.”
“Understood.”
“Have they found the sample?”
“No. There’s no material available from that collection. They’re working from records.”
“Beatrice?”
“Paola’s notebook mentions a delivery to her office. We’re trying to locate the document. We can’t yet say what she received or whether she was involved in the medical fraud.”
I looked out the window. My brother knew about the operations, the years of guilt after the accident, every appointment I’d left convinced my body had been punished for surviving. I opened the results again on my knees.
“What would Lorenzo gain?” Matteo asked.
“Control.”
Gabriela had made me less predictable. She’d made me question decisions I’d once left to Lorenzo.
Children would change the group’s future and reduce his influence.
It was one possible explanation for the later payments.
For what had happened almost twenty years earlier, when my brother was just starting out at the company, I had no answer.
“Get the documents to the outside team. I won’t confront him until I’ve heard what they can prove.”
“Are you returning to Brazil?”
“Today.”
I returned on the sixth day, as promised. During the flight, I opened Gabriela’s messages three times. I didn’t want to throw the reports onto her screen as though proving I’d been deceived would be enough.
I wrote that there were discrepancies between the archived results and the reports I’d received. I asked how she wanted the copies. She told me to send everything to her lawyer and said she’d speak to me after reading them.
I did.
I forwarded the material with Moretti’s explanation and what remained under investigation. Then I opened the letter Paola had found. The offer of a DNA test was still there. Beside it on my phone, Camila smiled in a recent photograph, her rabbit against her cheek.
Two days after my return, Camila had more tests at the Aurea Institute. Gabriela allowed me to wait with them. I arrived before everyone and brought a book she’d approved by message. Heitor ran to me.
“Luca! You came back.”
Noah followed, his pencil box against his chest. Camila held Gabriela’s hand.
“I said I would.”
“Did you bring the book?” Camila asked.
I showed her the cover. Heitor wanted to know whether there were dragons.
“Let’s find out.”
Noah sat at the other end of the bench. He opened his pencil box on his knees and chose three colors. I left the place between us for Gabriela.
When Camila was called for her blood draw, she asked for my hand. Gabriela came with us. Our daughter gripped both our hands at the sight of the needle; I counted the stars painted on the ceiling until she stopped crying.
Later, while Cris took the children to the café, I said,
“I need to talk to you.”
“About Camila?”
“About the tests that made me believe I couldn’t have children.”
Gabriela stiffened. An employee showed us to an empty consultation room. She’d read the copies sent to her lawyer but wanted to understand what Moretti had told me. I opened my folder on the table and separated the tests from the payment records.
“The results didn’t say it was impossible.”
“They didn’t.”
“And Lorenzo paid Marinelli.”
“He authorized payments five years ago. They’re checking why. The old reports don’t match the archive either, but we don’t yet know who was involved in that first alteration.”
She let the papers fall onto the table.
“That proves you were deceived.”
“It does.”
“And what do you expect me to say? That it all makes sense now?”
“No.”
“Because it doesn’t. A test explains why you doubted. It doesn’t explain why you tried to buy me off. It doesn’t explain the way you looked at me. It doesn’t explain refusing every chance to find out whether you were wrong.”
“I know.”
She stood.
“Stop saying that as though those words were penance.”
I stood too, but didn’t come closer.
I ran my fingers along the folder’s edge, looking for something to say that wouldn’t require another answer from her.
“I don’t know how to talk about this without sounding as though I’m asking you to forgive me.”
She pushed back her chair. Her eyes filled, and I wanted to reach out. I kept my hand on the table.
“Then accept silence for once.”
She left without taking the papers. I was gathering them when my phone vibrated. Matteo had sent a draft statement in case the investigation leaked. It described me as a fraud victim and what had happened to Gabriela as a misunderstanding.
I replied that this version would not be released.
I asked the lawyers to revise the statement. Then I put away the phone, closed the folder, and went to look for Gabriela.