63
GAbrIELA DUARTE
After the press conference, the attention intensified.
An Italian news site published a photograph from five years earlier.
I was leaving the hospital in Como, supported by Cris.
The caption said he’d picked me up after a secret rendezvous.
I recognized the clothes I’d worn when I was discharged.
Other outlets copied the story before my lawyer could request a correction.
Reservations started being canceled. A client dropped our firm from a project to avoid “unwanted publicity.” Fake accounts claimed I’d gotten pregnant on purpose, extorted Luca, or hidden the children to secure a bigger fortune.
Other messages demanded photographs of my children. One account posted the school’s address. I spoke to the principal, and we agreed they’d spend a few days at home with activities from their teacher while we planned their return. I didn’t want them having to walk through that crowd of cameras.
I read three comments and put the phone on the table. My body was reacting as it had that night at the Palazzo: cold hands, a clenched stomach. Cris sat across from me.
“Do you want me to take your phone for a while?”
“They’re rewriting everything again.”
“Your lawyer can save it. You don’t have to keep reading.”
Luca called from S?o Paulo.
“Your lawyer has the contact details for the team handling the leak. Do you want me to forward the posts that have been sent to me too?”
“Yes. But I don’t want a response prepared by the group.”
“All right.”
“I don’t want to be hidden behind your lawyers.”
“What do you want?”
I looked at the restoration drawings spread around the office. Five years of work were disappearing beneath the word mistress.
“I want to speak. Once.”
“Are you sure you want that exposure now?”
“No. I’m sure staying silent isn’t protecting me.”
“Have you spoken to your lawyer?”
“I’m calling her now. I want to choose the journalist and agree on the questions. No children in the recording.”
“If you need anything from here, let me know.”
“Have you thought about the format?” he asked.
“A recorded interview, no questions about my private life and no images of the children. I want to choose the journalist.”
After the call, I wrote down what I wouldn’t discuss: my children’s routine and health, intimate relationships, amounts in agreements still under discussion. I gave the sheet to my lawyer before contacting a journalist.
On another page, I listed the projects I wanted to show and the documents supporting my attempts to make contact.
“Do you want to find someone today?” Cris asked.
“If I wait until I’m not afraid, I’ll never do it.”
“Then you don’t have to act fearless. You can ask for a break, start an answer over, or stop.”
I chose a Brazilian journalist who’d interviewed restoration specialists in the area.
We spoke on the phone first. She agreed to record the next day in a cleared section of the old house where I was working.
The owner gave permission; my lawyer oversaw the agreement on subjects and the use of images.
My mother and Cris stayed with the children.
When the camera started rolling, I wore work pants, boots, and a dust-stained blue shirt.
“My name is Gabriela Duarte. I’m a restoration specialist and a partner in a firm in Paraty. I want to talk about my work and correct some information being repeated about me.”
“Why speak from your workplace?” the journalist asked.
“Because people are searching for my name and finding accusations about a project from five years ago. This is one of the projects I’ve worked on since. I can show what our team has delivered and how we work.”
I asked the camera operator to keep the lens on the wall I was showing her. The crew was working in the other wing; no one would appear in the background without agreeing to it.
“What do the documents show about your attempts to make contact?”
“That I tried more than once and offered the documents I had. The investigators have the records. Afterward, I had to get on with my life and raise my children. I’m not going to describe every attempt here.”
“What do you want to protect going forward?”
“My children’s privacy. And the ability to keep working without having to account for our private lives to every new client.”
“Some people treat any contribution from the father as a benefit you pursued. Would you like to respond?”
“My children have rights. Accepting that their father should fulfill his duties doesn’t erase the fact that I supported them. Women shouldn’t have to choose between their dignity and their children’s legal rights.”
“How do you intend to handle the attention on them?”
“We’ll make the decisions they need without exposing their routine. I’m not going to lay out a parenting plan in this interview.”
Then I showed her the section we’d set aside for filming.
I explained the layers of plaster, the tests we’d done before choosing materials, and the craftspeople’s work.
I showed photographs of projects the clients had authorized us to share.
When I spoke about my father, I pointed to a drawing of his I kept in the office.
The interview was published two days later. The journalist included the projects and a summary of my attempts at contact, using documents checked by my lawyer with personal details concealed. I told Luca before it went out. He said he would watch.
Over the next few days, a clip about restoration began circulating among others in the field.
A professor asked permission to show it to her students. I read the message more than once. In the video’s comments, craftspeople compared materials and disagreed with some of our choices. I began looking for those questions among the other notifications.
Even the criticism felt like a privilege. One restorer challenged the mortar proportions, and I spent twenty minutes putting together a reply with references. Cris found me smiling at my phone.
“Fighting on the internet again?”
“About sand grain sizes.”
“Finally, a worthwhile scandal.”
Gradually, project inquiries began arriving. Not all the clients came back. One contract I’d thought was certain remained canceled, but I managed to schedule two new meetings.
Offers arrived that I turned down too. A production company wanted to turn my love life into a series. A brand asked whether the children could appear in a campaign. I sent both to my lawyer with the same answer: no.
I agreed to discuss a restoration lecture with a university. We chose a date that wouldn’t interfere with Camila’s appointments.
Luca sent just one message:
“I watched to the end. I want to ask you about the house later.”
“Ask when you come over,” I replied.
The correction the group had promised still hadn’t been published.
I asked my lawyer to follow up with the interim management.
The draft confirmed that the Palazzo’s costs had passed independent checks and that the audit provided no support for the accusations that had circulated.
I asked them to acknowledge the group’s responsibility for spreading the rumors. Bianchi approved the revised version.
The correction appeared in the same languages as the lies. It didn’t restore lost contracts, but it established a public record for any client searching for my name.
The next morning, I found three bouquets outside the guesthouse. The first came from a heritage association. The second, from former clients. The third held a card from Sofia:
“Your father would have liked to see that interview. I enjoyed it very much. Sofia.”
Luca came that afternoon to help with the blocks. The triplets ran to meet him; Noah got there first with a piece in his hand.
“I wanted to ask about the wall you showed,” Luca said when we were alone.
“Which one?”
“The one you left partly exposed.”
“To show the layers. It’s a small area, and we’ll keep monitoring it.”
“My first instinct would be to have someone finish covering it,” he admitted.
I laughed and explained the choice. Luca studied the photograph while I pointed out the differences between the mortars.
“And the office in Lisbon?” he asked afterward.
“I’m still thinking. I don’t want to decide in the middle of all this.”
He nodded and handed back my phone.
Heitor appeared in the doorway.
“Mommy, can Dad stay for dinner?”
I looked at Luca. He didn’t make the decision for me.
“Yes.”
At dinner, we left our phones on the sideboard. Camila told us about a butterfly, Noah showed us a leftover piece from the garage, and Heitor tried to hide his peas in his napkin.
The following Monday, I took all three to school. Luca arrived separately. The coordinator met us at the entrance we’d agreed on. Photographers stood in the street, but the way in was clear. We walked the children to the door, where staff waited for them.
He walked behind us, carrying Heitor’s backpack. The photographers called again. No one answered.
“They want you to look,” Noah observed.
“I know.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Because I came to bring you to school. Off you go with your teacher now.”
That afternoon, I asked Cris to talk while my mother stayed with the children. I’d been putting off my answer since the pier. I didn’t need another trip or another promise from Luca to be honest.
“I’m not going to marry you,” I said.
Cris set his cup on the table. I waited until he looked at me.
“I love you. But I don’t want the life you’re offering me as a couple. I should have said so sooner.”
He was silent for a while.
“I knew that was possible. I still hoped.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t try to fix it now, Gabi. Just let me be sad.”
I nodded. When he stood, I didn’t ask him to stay for dinner. Cris said goodbye to the children and went home. That night, I missed the message that usually came after he left. I didn’t write just to make myself feel better.