70
GAbrIELA DUARTE
Six months after that return to Paraty, I spread the house drawing across the guesthouse table.
Luca spent some nights with me and others at the rental house with the children.
I could work late now without checking my phone every half hour.
I’d begun thinking about a house for all of us one evening when he arrived with three backpacks and a container of soup my mother had sent.
It took me weeks to take the drawing out of its folder and ask him to look at it with me.
“I want to find out whether this idea still works for us.”
The paper was in poor shape. I held the corners down with two mugs and a book.
Luca smoothed a fold. Over the past few months, he’d spent three weeks in Milan during a phase of the audit.
I’d traveled for work too. On one stay in Italy, I’d woken frightened at the Palazzo and needed to be alone before I could tell him what I’d felt.
We argued about trips, photographs of the children, and my habit of taking on more work than I could deliver. Sometimes a subject came up again in our next therapy session because neither of us had given in at home. But I could be angry with him and still look forward to him coming to dinner.
There was also a virus that passed from one triplet to the next, the school party Luca missed his flight for, arriving only in time to help put the chairs away, and a week when I asked for three nights alone.
When he missed the flight, he called to explain. Noah was angry anyway. Luca listened to the complaint when he arrived and went back with him to collect decorations left in the classroom.
Luca sat beside me. Cris joined by video from his office between patients. The triplets had copies of the plans and colored pencils for adding impossible demands.
“A slide from the bedroom to the pool,” Heitor announced.
“There won’t be a pool without a fence.”
“Then a fence with a slide.”
Camila drew a yellow garden. Noah marked a library and an office for me.
“What about Dad?” Luca asked.
“There has to be room for his chair,” Noah said, drawing an enormous circle in the office.
Luca remained on the board and hadn’t returned to operational leadership. Bianchi still ran the business. Meetings sometimes went on longer than expected, but Luca was no longer the person who had to approve every decision in the group.
We wanted to stay in Paraty, near the school and the guesthouse. I was looking for an old house to restore, with room for a studio and long visits. We’d spend our time in Italy at the Palazzo; our books and most of the toys would stay in Brazil.
Over the following weeks, we visited seven properties.
Luca checked the access; I lingered over the old walls.
Camila wanted a garden, Heitor looked for space to play soccer, and Noah asked which room would fit the shelves.
The house we chose had a mango tree in the yard and enough light for my studio. Luca went back twice before agreeing.
Cris asked how far it was from emergency care. My mother checked the stairs, and Sofia complained about the small bathrooms when she saw the photographs. We decided on a downstairs bedroom with an accessible bathroom.
We would buy equal shares in the property.
I would finance mine. Before making the offer, I checked with my accountant how much I could afford, including the payments I was already making on the guesthouse.
The bank approved the loan after reviewing my income and the property documents.
We had to reduce the renovation budget too.
We also discussed how we would use the house if we ever separated. It was an uncomfortable conversation. When it was over, I could look at the plans with excitement again.
One afternoon, as we reviewed the plans with Cris on-screen, I pointed to a photograph. “I want to leave the brick exposed on this wall.”
“It’ll make the room dark,” Luca observed.
“The window’s enormous. And we can paint the others a light color.”
“I’d still rather paint all of it.”
“I like seeing the old brick.”
Noah said he did too. Camila agreed but wanted flowers by the window. Heitor pointed to the fireplace and asked whether Santa would fit.
“I think I lost,” Luca said.
“By a considerable margin,” Cris replied.
Sofia was spending two weeks with us and wanted to see the property.
Late that afternoon, we arranged to have a snack in the yard.
The engineer had already identified the areas that needed reinforcement; we would use the side passage, avoiding the rooms closed off for inspection. Luca waited by the gate.
“Did you bring the tape measure?” I asked.
“Yes. But I wanted to talk first.”
“You’re nervous.”
“I am.”
I laughed.
“Is it the wall?”
“The wall is the least of my problems.”
The mango tree shaded a borrowed table. Luca had invited my mother, Sofia, Cris, and the children for a snack in the yard. I’d helped choose the cake; I just didn’t understand why he kept his hand in his pocket instead of opening the gate for the others coming up the path.
I stopped.
“Luca?”
Cris waved from a distance. He’d closed his office early to bring my mother and Sofia. Luca opened the gate and waited for everyone to pass through. The children ran to the table; we stayed behind.
“Before we go over there…” Luca began.
We stood near the gate, away from the table. Over the past few months, we’d talked about marriage, sometimes in bed, sometimes over a sink full of glasses. I’d told him I wanted it. Even so, when I touched his cold hand, my breathing changed.
“I thought of so many things to say. Now all I can do is look at you.”
He knelt.
“I want to live here with you. I want to wake up in this house, raise our children, and keep finding reasons to hear you laugh. I know what I almost lost, Gabi. I won’t forget.”
He took out a ring with an old stone surrounded by delicate details in blue enamel.
“The stone was my mother’s. I had the band made for you.”
I ran my finger over the little blue details.
“It looks like a tile.”
“That’s what I asked for.”
“Gabriela Duarte, will you marry me?”
I pressed a hand to my mouth. Luca kept looking at me, the ring between his fingers.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m waiting for your answer.”
Behind him, the old house awaited months of work. At the table, Camila unwrapped the cake while my mother looked for plates. I took Luca’s face in my hands.
I’d imagined that question once, with a whole different life to follow it. Now I knew the man kneeling in front of me. I still wanted to kiss him before he finished speaking.
“Yes.”
Luca closed his eyes, undone by the word.
“Yes?”
“Yes, Luca.”
From the table, Heitor shouted to ask whether he could come over. Luca looked back, laughing, and called all three.
“But,” I added.
Luca opened his eyes in alarm.
“The wall stays.”
Luca slipped the ring onto my finger.
“The wall stays.”
I pulled him up and kissed him. The children flung themselves at us. Cris joined the hug. My mother and Sofia followed, and their great-grandmother complained that someone was going to step on her shoe. Later, when everyone else had gone for ice cream, we stayed beneath the mango tree.
“Any regrets?” I asked.
“About the wall or the proposal?”
“The proposal.”
“No. For the wall, I need to see the color of the others.”
He touched the ring.
“I’m just trying to believe you said yes.”
I touched his face.
“You’ll have time to get used to it.”
Days later, we signed the deed and the loan for my share. The documents reflected what we’d agreed about ownership and the family’s use of the house.
“Will it take long?” Heitor asked when we came out of the room.
“We’re done,” I answered.
Cris had signed as a witness and waited with the children.
Noah wanted to keep the pen; Camila offered to carry my bag.
At home, I wrote at the top of the kitchen calendar: “Mommy and Dad are getting married.” Noah wanted to fill in the date, but we hadn’t chosen one.
Heitor added three exclamation points. Camila drew an open door beside it.
EPILOGUE 1
LUCA BELLANDI
Just over two years after we found each other again
I arrived twenty-three minutes early for my own wedding.
“If you look at your watch again, I’m taking it away,” Matteo said, adjusting my tie.
“The ceremony could start early.”
“The bride would disagree.”
“Then we wait.”
The garden of our house in Paraty was ready.
Through the living room door, I could see the exposed brick wall Gabriela had insisted on keeping.
The studio welcomed apprentices three times a week.
There was a room for Cris and downstairs accommodation for Gabriela’s mother and Sofia.
My grandmother claimed stairs were a conspiracy against interesting women.
We’d moved in once the bedrooms, kitchen, and bathrooms were finished. The studio still needed shelves, and part of the garden remained unfinished. Noah chose where to keep the books; Camila wanted the room facing the mango tree. Heitor tried to choose all of them.
We’d postponed the wedding once too. The building work had fallen behind, Camila had needed repeat tests, and Gabriela spent her nights between plans and guest lists.
One night, I found her asleep over the budgets.
The next day, I suggested another date. She opened her calendar, did two quick calculations, and called the celebrant before I finished my coffee.
On the date we’d originally booked, we ordered pizza. There was no couch yet; we sat on the living room rug with the children. Gabriela rested her head on my shoulder while Heitor tried to convince his brother and sister that nobody had to eat the crust.