9.
OLíVIA SAMPAIO
My hands don’t start shaking until the front door is locked behind us.
Until then, instinct carries me.
I put Manuela’s backpack on the kitchen bench.
Pour her water.
Check whether it’s time for her afternoon medication.
Answer questions about dinner.
Listen to an exhaustive account of the puzzle she finished with Clara.
I perform the ordinary rituals of our life.
The only difference is that Leonardo is in Santa Serena.
And he knows.
“Mommy?”
I look up.
Manuela sits at the kitchen table swinging her feet. Bento occupies the chair beside her, his fabric paws resting on the edge.
“Hmm?”
“You’re not listening.”
“Sorry. What did you say?”
“I asked if Mr. Angry is your friend.”
The knife in my hand stops halfway through an apple.
“Not exactly.”
“Enemy?”
“Not that either.”
“Then what is he?”
My past.
The man I loved.
The father who rejected her before she was born.
The person who changed the course of my life with a handful of sentences in front of a packed cathedral.
None of those answers belong at this kitchen table.
“Someone I knew a long time ago.”
“Before I was born?”
“Yes.”
“Did he know Uncle Henrique?”
My heart stumbles.
“Why are you asking?”
“You said that name.”
I hadn’t realized she could hear us.
“He did.”
“He died.”
“Yes.”
“You get sad when you say his name.”
I place the apple slices on a plate.
Henrique was one of the few people in the Villar family who treated me as though my surname had nothing to do with my worth. He was also the man who asked me for secrecy when I should have refused.
For years, I moved back and forth between compassion for everything he suffered and anger at what that promise ultimately cost me.
“Some memories make people sad.”
Manuela accepts that and bites into a slice of apple.
“The gentleman got sad too.”
“He did?”
“When he looked at me.”
My daughter notices too much.
“Maybe he was thinking about something else.”
“Does he know me?”
The question I’ve dreaded for five years arrives as casually as if she were asking what we’re having for dinner.
I sit across from her.
“No.”
“But he knew my name.”
“He heard me say it.”
She chews slowly.
Watches me.
“His eyes are the same as mine.”
The kitchen goes silent.
Manuela says it without suspicion.
Just a fact.
Like the weather.
Like the color of her dress.
“A lot of people have dark eyes.”
“Not the same.”
I force a smile.
“You studied him pretty carefully.”
“He’s really big.”
A nervous laugh escapes me.
Leonardo has always been tall, but that isn’t all she means. To a child, he must seem enormous in his dark suit, broad shoulders, and the expression of a man who expects every room to bend around him.
“Did he scare you?”
She thinks.
“A little.”
“Did he do anything?”
“No. Just looked at me.”
“You don’t have to be afraid of him.”
The sentence leaves before I can stop it.
Is that true?
Leonardo has never been physically violent. Before our wedding day, he had never raised a hand or even his voice to me.
His danger was different.
Leonardo could destroy lives without touching them.
“You’re scared,” Manuela says.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m worried.”
“Is that different?”
“A little.”
She reaches across the table.
I put my hand over hers.
Her fingers are warm and small beneath mine.
“Nothing bad is going to happen.”
A promise I may not be able to keep.
After dinner, Manuela takes a bath and chooses two bedtime stories.
Halfway through the second, she falls asleep with her head on my arm.
I wait before moving.
Check her breathing.
I always check.
I brush hair away from her forehead.
Look at the color of her lips.
Rest two fingers against her pulse.
I don’t need to count anymore.
I know what normal feels like.
I know every change.
For now, everything is fine.
I leave her door partly open.
My mother is in the living room.
She arrived while I was putting Manuela to bed and asked nothing in front of her. Now she sits in the armchair that once belonged to my grandmother, holding a cup of tea she hasn’t touched.
“Clara called me.”
I close my eyes.
“She shouldn’t have.”
“She was worried.”
“I know.”
I sit on the sofa.
The house belonged to my grandparents. Small, old, full of restored furniture.
When I came back to Santa Serena, it was the only place in the world where I could breathe without feeling someone was watching me fail.
“Was it him?” my mother asks.
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“The truth finally found him.”
Her mouth tightens.
My mother never forgave Leonardo.
She wasn’t at the wedding because she refused to take part in a ceremony she thought was too grand to be sincere. We fought about it. I told her she was judging a man she barely knew.
Hours later, I showed up at her door still wearing part of the wedding dress.
“Does he know about Manuela?”
“He saw her.”
“You told him?”
“I didn’t have to.”
Marta finally takes a sip of tea.
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing.”
“Olívia.”
“I am not running again.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“He wants a DNA test.”
“And?”
I rub both hands over my face.
“I don’t know.”
“You know he can ask a court to order one.”
“He reminded me.”
“He threatened you?”
“He said he would petition the court if I refused.”
My mother sets her cup down hard enough for tea to spill.
“That son of a bitch.”
“Mom.”
“After what he did to you, he still walks in making threats?”
“To him, it’s proof.”
“Then he learned nothing.”
That was my reaction too.
Part of me still believes it.
But I also saw Leonardo’s face when he realized Manuela’s age.
I watched every certainty fall apart.
He looked genuinely shaken.
I hate that I noticed.
“Maybe agreeing to the test is better.”
My mother stares.
“You just said you didn’t know.”
“If I refuse, he goes to court. That means lawyers. Evaluations. Maybe questions for Manuela. If I agree privately, I can control how it happens.”
“And after?”
There is the real problem.
After, Leonardo will have a document proving he is Manuela’s biological father.
He can ask for visitation.
A say in medical decisions.
Time with her in S?o Paulo.
Not take her away from me, I tell myself.
No judge would remove a child from a stable mother without cause.
Fear does not care about legal logic.
“I should have told her sooner,” I whisper.
My mother sighs.
“She’s five.”
“She’s been asking about her father for more than a year.”
“And you answered the best way you could.”
“I delayed.”
“You protected her.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes.”
I stand and walk to the window.
The street is quiet.
Santa Serena sleeps early on weekdays.
A few houses still have lights on.
No unfamiliar cars outside.
Yet.
“He asked what she has.”
“Did you tell him?”
“No.”
“You may need to.”
“He has no right to her medical history.”
“As her biological father, some family history could matter.”
Manuela’s heart condition is no one’s fault.
The doctors have told me that countless times.
Congenital malformations sometimes happen without an identifiable cause.
But there is cardiac history in the Villar family.
Leonardo’s mother died after heart surgery when he was twelve.
One of his cousins underwent two procedures before the age of ten.
When I was pregnant, I hadn’t known those details could matter.
After Manuela was born, I told her doctors everything I remembered.
Leonardo may know something useful.
That thought is the first crack in the wall I built around us.
I would never forgive him for my sake.
For Manuela, I can sit across from the man who broke me.
“He said he’ll come back tomorrow.”
“And what did you say?”
“That he shouldn’t.”
My mother lifts a brow.
“So he’ll come.”
We know the same man.
“I don’t want him at the clinic.”
“Meet him somewhere else.”
“I don’t want to meet him anywhere.”
“But you will.”
I look toward the hallway leading to Manuela’s room.
“Yes.”
My mother gets up and puts both hands on my shoulders.
“You are not twenty-three anymore.”
“I know.”
“You were too young to fight that family by yourself.”
“I wasn’t alone.”
“You were, in the ways that mattered. We loved you, but we didn’t know how to fight in their world. Now you do. You built a clinic. You raised your daughter. You know your rights. And this time, you know exactly what Leonardo Villar is capable of.”
“Is that supposed to comfort me?”
“It’s supposed to remind you that you survived him.”
I hug her.
For a few seconds, I allow myself to be afraid.
“What if he tries to take her from me?”
“He’ll have to come through every one of us.”
I close my eyes.
My mother would stand in front of an army for Manuela.
So would I.
After she leaves, I check the locks again.
Doors.
Windows.
Then I shower and lie down, unable to sleep.
At midnight, my phone vibrates.
Unknown number.
I don’t need to open the message to know who sent it.
We need to talk without Manuela present. Tell me where and when.
I stare at the screen.
S?o Paulo number.
I don’t know how he got mine.
I’m not surprised.
Leonardo has access to information most people wouldn’t even know existed.
I type an angry reply.
Delete it.
Type that there is nothing to discuss.
Delete that too.
Finally:
Tomorrow. 9:00 a.m. Café on the square. Do not come to my clinic or my house.
His reply appears in less than ten seconds.
I’ll be there.
No request.
No thanks.
No apology.
Exactly like the man I remember.
I lock the screen and set the phone on the nightstand.
In the next room, Manuela sleeps without knowing her father has just stepped into our lives.
And that maybe neither of us will be able to push him back out again.