“Not now,” she said in a strangled voice.
Strong hands gripped her by the shoulders and whirled her around, turning her away from the view. She winced at the pain on her left shoulder.
“Heavens, Sis! What happened?” Felipe was appalled at Sophia’s appearance. She had put on makeup to cover up the bruises on her temple and under her eyes and was dressed in black as if in mourning, despite the warm weather.
She threw her arms around his waist, hugging him fiercely, “Oh, I’ve missed you, Brother.”
“What is it, Sophia? What’s happening?”
“It’s nothing. I’m just being silly.” She didn’t want to talk about it. Felipe had enough problems of his own. She wiped the tears from her eyes and asked, “What are you doing here in the middle of the day? Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Carolina was very worried. She called me as soon as you arrived. She took Gabi to the shopping center, but she didn’t want to leave you alone with Grandma. She said you flew here with a man called Ethan. Is he the guy who gave us that ride from Geneva?”
“Yes, Ethan Ashford.”
“I thought you’d broken up with him, Sophia,” he gripped her chin and made her look at him.
“I did. But he’s still a dear friend. He seems to sense when I need a ride. And I was lucky I was with him, Felipe. I guess that the painkillers I took lowered my blood pressure. It was really bad.”
“Carol told me you practically had to be carried upstairs.”
“No big deal,” she waved his concern away.
“Where is he?”
“He had a business meeting in São Paulo. He just dropped us off here, but he said he’d come over later. He was very concerned. You know my pressure gives me a scare sometimes.”
“Yeah. Grandma told me you hadn’t eaten yet. Come-”
“Felipe,” she interrupted and put a hand on her stomach, “I feel sick. Don’t insist. Please.”
“Sophia...” His eyes, so like hers, rounded in surprise, “Are you pregnant? Alistair?”
How could I be? The memory of him made her break down in wrenched sobs.
“Oh, Sis, don’t cry,” he caressed her hair, tenderly. “You know a child is always welcome-”
“I-I’m not preg-pregnant,” she stammered between tears and sobs. “That’s not it. Oh, Felipe, so many things have happened these last few days.”
Ipanema. The Leibowitz’s Penthouse.
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010.
10.10 a.m.
Sophia dropped the keys on the marble floor and they echoed loudly in the empty hallway. Kneeling outside the door of the apartment she had shared with Gabriel, she noticed she had started to shake uncontrollably.
Damn. Get a grip, Sophia. She took a deep breath and stood up with the keys in her hand. One. Two. Three. Now. She shoved the key in the lock and pushed the door open.
The silence of the apartment, once so happily filled with laughter hit her hard.
Tiny black dots clouded her vision as a panic attack threatened to overwhelm her. Not now. Please God, not when I’m alone.
She knew she had to say good-bye. And she had to face it.
I’m not alone. Gabriel is here with me. He will always be. One way or another. Forever.
This is for him. This is for me. For Gabriela. For the future, whatever the future brings.
Sophia took a deep breath, focused on her breathing, wrestling to calm herself. She closed the door behind her and leaned on the wall taking in the apartment where she had been so happy. The joyful memories were so sharp that if she were a weaker woman she would have laid on the floor and wept for days.
I’m sorry, Gabriel. To wish you were not dead, would mean to regret meeting Alistair Connor. And... Oh, God! I can’t make myself do that. Sophia closed her eyes for a second, pushed off the wall and started to wander through the rooms.
She entered their bedroom and looked at a photo of them on their honeymoon. How naïve I was then.
Sophia never realized that grief and self-pity weren’t the same thing. She thought she was mourning Gabriel and all she had lost, but in reality what she had been doing was hating the world and feeling sorry for herself.
Sophia’s mind was now putting the memories together like a puzzle. All the time she’d spent angry at the world and asking the universe ‘why her’ didn’t help. On the contrary, it had kept her away from the pain brought by the loss of her innocence and the death of her husband.
I don’t belong here anymore. I have to let go.
With tears in her yes, she started cataloguing items on her MacAir, with photographs and small notes, listing what she wanted to keep and what she was going to give away and to whom.
When it all was done, she laid on her bed and cried.
I’m so sorry, Gabriel. I’m so very, very sorry.
For the first time in almost two years, Sophia let herself grieve.
Rio de Janeiro, Cajú. The Jewish Communal Cemetery.
Thursday, April 7th, 2010.
8.51 a.m.
The sun was hiding behind the weeping heavy clouds, as if they understood Sophia’s mood.
She stared at the small marble tombs in the front row and her heart broke, even more than it did when she had visited the cemetery with Gabriel many years ago. Now they reminded her of Alistair’s daughter.
Children shouldn’t die. Her throat closed. She didn’t understand why God would send little angels to earth only to take them back so quickly.
There were a couple of trees, here and there, a few vines and wisteria that graced the alley that lead to other tombs. That was all.
The general impression was of a deserted land where black and white marble were castigated by the inclement heat and rain all year long.
So different from the shaded green cemeteries in the United States and Europe. So... desolate. She looked at Felipe, with tears in her eyes, utterly lost in her pain, and whispered to him, “I don’t remember where it is.”
“I know.” His grip tightened around her waist.
Felipe would never forget his brother-in-law’s burial.
The raw pain and desperation he had seen in his sister’s eyes when they lowered Gabriel’s coffin made him shiver even now.
Sophia hadn’t screamed or cried. She hadn’t thrown herself over Gabriel’s coffin. She had stoically stood beside Gabriel’s grave, shrouded in black from head to toe. She had looked like a scary wraith, her long hair blowing in the wind and her black veil and dress billowing around her. All hope had left her.
Felipe glanced at the pouring sky, praying he would never again witness such brutal despair.
“Come on, sis. Let’s pay our respects,” he said, picking up two small rocks from a small pile.
Sophia looked back over her shoulder at Gabriel’s grave. The two lonely rocks on the white marble demonstrated that widowed were not those alive, but those who were dead.
The Gonçalves & Espírito Santo Families’ Penthouse.
11.11 a.m.
The warm water of the bath soothed Sophia’s body, but nothing could be done about the ache that resided in her heart. She shook her head and turned to rest her right cheek on her bent knees.
She felt swamped by an awful loneliness. No Gabriel. And no Alistair Connor. No one. This will be my path. Alone in the world.
After all those years, she was still baffled by her request to Gilberto.
And I thought I was avenging Gabriel. No, I wasn’t thinking at all. That was the problem. She had got it all wrong. The immorality of her act had festered inside her like a gangrenous wound and turned her into a guilty, walking automaton.