Page 56 of Every Step She Takes

Mal

My father would have fucking loved this.

The Sé do Porto is standing-room-only as the pallbearers carry his fifty-thousand-dollar mahogany coffin away from the golden altar.

The Portuguese prime minister is here, along with several lesser-known European royals that are crying in the front pews.

I spot a daytime television starlet, a Eurovision runner-up, and at least three former reality television contestants.

There’s a cavalcade of ex-wives and mistresses who get incrementally younger and more grief-stricken, including my own mother.

“First wife and worst wife,” he would tease.

She’s not crying at all; as far as I can tell, she’s playing Wordle on her phone.

His fifth wife, though, who I’ve only ever seen in pictures, is wearing something low-cut and skin-tight, and she’s sobbing in a way that causes her impressive cleavage to heave up and down in a perfectly photographable way.

The bishop finishes delivering the service in Latin as the pallbearers make their final exit, and even though Valentim Costa was a half-assed Catholic, he would’ve loved the pomp and circumstance on his behalf.

I stare at the rose window ahead of me, and I try to make sense of how the man who would’ve delighted in this ostentatious funeral ever could’ve left his legacy to his utter disappointment of a daughter.

There is a tentative hand on my shoulder, then an entire arm wraps around me, and for a disorienting instant in this stuffy church, I think it’s Sadie. That she came, even though I told her not to.

But when I turn, it’s Inez’s sympathetic expression that I see.

Of course Sadie isn’t here.

It’s Inez who holds my hand as a sixty-person church choir serenades my father with a hymn he would’ve hated.

“That was fucking ridiculous.”

My mother takes an immodest sip of her drink—an aragonez port from 2018, according to the label on the bottle that a waiter held out on a silver tray.

We’re lingering in the gothic cloisters with at least a hundred other funeral goers.

“Which deacon did Val have to blow to get wine served inside the cathedral?” my mother wonders very aloud.

Inez awkwardly clears her throat as several people turn to glare at my mother’s indecency. “You didn’t have to come, Mom,” I tell her in a low voice.

She waves an irritated hand as she polishes off the rest of her wine. “Of course I came. I couldn’t let you go through this by yourself.”

I want to point out that she flew into Lisbon a week ago and didn’t make any attempt to reach out to me, but alienating my one living parent at the funeral for the other seems unwise. “Do you want to go get dinner tonight?” I ask instead.

My mother isn’t even looking at me. Her eyes dart around the courtyard, conspicuously aware of who is noticing her. “I can’t, love. I’m on a flight to Paris tonight.” Her head whips back around. “Come with me, Maelys. We both deserve some retail therapy and French carbs.”

“I can’t.” I don’t provide further explanation, and Bianca Goncalves doesn’t ask for it. She doesn’t really want me to come to Paris with her, anyway.

“There’s that dumb bitch he left me for,” Bianca hisses under her breath.

Then, she raises her slender arm and twinkles her finger, making sure the giant engagement ring on her finger catches the light.

“Isadora! Darling!” she calls out to my father’s second wife.

I watch them greet each other with air-kisses, as if they don’t both actively loathe the other.

Isadora ignores me, naturally, but she immediately fawns over my mom’s engagement ring, peppers her with questions about the upcoming husband number three.

Bianca shares every banal detail as the two of them disappear into the crowd together.

When I asked about the engagement ring before the service, the only thing my mom told me was, “It’s going to be a private ceremony in the Maldives, and that’s why I didn’t invite you, sweetheart.”

So when the waiter comes by again with his tray, I take a glass of red Vinho Verde and drown half in a single gulp. It’s fucking delicious. My father made incredible wine, goddamn him.

“You are surprisingly well-adjusted,” Inez concludes when my mom is out of earshot, “considering… all of this.”

“ Surprisingly well-adjusted . That’s what I want it to say on my tombstone.”

“I thought you wanted it to say sapphic catnip ?”

“It can say more than one thing.”

Inez takes me by the elbow, and we do a slow lap through the crowd, accepting condolences and collecting glares.

It gives me a small surge of pleasure to know my father would’ve hated this : me in a tailored suit with a trans woman on my arm.

It’s clear Inez knows this too, and she relishes in her role.

She flaunts her sumptuously long legs and her gorgeously broad shoulders in a strapless dress that looks stunning on her.

“Thank you.” I kiss her on the cheek. “For actually not letting me go through this alone.”

Inez bends down and presses a kiss to my cheek in return. “Of course, irm?zinha.” Little sister .

Someone pointedly clears their throat behind us. It’s wife number five, hovering at my elbow, all cleavage and black-clad curves.

“Mal,” she says, both softly and confidently. “We haven’t met before but I’m—”

“Gloria,” I cut in. “Wife number five.”

The label doesn’t even cause her to flinch. She’s like most of my dad’s wives: young and staggeringly beautiful, with an implacable and unruffled demeanor. I used to love trying to ruffle the wives as a kid. Which, come to think of it, is probably why Isadora refused to acknowledge me.

“I wanted to introduce myself,” Gloria says with a corporate smile. I can see why the board nominated her as interim CEO.

“Are you hoping I’ll call you mommy?” I ask. And wow. She’s not ruffled by that at all. Gloria’s eyes dart over to Inez.

“Do you think we could possibly speak in private for a moment?”

“Whatever you have to say to me, you can—” I start, but then Inez detaches herself from me. With another kiss on my cheek, she swans across the room, leaving me along with Wife Number 5.

“Thank you,” Gloria begins, and I’m not sure what I’ve done to merit her gratitude. She continues, “I know you weren’t on good terms with your father at the time of his passing, and I’m sure I feel like an extension of him. So, thank you for being willing to talk with me at all.”

Well. Wife Number 5 is more perceptive than I gave her credit for.

“I also realize this is probably the last thing you want to hear today, but…” Gloria pauses, licks her lips, then forces out the words. “But he was so, so sorry.”

“You’re right,” I bark. “That is the last thing I want to hear, Mommy Dearest.”

Gloria still isn’t ruffled. “I understand. I really do. But I know he would want me to tell you. He was sorry for what happened between you, and for never making it right.”

“And he wanted his secretary to pass along that message?”

Her fake eyelashes flutter, but she doesn’t break. “He knew he messed up beyond reproach. He was really trying to find a way to bridge the distance between you.”

I think about all the inane texts he would send me about birds he saw from the back porch; the emails with links to articles I never read; the birthday cards with cash and a scribbled Love, Papai ; the phone calls with voice messages that said, “Just had a minute as I was driving into town. No need to call me back.”

That was really trying? Was I supposed to read between the lines on a New Yorker article about urban development and fucking decode his apology?

Bullshit.

“Why does the burden always fall on the queer kid to be the bigger person who forgives their ignorant parents who are really trying ?” I yell at the woman in front of me, because it’s too late to yell at him.

Because even when I had the chance, I never yelled at him.

“I know,” Gloria says calmly.

“Do you know?”

“Yes. I’m bisexual.” Her words are measured and unemotional. “My parents initially kicked me out when I was sixteen, and it took us years to repair that damage.”

“Oh.”

There’s almost a hint of feeling in her voice as she says, “And I was so angry with Valentim when I learned he’d done the same thing to you. And worse, that he had it in his power to make it right and he hadn’t.”

“Why didn’t he just make it right?” I ask, even though I know Wife Number 5 won’t be able to give me the answers I really need.

“He had so much shame about how he reacted back then.”

“Boo fucking hoo for him. He was embarrassed about how he reacted? Well, he taught me to be embarrassed of who I am, so it sounds like he got what he deserved.”

A solemn nod. “He did.”

“And if he was really trying to do better, he could’ve said sorry .”

“He should have,” she agrees. “But he didn’t. He wasn’t a perfect man. He was stubborn as hell. A trait, I think, you may have inherited from him.”

“I’ve never been stubborn about anything a day in my life,” I deadpan, and that almost gets Gloria to crack a genuine smile.

“I’m not trying to erase the pain and damage he caused you, Mal. I don’t want to minimize it. He fucked up, and he was too proud to tell you that he fucked up.” She sighs. “I just want you to know that he thought about you every day. He admired you.”

I snort.

“No, really. He admired your free spirit, your independence, your passion for helping others. Whenever you started working for a new nonprofit, he always made sure to send an anonymous donation, because he wanted to support the causes you cared about.”

I think about the money I gave to Inez to start Beatrix Tours as soon as I came into my trust, and her subsequent partnership with Quinta Costa’s vineyards, a partnership they reached out about. My father wasn’t trying to use Inez for the company’s image; he was trying to support my investment.