Page 159 of The Seven Sisters

I moved towards her and put my arms around her, for the first time embracing the physical presence of a blood relative. And only wishing that we had more time left together.

‘Thank you for seeing me. And although I didn’t find my mother, I found you. And that’s enough,’ I said gently.

The nurse arrived in the room. ‘Maia, are you here in Rio tomorrow?’ Beatriz asked me suddenly.

‘I can be, yes.’

‘Then come back and visit me again. I have told you about the bad things, but if you can spare the time, let’s use what we have left to get to know each other better. You can’t imagine how much I’ve longed to discover who you are.’

I watched as Beatriz opened her mouth obediently to take the pills the nurse was proffering. ‘See you at the same time tomorrow,’ I said.

Her hand fluttered a weak goodbye, and I left the room.

49

Back at the hotel, I lay down on my bed, curled up into a ball and fell fast asleep. When I woke, I lay thinking about Beatriz and what she had told me, probing my newly opened consciousness for an emotional reaction. Surprisingly, I found little pain, even though the story my grandmother had related was dreadful by anyone’s standards.

I began to think about the profound reaction I’d had to the children I’d seen only yesterday at thefavela, dancing for their lives, and realised that it had perhaps been the result of a connection I had with them that I hadn’t understood at the time; I was now almost certain that I too had been born in afavela. My mother’s actions – whatever her motivation at the time – had undoubtedly saved me from a desperately uncertain future. And besides, whoever my mother had been, or my father, I had found a blood grandmother who genuinely seemed to care for me.

I pondered whether I would try to search my mother out. And decided that I wouldn’t. It was obvious from what Beatriz had described that I had only been a biological by-product of her life and was, as such, unwanted. Yet, this train of thought inevitably led me to the fact thatIhad ostensibly done the same as far as myownchild was concerned. So how could I judge my mother harshly or believe she never loved me, not knowing the full circumstances of her decision?

However, if nothing else, the events of today had made me realise that the one thing I did want to do was to leave my son something that explained why I had made my decision. There was no moonstone necklace or grandparent desperate to adopt him. No clues as to where he’d originally come from. As Floriano had pointed out, there was every chance that the adoptive parents he’d gone to would not have told him his true birth story. But just in case they had, or would in the future and one day he went searching, I wanted to make sure there was a trail for him to follow.

Just like the one Pa Salt had left his six daughters.

I understood now why Pa Salt’s coordinates had led me back to A Casa das Orquídeas rather than an orphanage. Even though I hadn’t been born there, perhaps he’d known I would find and meet Beatriz, the only relative from my past who’d cared enough to search for me.

I also pondered again why Pa Salt had been in Rio at the time I was born andwhy, out of all the babies available to adopt, it had been me that he’d chosen. Beatriz had mentioned nothing about a soapstone tile being left with me when my mother had deposited me at the orphanage. So just how had Pa Salt got hold of that?

It was another conundrum I knew I would never find the answer to. And I decided that I must stop asking ‘why’, and simply accept that I’d been blessed to have had him as a wonderful mentor and loving father, who had always been there for me whenever I’d needed him. And that I must learn the lesson of trust in another human being’s goodness. Which, naturally, brought me back to the subject of Floriano.

Instinctively, I looked out of the window and moved my eyeline up to the skies. By now, he was somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. It was odd, I thought, after spending fourteen years existing in a void, having absolutely nothing to ponder, or if I did, not wishing to, that I found myself with so many emotions to deal with now. The feelings I had for Floriano had emerged suddenly – like the tight bud of a rose that blossoms magically overnight into glorious colour – and felt overwhelming, but also completely natural.

I missed him, I admitted, not because of some transient passion, but with a quiet recognition that he was now part of me. And somehow, I knew that I was part of him too. Instead of a mad desperation, I felt a calm acceptance of something that had begun between us, which needed nurturing if it wasn’t to wither and die.

Grabbing my laptop, I opened it, and as I’d promised him I would, I wrote Floriano an email. I explained to him as succinctly as possible what Beatriz had told me this morning. And that I was going back to the convent to see her again tomorrow.

Rather than hesitating as I would normally over my closing statement, I followed my instincts. And pressed ‘send’ without editing it. Then I left the hotel and crossed the road to have a swim in the bracing waves that flung themselves onto Ipanema Beach.

*

The following morning, Yara was waiting for me in the entrance hall of the convent, as she had been the day before. Today, however, she greeted me with a bright smile and reached shyly to clasp my hand.

‘Thank you, senhorita.’

‘What for?’ I asked her.

‘For bringing the light back to Senhora Beatriz’s eyes. Even if only for a short time. And you are feeling all right after what she had to tell you?’

‘To be honest, Yara, it wasn’t what I was expecting, but I’m coping.’

‘She did not deserve that child as a daughter, nor did you deserve her as a mother,’ Yara muttered tensely.

‘I think we often don’t deserve what we get. But then, maybe in the future we get what we deserve,’ I said, almost to myself as I began to follow her along the corridor.

‘Senhora Beatriz is lying down, but she still insisted that she wanted to see you. Shall we go in?’ she asked me.

‘Yes.’