A bitter ache spread through me—relief and resentment tangled so tightly they were indistinguishable.
“It doesn’t change the fact that no one believed me until he said it,” I said quietly. “My word was never enough.”
A pause. The kind that happens when the truth is too ugly to dress up.
“I know,” Júlia said softly. “But this gives you something back. Some of the dignity that never should’ve been taken from you.” Her voice steadied. “Now you’ll be able to walk the streets without shame. Without fear. Without having to shrink.”
I looked back at the screen.
Enrico was taking personal questions now with the same cool ease he used on financial ones. He looked sincere. Authentic. Like the man in front of the cameras was someone who had never existed in my life.
It was hard—impossible—to reconcile that Enrico with the one who destroyed me.
With the one who left me bleeding on an altar.
With the one who used power like a blade and called it mercy.
And yet he looked… human.
Like a man who couldn’t forgive himself even if he wanted to.
“Maybe you’re right,” I murmured into the phone. “At least now Clara won’t have to carry the weight of mistakes that weren’t mine.”
Júlia exhaled.
We stayed on the call a few minutes longer—her voice wrapping around me like a hand on my shoulder—until I ended it and let the silence return.
My breathing slowed as I sat there, still watching him speak.
My conversation with Enrico the day before had been brutal—necessary—but brutal. If we were going to build any kind of routine for Clara, we needed rules. Boundaries that didn’t bend with his temper. Limits that didn’t crumble under his presence.
Small progress—measured in inches—was the only kind I trusted.
Especially between him and Clara.
He promised he would try to be a good father.
I couldn’t give his promises my faith.
But for my daughter, I wanted them to be real.
Because even if his change didn’t erase the past…
maybe it could make the future less painful for her.
And maybe—God help me—less painful for me.
I forced myself to breathe, shut off the TV, and walked to the window.
Outside, the sun was bright. It hit the leaves and turned them glossy, alive. Clara was in the garden, laughing as she played with a new doll Enrico had given her that morning.
A simple gesture.
A loaded one.
I watched her for a long moment, and a small, reluctant smile touched my mouth at the sight of her—so light, so carefree, so determined to keep being a child despite what the adults around her had tried to turn her into.
I wasn’t ready to forgive Enrico.
