“He’s here,” Marcos said immediately. “Miguel’s here.”
A tear slipped toward her hair.
“Alive?”
“Yes, my love.”
He showed her the photograph a neonatal nurse had helped him take.
Miguel lay beneath a knitted cap, surrounded by tubes, one tiny hand pressed against his cheek.
Ana Clara stared at the screen.
Then she tried to touch his face.
Recovery came slowly.
Some days Ana Clara could manage only a few minutes beside Miguel’s incubator.
Some nights Marcos slept in a chair between visits to two different hospital wards.
There were statements to give, questions to answer, and moments when Ana Clara remembered something that left her shaking.
Her mother came every day.
She brought clean clothes, home-cooked food Marcos often forgot to eat, and the same silver rosary she had carried into the crematorium.
She never asked her daughter to forgive Gustavo.
Instead, she sat beside her and said, “I’m here.”
It was enough.
Seven weeks later, Miguel was ready to go home.
Marcos arrived with the car seat fitted, checked, and checked again.
Ana Clara smiled when she saw him test the straps for the third time.
“You finished the crib?”
He nodded.
“Finally.”
For the first time in weeks, she laughed.
That evening, Marcos stood in the nursery doorway.
Ana Clara sat beside the crib with one hand resting on Miguel’s blanket.
Their son was asleep.
There were still hospital appointments marked on the calendar. A criminal case lay ahead of them. Neither of them could pretend that everything was suddenly easy.
But the little clothes Ana Clara had folded were finally being worn.
The ultrasound photographs had a real face beside them.
And the crib was no longer empty.
“Marcos?”
He crossed the room.
She took his hand.
“Mum told me you asked them to open it again.”
He nodded.
“Why?”
He looked down at her fingers wrapped around his.
“I hadn’t held your hand.”
Ana Clara pulled him closer.
This time, when he leaned down to kiss her goodbye, she kissed him back.
And from the crib beside them, Miguel began to cry.
They both turned toward him.
“I’ll get him,” Marcos whispered.
