Chapter 69 Chapter 69
Chapter 69 Chapter 69
The next two weeks passed without the mansion fully realizing they had gone by.
Marcela was buried on Tuesday at the Cavalier family’s private cemetery, with forty people attending the ceremony and another sixty gathered on the street outside along with journalists whom the family couldn’t entirely keep away. Manuel spoke at the funeral. Cavalier did not. Neither did Alonso. Laura, eight and a half months pregnant, read two pages she had written by hand the night before and then tucked away, folded, in the drawer of her nightstand, where no one would ever see them again.
Marcelo was buried on Wednesday at the same cemetery in a private ceremony attended by five people: Manuel, Cavalier, Alonso, and two of Derek’s men. Neither Laura nor the journalists were present. Manuel insisted that it be a family affair—no scandal, no banners, no eulogy. Marcelo had been a Cavalier until the very last second. That was enough.
Vanessa and Esther were removed from the picture through legal channels. Vanessa was sentenced to life in maximum-security federal isolation on new charges. Esther was extradited from the Pacific by two federal agencies and handed over to Manuel to face a civil trial over the inheritance and for complicity in the escape. Edmund Ashford lost his investment firm and moved to Boston with two pending charges.
Cavalier didn’t leave the mansion those two weeks except for the funerals. Neither did Manuel. Alonso moved into the west wing of the mansion for the first time in fifteen years. Vargas stopped by every day to check on Laura.
Fourteen days after Marcela’s funeral, at 4:20 a.m. on a Friday, Laura felt her first contraction.
“Cavalier.”
“Hmm.”
“Cavalier, wake up.”
“Laura.”
“It’s started.”
Cavalier sat up on the edge of the bed in two seconds. He grabbed her left hand. He looked at his watch.
—How long ago?
“I just felt the first one. But my stomach’s been feeling weird since last night.”
“Good.”
He slipped his left arm around her waist, helped her to her feet, and they went down to the sedan with the suitcase Marcela had packed two months earlier. Manuel was waiting for them in the lobby, barefoot and wearing a robe over his pajamas.
“Sweetheart.”
—Manuel.
“I’ll wait for you here.”
“Okay.”
“Son.”
—Grandpa.
—I’ll wait for you here.
“Okay.”
Manuel kissed Laura on the forehead and put his hand on his grandson’s shoulder.
“Son.”
—Yes.
“One thing.”
“Go ahead.”
“If it’s a girl, don’t forget the name we decided on.”
—I won’t forget, Grandpa.
—Good.
They got into the sedan.
The delivery was long but uncomplicated. Eight hours. Vargas and a team of three doctors from the Memorial Clinic, all of whom Laura trusted. Cavalier was in the room the whole time, never moving from the head of the bed, holding her left hand as her contractions came every four minutes, then every three, then every two.
At 12:10 p.m., Vargas asked her to push.
“Mendoza.”
“Vargas.”
“Three pushes. Slowly. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Laura pushed three times. The baby came out on the second push.
Vargas picked her up. The baby cried.
—Mendoza, it’s a girl.
And Laura, after twelve years of witnessing other people’s births at Mount Sinai and forty weeks of enduring her own, cried for the first time with her mouth closed and her eyes open.
Manuel was in the waiting room with Cavalier and Alonso when Vargas came out still wearing his surgical cap.
“Manuel.”
“Vargas.”
“Little girl. Three kilos two hundred. Mom’s fine. Baby’s fine.”
Manuel nodded. He didn’t get up from the armchair. His right hand trembled as he gripped his cane.
“Vargas.”
—Yes.
“And the baby?”
“The baby’s fine, Manuel. He loves his grandfather.”
“Good.”
Cavalier grabbed his grandfather’s left arm. He helped him to his feet. He led him to Laura’s room. Alonso followed behind.
The baby was in Laura’s arms. Small, rosy-cheeked, with dark hair lying flat against her head and her eyes closed. She’d been asleep for two minutes since Vargas had placed her on Laura’s chest.
“Little girl.”
“Manuel.”
“May I come in?”
“Go ahead.”
Manuel approached the bed. He handed his cane to Cavalier. He leaned over the baby. He looked at her for five seconds.
“Little girl.”
—Yes.
“What’s her name?”
“Elena Marcela.”
Manuel closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, tears were streaming down his face without him even realizing it.
“Little girl.”
—Yes.
“Thank you.”
—Manuel.
“Yes.”
“Don’t thank me. It was the right thing to do.”
Manuel nodded. He leaned closer to the child. He kissed the child’s forehead with his dry lips. And he whispered something in the child’s ear, so softly that neither Cavalier beside him nor Laura in bed could hear it.
Three seconds.
Manuel sat up straight. He wiped his face with the handkerchief from his pocket. He handed the cane back to Cavalier.
“Son.”
“Grandpa.”
“I’m going back to the mansion.”
“All right.”
“Take care of your wife.”
—All right.
—And my great-granddaughter.
“All right.”
Manuel left with Alonso on his arm.
For the next two weeks, the Cavalier mansion was quiet.
Manuel moved into the small suite on the ground floor—the one that hadn’t been used in years—because the one upstairs reminded him of Marcela. Alonso went down to the main study to handle company business with Cavalier. Gloria returned to the kitchen in the mornings. Carla went to the mansion every day with Carlos, not to the clinic.
Cavalier didn’t return to his role as CEO. He left the interim presidency to Manuel and Alonso for two months, until further notice. He wanted to be with Laura and the baby during the first few weeks.
Elena Marcela slept eighteen hours a day. She ate five times. She cried very little. She had Cavalier’s blue eyes and Laura’s sharp-featured mouth.
One night, two weeks after the birth, Laura went down to the baby’s room they had set up next to the master suite. It was 11:00 p.m. Cavalier hadn’t come up to the suite yet.
She found the nightlight on. Cavalier was sitting in the armchair next to the crib, holding the sleeping baby in his arms.
Shirtless. Wearing only his pajama bottoms.
The scar on his chest was visible—long, thin, and pink—the one that had been healing for eight months since Elena Mendoza’s transplant. The one that had been marking the spot where two hearts had become one for twelve weeks.
Cavalier had his right hand on the scar, rubbing it slowly with two fingers.
And he was speaking into the baby’s ear.
Laura didn’t go in. She stood in the doorway, motionless, listening.
“My love,”
He said to her.
“My love, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“My heart isn’t mine anymore. It belongs to your grandmother Elena, who let it beat within me so that I could live to meet you. And now it’s yours too, my love. And a little bit your grandmother Marcela’s as well, who stepped in so that your dad and I could still be here.”
Pause.
“Three women, my love. All three in this chest. Your two grandmothers and your mom. Tomorrow when you wake up, you’ll be surrounded by all three of them. Even though you won’t be able to see two of them. But you’ll feel them. I swear that to you.”
Long pause.
Laura took three steps into the room. Cavalier looked up.
—Cavalier.
“Laura.”
“One question.”
“Go ahead.”
“What were you saying to your daughter a little while ago?”
Cavalier held her gaze for five seconds. Without answering.
Then he returned the question with a slight nod, as if inviting her to tell him herself.
“You were telling her that your heart isn’t yours anymore.”
—Yes.
“That it belongs to my mom.”
“Yes.”
“That now it’s hers, too.”
—Yes.
—And a little bit yours, too.
—Yes.
—She stepped in so the two of you could stay here.
—Yes.
Laura took two more steps. She sat down on the armrest of the chair next to Cavalier. She ran her left hand through his hair. She kissed his forehead.
—Cavalier.
“Yes.”
“Three women on one chest is too much to bear.”
“I know.”
—Luckily, your chest can take it.
“Luckily, yes.”
Pause.
—Cavalier.
—Yes.
—One more thing.
—Go ahead.
“When this little girl asks you where her name comes from, tell her about the scar. Don’t leave anything out.”
—Okay.
—And when she asks you why her mom and dad got married, don’t mention the contract. Tell her we fell in love in a big mansion with a covered garden and an Agatha Christie book.
—Okay.
—And when she asks you about her grandmothers, tell her both stories in full. Don’t leave anything out. Don’t add anything. Okay?
—Okay.
Laura kissed his forehead again. She ran her hand down to the scar on his chest. She stroked it slowly with two fingers, just as he did with the child. And for the first time in forty-nine days of marriage and two weeks of mourning, she cried quietly, without sobbing, her tears falling onto Cavalier’s bare shoulder and onto Elena Marcela’s sleeping forehead.
The baby continued to sleep.
Cavalier wrapped his left arm around Laura’s waist.
And the three of them stayed in the armchair in the baby’s room, without speaking, without moving, until two in the morning, when Elena Marcela woke up for her last feeding of the day.
And while Laura breastfed her with the little lamp on and Cavalier watched the two of them from the armrest—in a Cavalier mansion that had been silent for two weeks and would remain silent for two more months—a small family of three, with two ghosts in the father’s heart and a story written by two deceased grandmothers, finally began to live the life that had taken them so many months to earn.
THE END