PROLOGUE
BEA — FOUR YEARS AGO
The day I left Brazil, it rained so hard Florianópolis blurred into a watercolor painting—hues shifting, edges softening—like the city was trying to erase me.
It pressed against the windows in lax, determined sheets, clouding the buildings across the street into pale blocks and smudged palm fronds. Every few seconds, a heavier drop struck the metal railing outside with a bright, sharp click—punctuation my nerves didn’t ask for.
Inside, our apartment looked as if someone had picked up my life, shaken it, and poured it out onto the floor.
Two suitcases lay open with hungry mouths. Shipping boxes, of all sizes, crowded the living room in uneven towers. A roll of clear tape sat on the coffee table beside a black marker and a stack of customs forms my father had printed in triplicate—of course in triplicate—because he trusted the law more than he trusted the universe.
The large space smelled like wet concrete drifting in from the hallway, stale chai from the mug I kept forgetting to drink, and cardboard—dry, dusty, faintly sweet. It was thesame smell it always carried when something was ending or beginning. Birthdays. New school years. The afternoon my father decided the old couch had absorbed too many memories to keep.
Today, it meant goodbye.
I knelt on the floor with a puffy jacket in my hands. A real winter coat. Thick, gray, padded like armor. Something designed for survival, not style. In Florianópolis, the cold meant a light sweater at night and complaints that lasted ten minutes. Where I was headed, it meant layers and warnings and forums online explaining how skin could freeze.
I’d bought it after watching too many videos titledSurviving Chicago Winter, learning the difference between cute boots and the kind that kept your toes attached to your body. Learning that scarves weren’t accessories. They were shields.
Control. Research. Preparation. If I could name it, list it, fold it, label it—maybe it wouldn’t hurt.
I smoothed the coat over my knees, pressed my palms into the fabric, then folded it down the middle. Again. Again. A tight, exact rectangle. My hands moved with practiced efficiency, but my chest felt like it had been packed with damp sand.
Across from me, my father crouched beside a box that was already perfectly squared. Rafael Ribeiro—late-fifties and still carrying himself like a man ten years younger—wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled cleanly to his elbows. The fabric pulled faintly across his shoulders when he moved, tailored for a body that hadn’t softened with time so much as settled into itself. His hair, dark and only just beginning to silver at the temples, remained neat despite hours of lifting and taping, like disorder simply didn’t stick tohim. Reading glasses rested low on his nose, catching the gray light.
He wrote:
Bea — Livros
The tip of the marker hovered over the cardboard. His gaze fixed on the wordBealike it had startled him.
I watched him, my throat tightening. “So dramatic,” I murmured, angling for levity—for the natural rhythm between us. “It’s just a box of books.”
My father lifted his eyes slowly. There was a smile on his mouth, the polished version he used with clients, but it didn’t consume his face. His eyes—dark, sharp, always thinking—looked older in the gloomy afternoon light.
“Important things rarely look like much,” he whispered.
His English was flawless. Precise. Measured. But the accent—thick, unmistakably Brazilian—wrapped around the words anyway, rounding the edges, anchoring them somewhere deeper than grammar.
After a weighted pause, he leaned back on his heels and flexed his hands once. He glanced around the room like he was trying to redirect himself—cataloging, assessing, anything but lingering.
“Which suitcase is carry-on?” he asked.
“The black one,” I replied automatically. “The navy one is checked.”
“Make sure you keep one extra outfit in the carry-on,” he continued, already reaching for the black suitcase. “And the documents. Passport. University letter. Insurance. All in the folder.”
I lifted my chin. “They’re in the folder.”
His gaze flicked to me—quick, assessing. “And the folder is where?”
“In the backpack. The backpack is staying on my body.”
He exhaled through his nose, settling somewhere between relief and approval. “Good.” A pause. Then, softer, “No vanity with shoes. I know you.”
A laugh tried to come out of me and turned thin on the edges. “I bought ugly boots.”
“Proper boots,” he corrected, like he was amending a contract clause.