I went to another gynecologist just to reassure myself, but when she went pale looking at my ultrasound and asked in a low voice, “Who handled your previous exams?”, I replied, “My husband, doctor… he’s a gynecologist too.” Then she turned off my screen, looked at me as if she had just discovered something terrible, and said, “I need to run tests on you right now. What I’m seeing shouldn’t be there.”

I stood motionless, with one hand resting on the wall.

And then I heard him say:

“She went to see another doctor, mom… no, she doesn’t suspect anything.

There was a pause.

Then he said something worse.

“If the doctor was suspicious, we have to anticipate everything.

My whole body was cold.

On the other end of the line, Helena said something that I couldn’t hear. Ricardo answered almost in a whisper, but his every word entered me like a knife.

“No, mom, she can’t leave the house tomorrow alone. I’ll tell her that her exams changed because of the pressure and I’ll take her myself. If they discover the device before signing, we lose everything.

Subscription.

Device.

We lost everything.

I put my hand to my mouth so as not to make a sound. I felt my baby move inside me, as if even he realized the danger. I wanted to run, I wanted to scream, I wanted to enter that office and ask what monstrosity that was.

But for the first time in many months, I didn’t obey the urge. I obeyed the fear. And it was the fear that saved me.

I returned to the room slowly, lay on the bed and closed my eyes seconds before Ricardo entered. He lay down next to me with his breath too calm for a man who had just conspired against his own wife. He ran his hand on my belly and murmured:

“Our future depends on tomorrow.

Ours.

That night, I understood that there had never been “us.”

I waited until I heard his sleep get deep. Then I got up, took my cell phone hidden inside a pillowcase and went to the bathroom. Trembling, I sent a message to Dr. Beatriz.

“He knows I went to the clinic. I heard a conversation. There’s something implanted in me. He talked about signing and anticipating everything. I’m afraid.”

She answered in less than two minutes.

“Don’t stay at home in the morning. Go out as soon as you can. Go straight to Santa Isabel Hospital. I’ve already prepared everything. And listen carefully: don’t go alone. Take someone you trust.”

Someone trustworthy.

I almost laughed nervously.

My mother had died three years earlier. My father lived in another city, in the interior of Minas Gerais, and was recovering from surgery. I had moved away from almost all my friends after marrying Ricardo. Gradually, he called them all inconvenient, envious, immature, dangerous for a pregnant woman. And I, foolish, started to believe.