As she walked towards the front door of her old home, Bel’s stomach churned at the thought of being caught out in her deception, but she knew she had little choice. Sadly, in the past two months she had become a reluctant but adept liar.

Gabriela opened the front door and her face lit up when she saw Bel. ‘Senhora, it is a pleasure to see you. Your mother is resting at present, but she asked me to wake her when you arrived.’

‘Is she unwell?’ Bel frowned as she followed Gabriela into the drawing room. ‘Loen said you were concerned about her.’

‘I . . .’ Gabriela hesitated. ‘I don’t know if she is sick, but she is certainly very tired.’

‘You don’t think’ – Bel steeled herself to say the words – ‘that her problem has returned, do you?’

‘Senhora, I do not know. Perhaps you must ask her yourself. And persuade her to see a doctor. Now, what can I get you to drink?’

As Gabriela left to fetch some orange juice and wake her mother, Bel stood up and paced the familiar room anxiously. Eventually, Carla arrived to join her and Bel noticed that her mother not only looked pale and tired, but had also developed a strange yellow tinge to her skin since the last time she’d seen her.

‘Mãe, forgive me for not seeing you for so long. How are you?’ she said, trying to quell her fear and her guilt for not visiting sooner, as she walked towards Carla to greet her with a kiss.

‘I am well. And you?’

‘Yes, Mãe . . .’

‘Shall we sit down?’ said Carla, slumping heavily onto a chair as if her legs could hold her upright no longer.

‘Mãe, it is obvious you are not well. Are you in pain?’

‘Only a little, I’m sure it is nothing. I . . .’

‘Please, you know it is something. Surely Pai must have noticed you’re not yourself?’

‘Your father has other things to concern him at the moment,’ sighed Carla. ‘The coffee farms are not making the yield they once did, and the stockpiling plan the government has suggested does not seem to be helping.’

‘I hardly think that Pai’s business concerns are more important than his wife’s health,’ Bel shot back.

‘Querida, with your father so strained, I don’t wish to burden him further.’

Tears brimmed in Bel’s eyes. ‘It might be inconvenient timing, but don’t you see that nothing is as important as your health? Besides, you may be fearing the worst.’

‘It is my body and I live in it, and I understand and can feel what is happening to it,’ Carla interrupted firmly. ‘I do not want to put myself, or you and your father, through a distressing process that will only lead to the same end.’

‘Mãe,’ Bel uttered, her throat constricted with the hard lump of emotion that had formed there. ‘Please, at the very least, let me book an appointment with the doctor who treated you last time. You trust him, don’t you?’