Solitaria
“I entered that bathroom a romantic teen and left a tormented woman.”
AUGUST 5, 2025
I cried in the guest bathroom and stifled my scream in a towel. No one had told me, I saw it myself, João kissing that girl from apartment 31. At fourteen years old, I experienced my first big heartbreak, with a positive pregnancy test in my hands.
Sitting on that luxury toilet, I tried to make out the color of the stripe on that thermometer-like thing. If it turned red, it was positive. The test, the second already, was basically purple. There was no doubt. With this, panic embedded itself in me so deep that I can’t describe it in words. I entered that bathroom a romantic teen and left a tormented woman.
When the heated affair with João started, it had been only a year since my first period. The world of adult women’s worries was distant, abstract to me. Not that I didn’t know what happened, but in my head it was something that was very, very unlikely to happen to me.
Those days, there was a rumor going around the building that the girl from apartment 31 had got pregnant and had the baby taken out at a clinic, and her life went on as though nothing had happened.
Mãe and I almost never discussed these things. I’d tried at least to start a conversation, but I could tell how uncomfortable she was, so I didn’t insist. At the same time, I saw the girls at school, all with their boyfriends, and they hardly seemed worried either. No one talked openly about sex at home or at school, and the information we passed to one another always arrived in the most backward way.
At that stage of life, having sex was like driving a car at high speed or crossing a street blindfolded at rush hour. We could do it ninety-nine times and nothing would happen, but if the hundredth time went wrong . . . I thought about what I’d heard Jurandir say when he fought with João: “And since when do you have the right to mess up like those boys mess up, kid?” Fair point. People like us needed to calculate every step with precision or our lives could derail forever . . . And it infuriated me because I didn’t think it was fair.
Those days, there was a rumor going around the building that the girl from apartment 31 had got pregnant and had the baby taken out at a clinic, and her life went on as though nothing had happened. I heard my mother and other maids in the building whispering a debate in the hallways.
“To me, yes, she’s a killer! You don’t end an innocent life . . . The child isn’t guilty of anything!”
“A killer, Eunice?” Hilda, the general’s caretaker, protested. “What do you know about life at that age? Don’t say that, dear . . . It’s still not a fully formed life.”
“I won’t accept it, Hilda. I can’t understand . . . For me, it’s murder and that’s it!”
Everyone had an opinion. The only one I didn’t see speak — actually, I didn’t see her again for a while — was the subject of this entire conversation.
Had it been João’s? How was I going to tell my mother, who also didn’t know I was no longer a virgin? What would I do with a baby at fourteen, no diploma, no degree, no job? I did not want to clean a house that wasn’t mine. I did not want to take a child to work in anybody else’s house. That was my story, and I did not want to repeat it with my own children. I didn’t even want children! I didn’t want another Ms. Lúcia as a boss or another Camilinha whose diapers I had to change, whom I had to feed and give my time and my love, and one day watch her make messes on purpose, with her parents’ approval, just so she could watch as I cleaned. I did not want to be away from my home for a whole week in order to make someone else’s home more cozy and comfortable.
I was desperate. As I sat there, my entire life, from the first moment I set foot in that apartment, passed through my head. I remembered Irene. Where was she now? What was she doing? I watched it back on the screen of my mind, Ms. Helena slapping her on the pool deck. Those people are certain we were born to serve them and that we have but one path. My premature pregnancy would make them even more sure. I remembered my mother consoling Irene. Would she have the same sympathy with me? Would she think that my being just one year older than Irene was when we met meant I, too, was a child?
The more time that went by, the bigger my panic grew within that fancy bathroom, where I was the only thing out of place. Nothing about me fit in with that marble countertop, the modern toilet that contrasted with the retro decorations, fluffy towels, expensive aroma diffuser. I had hidden out here because it was unlikely my mother would look for me in this bathroom that we never used. Here, only visitors were allowed to dispose of their waste.
One thing did go with Tiago and Lúcia’s bathroom — well, with the entire house, really: the overwhelming feeling of solitude that invaded me. I was alone, and the walls of the bathroom seemed to close in on me, but I had to think . . . and fast! There was only one way out. I needed to find out how to do what the girl from apartment 31 did, but she was rich . . . very rich.
I had the impression that everything was happening the way it did that day Bruninho almost drowned, fast and confused. As much as I try, I can’t remember how I ended up there, but I found myself on a bench in the middle of a little plaza.
And with the real possibility to end all this drama in a tragic way.
✺
For a fraction of a second, I thought I’d love to have a baby with João. Obviously, it would be a beautiful baby, with those dimples when he smiled; with my mother’s gorgeous eyes and way of looking at you; with my long hands; with my pai’s good moods when he was sober; with Jurandir’s knack for putting things together and taking them apart. A little boy as smart as his uncle Cacau. A little boy or a little girl with the best of each of us . . . I thought they could be a little girl with a big mane of hair, a forest reaching upward, like mine was when I used to dare let it fly, or like João’s if he didn’t feel so much pressure to keep it buzzed.
A girl in love is trouble . . . I was furious at him, a feeling that couldn’t be explained. I remembered my father’s words with a chill up my spine.
I dared to dream about a family the way girls my age did, but that despair hit me, the same despair that comes for the ones made into adults before their time. I could not have a child at fourteen. More than just that: in that moment, I didn’t want to have a child at any age, period. A child, to me, was the same thing as prison.
My delusion of a happy family was quickly traded for the drama of having no idea how to solve this problem. It was then that someone else appeared in my memory: my father. Pai and what he swore to my mother the night after Cacau’s party: “Take care of our daughter. She’s growing up here and I know what can happen . . . If one of these boys does anything to my girl, I’ll kill him. You know I mean it.”
I trembled at the thought of some harm coming to João. A girl in love is trouble . . . I was furious at him, a feeling that couldn’t be explained. I remembered my father’s words with a chill up my spine. It would be better if I was gone — it was my fault, after all. Yes, I thought I was the only one guilty; I was responsible for the unwanted and totally untimely pregnancy.
Mr. Tiago and Ms. Lúcia still hadn’t returned. It wouldn’t be hard to go into their room and get something that one day, while I was watching Camilinha, I saw Ms. Lúcia store in the top of the dresser: a gun.
I ran through the lobby without speaking to Cacau or Jurandir, who were near the front gate. I don’t remember what happened on the way, just that I saw myself sitting on a bench next to an overpass gripping a package, which could have held groceries, or some present, but in fact held Mr. Tiago’s gun. I didn’t notice that Cacau had followed me, but he sat down with me and spoke in his calm, serene way. I could only peek through the corner of my eye. I couldn’t look at him directly.
“Mabel, what’s wrong? What’s this package here?”
He slowly held out his arm for me to hand over the package. I held on tighter, but as I broke down, he carefully took the bag, opening it slowly, and discovered what was inside. He started to whisper and look around in panic.
“Are you crazy? Do you know what would happen if the cops stopped us here?”
“I didn’t ask you to come after me . . .” “What were you going to do with this?”
I hid my face in my hands. I had never ever felt so lost in my short life.
“Okay . . . I know you don’t want to, and aren’t going to, kill someone. So . . . if you want to kill yourself, do it, just know that your mother will die with you. So, besides suicide, you’ll also be guilty of murder.”
There was that word again. It seemed like some unavoidable fate.
“You don’t want any of that. Let’s go back . . . and you’ll put that back where you found it, quickly, before anyone notices it’s gone.”
Cacau held out his hand and I hugged him, trembling. I must have been pretty numb. I even thought I saw my pai in the people passing us by. Dominated by nerves and desperation, I told Cacau everything. Everything. He lowered his head, sighed loudly, and said, “Shit!” very loud, and then: “We’ll figure this out.”
Cacau always had this way of getting what no one else could, and it was General Grits’s nurse, Hilda, who told us where the girl in apartment 31 had got an abortion. The gossip was really on the tip of everyone’s tongues, and she told him without batting an eye.
“It’s true, there’s a clinic nearby. They wanted me to go work there, but I wouldn’t go…” she said, making a face.
“Seriously? I don’t believe it.”
“Seriously, but you know what? I only got scared because it’s illegal and because I make good money here.”
Hilda gave us the full rundown. We had the “what” and the “where,” but we were missing the “when” and the “how.” These things are expensive, and I didn’t live on the third floor of that building. I was the daughter of the maid in the penthouse.
Time was against us . . . against me, to be exact. I would start showing soon and I would need to hide the morning sickness from my mother, along with the fatigue and all the aches I’d been feeling. And also, I would need to keep João at a distance. This was the hardest part of all. Today I can see that we really liked each other . . . And João may not have been as studious as his brother, but he was still smart. He quickly understood that something serious was going on and that Cacau and I were hiding something from him. Then he stopped coming around trying to get the story out of me and started to spy on me instead. In his head, I was hooking up with his brother. It couldn’t have been worse.
That’s a lie. It could have. It always can.
The place wasn’t fancy, but it was very clean and discreet. I took pains to make myself look older, and Cacau, who’d been cultivating a mustache, easily passed for eighteen or nineteen — which was what he was going for. I was sweating. I was terrified and so nervous. Cacau squeezed my hand.
“Calm down. It’s not going to be today. We just came to get information. Relax.”
We didn’t even get through the entrance. João showed up from who knows where, shoving his brother. We started arguing in the clinic waiting room where, one afternoon, that girl from apartment 31 showed up pregnant and left a free-spirited teenager once again. The commotion in the waiting room got people’s attention, and a burly man came to kick us out.
When Cacau finally managed to tell him what we had come there to do, João Pedro froze like a statue. We walked back to the building in silence. In front of the Golden Plate, Cacau went inside and left us alone. João was speechless and said he needed to think.
Ms. Lúcia thought of everything. She got me into a group that helped with an out-patient procedure, over text message.
I got on the elevator with a tightening in my chest. As soon as I opened the kitchen door, Mãe asked where I had been. I lied and said I went to a friend’s house, and got a lecture for not letting her know. Luckily, she was heading out to go to the bakery. I ran to the bathroom. I had to vomit.
When the family finally got back from their trip, Ms. Lúcia looked at me and saw that something was different. I think she noticed right away because, unlike my mother, it had been a while since she’d seen me. I hung around, helping my mother with the unending number of chores. João disappeared. I started to think of homemade alternatives and I was ready to try out what was probably a very risky plan but one that would solve my problem. Years later, during my residency, I saw girls die, the ultimate outcome of what I had planned to do.
After eyeing me for a while, Ms. Lúcia cornered me.
“You’re pregnant.”
It was the first time I had looked at her without the disdain she usually provoked, ever since we first met. Her reaction was quite different than I’d expected, but my face did not hide my terror. After a little speech about a woman’s body, rights, a slow-moving legislature, she said that an adolescent couldn’t assume a responsibility this big. She also touched on plenty of other issues that would take me more than a decade to understand. In the moment, the only thing that mattered to me was that she was going to help me get out of this situation I’d put myself in.
Ms. Lúcia thought of everything. She got me into a group that helped with an out-patient procedure, over text message. We didn’t have a cell phone, a wildly expensive item for us at the time, but Ms. Lúcia let me borrow her phone and paid for the pills, which arrived in the mail. They were expensive, but cheaper than hospitalization. She even gave Mãe a day off since she hadn’t been home in a while, but Ms. Lúcia asked that I stay, her excuse being that I’d keep Camila company, as she was a little bit sick. She got the materials with the instructions, gave them to me, and left me alone.
Then it was only me and the little-bathroom.
✺
I put the four pills under my tongue, I put the other four deep inside my vagina, and I lay down in the fetal position. I cried a little bit and fell asleep. I woke up with a horrible cramp and the light from the phone’s screen, where someone without a face wrote: “Hello! Has it started yet? Stay calm. I am here.” We stayed this way, me and this stranger, texting through what was going to be a long night. I took a deep breath. I was bleeding a lot and at one point I thought I’d scream, ask Ms. Lúcia to call an ambulance, but I held it in. I needed it to end, and the ghost on the blue screen was writing that it would all be okay. And I got to the end.
I took her uniform out of the closet, I served her milk, her toast, I took the girl to her bus stop. Everything that my mother would do.
I did everything in the little-bathroom. I wasn’t brave enough to go to the littleroom. I wasn’t brave enough to look at the little saints on my mother’s bedside table. I was wrung out there, between the toilet, the sink, and the shower. It was strange that, unlike that giant, posh bathroom by the living room, in that moment, this minuscule space blunted my sense of being untethered, abandoned. The room was cramped like a uterus for a giant fetus. At that moment, my own uterus was contracting. And so was my heart.
If someone saw that scene, they’d think I was ridiculous there on the floor, on the bath mat, towels as pillows and blankets.
I put my feet up, setting them on the toilet lid. The littleroom freaked me out because everything in it had the smell, the look, and the mark of my mother. It was as though she would come in any second with a spotless head wrap, bright eyes, and a serene smile. I could see her blessing herself at the improvised altar, softly praying.
I used an entire pack of pads in one night. In the morning, I took a shower, I washed my clothes and cleaned the little-bathroom, I took the recommended dose of the medication, a painkiller maybe, I made breakfast, I set the table in the living room, I opened the bedroom curtains and woke up Camilinha. I took her uniform out of the closet, I served her milk, her toast, I took the girl to her bus stop. Everything that my mother would do.
As I went back up to the apartment, I looked in the elevator’s mirror and said: “Good morning, Irene. Good morning, Eunice.” I saw my face mixed with theirs. Suddenly, the door opened and someone unexpected got in. Dadá, the super’s maid, holding a rag doll that she sewed herself, smiled at me in that way, like an elderly child. With a desolate, shameful expression, she reached her hand out to me, along with the doll, like she was giving me an expensive gift. We got off the elevator and sat on the stairs in the hall. Dadá didn’t say anything. She put my head in her lap and stroked my hair as if I was the child she herself was, but that I couldn’t be anymore.
The silent, mysterious encounter with Dadá calmed me down a bit. I went up to Ms. Lúcia’s house, I ate something, and I tried to get back to my life. I couldn’t start crying again and have my face all puffy when my mother came through the kitchen door. I got my school books and started doing some work I was behind on.
The bosses only woke up an hour after their daughter went off to school. Ms. Lúcia came into the pantry still wearing a silk robe, and that’s the moment I handed her phone back. She looked at me, curious, and asked if everything was all right. I nodded my head yes, but I didn’t say anything. She would see the messages on the phone.
Mãe came back and didn’t notice anything. She was proud that she found everything cleaner than before, the table in the living room set, the girl off to school, the beds made…
“My . . . We never notice when our kids grow up,” she said, giving me a puzzled look, and then going to the bathroom to change.
She had no idea how much. She really had no idea.
This text was excerpted from the novel Solitaria (Astra Publishing, August 2025).
✺ Published in “Issue 31: Fiction” of The Dial
