October 1, Tuesday

The rest of the trip is uneventful and we make it home in the early afternoon. I pull the car into the backyard between the two houses and Sónia comes running out, sobbing and throwing her arms around me. “Oh thank God you’re safe! And Luiz . . .”

Luiz gets out of the back seat and Sónia is speechless when she sees him, tears streaming down her face. “Oh, Luiz.”

He reaches for her and hugs her. “I know, I look terrible.”

Luiz sits at the kitchen table as Sónia prepares café, and I look in on Junior, who’s napping peacefully but must sense my presence, because he wakes up. “Mamãe!” I hug him and kiss him and when he sees Luiz he runs to him and jumps into his lap. Luiz holds him for a long time, tears pooling in his eyes.

We unload the car and I hear the kids arriving from school. Carlos sees the car and rushes into the house, crushing me in a hug and then going to Luiz, who’s resting in the bedroom.

“Papai?” At eleven years old, Carlos notices things that Junior, at almost four, doesn’t. Luiz reaches for Carlos and they sit on the bed for a long time holding each other, both crying.

Sónia and I try to act normal, pulling together a supper with what’s available and making the kids do their homework before they go out to play, though Carlos wants to keep Luiz and me in his sights. Just after sunset Chico gets home from work.

“Luiz, Eva, thank God you’re home!” He rushes into the kitchen and embraces us. He sits down at the table and tries to smile. “We can talk later tonight.”

After supper and with all the kids tucked in bed, Chico gestures to us to go to the backyard, and sets up four chairs under the trees. We all sit and Chico speaks first. “They could be listening. We can’t talk about anything inside. Agreed?”

We all murmur agreement and he continues. “Luiz, I won’t ask you to talk about what happened until you’re ready. But when you are, we’ll develop a plan to figure out next steps.”

Luiz clears his throat and a moment passes. “I’m ready to begin. There are things I don’t know how to say out loud, and those will come later.”

We wait and I hear him swallow hard. “They grabbed me on the street on my way home from a meeting. Eva, I didn’t tell you and Chico what I was doing. I wanted to protect you. But I knew from my comrades what the military was doing, and yes, I was resisting.”

I can’t help but look around as though someone could be watching us. “It’s okay, Luiz, we don’t need to look back at what might have been.”

After a pause Luiz continues. “They handcuffed me and put a black bag over my head and shackles on my ankles. I was shoved into a truck with other people, both men and women. I didn’t know where they were taking us until I heard sounds like an airport. We were put on a plane, a military transport with a metal floor. It seemed like forever but I guess it was a couple of hours, then we landed somewhere.”

His voice catches. “They stripped me naked and hung me by my knees on a parrot perch, a bar with my wrists and ankles tied and my head hanging down. When they took off my black hood I saw that it was an auditorium in a Quonset hut like here in the general barracks, and there were maybe a hundred officers sitting in chairs like it was a concert or something. And a guy came up on the stage and demonstrated various torture methods so they could learn.”

I can’t wrap my mind around this. “They demonstrated methods?”

“Eva, they demonstrated torture methods. They used methods on me for the officers to see and learn.”

I feel I am going to throw up and we are all sobbing quietly, but Luiz does not cry. “I was there for several days. The only way I got through it was by saying, ‘Just one minute, I can stand another minute,’ and after that minute I could stand the next.”

We wait silently for him to go on. “After several days, I don’t know how many, but many, they put me in a car and took me somewhere else. That’s where I figured out where I was, because in the times with my hood off, when they took me to a bathroom or fed me, I could see I was in an old mansion and the back of it was built into that black rock, like the hills in Rio.”

Chico leans over and hugs his brother. “And now you’re home. That’s enough for today. There are no words any of us can say. We will talk in the days to come. We love you.”

It’s just me and Luiz sitting in the warm night air. “Look, a waxing moon.” I reach over for Luiz’s hand and we sit there for a long time, saying nothing.