Page 38 - SpontaneousSuccessMatos

“Excuse me. This is for you.” Her English was
impeccable.
“It is?" I got up unsteadily and took it. “Thank you.”
She smiled and nodded, her face sweet, innocent, and
heartwarming. It was as if she could see right through
me.
“Dad wants you to have it.”
A fleeting moment of sobriety makes my jaw drop.
Could this be Thomas' daughter?
“Are you Lara?” By the time I'd steadied myself and
tried to connect the dots, she was gone.
I slumped back down, put the envelope on the table
in front of me, and stared at it. Francesca squeezed in
next to me. “Mister Nick, I want to thank you for
everything you have done for my mother and for me.”
After a couple of weeks in the village, I'd made a deal
with Donna Casilda. Knowing how much she wanted to
speak English, I proposed that I’d teach her English if
she taught me Portuguese. So, every day for thirty days, I
wrote down ten simple phrases like, 'I can‘t find my
socks,’ ‘Close the window’ and ‘Who likes cheese on
toast?’ Then, after lots of pointing, mumbling, and acting
things out, she translated them for me. That way, she
learned the phrases in English while I learned them in
Portuguese. I made a rule for myself that I had to
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