MEMOIRS OF A LIBERAL Epilogue (THE END) (TEMPORARY)

           A year later, I made Eugénia my wife. After all I’ve been through, my impulsive character gave way to a much more placid man. Maybe that’s why I don’t think that what I feel for her is the same inflamed passion with which Diogo loved Maria da Luz. But I adore her with a serenity that makes me profoundly happy to have her by my side. I know that I can’t expect from her the ardour with which she must have lived her passion for her first husband David either, but I wouldn’t trade her devoted love for anything in this world.

            If it hadn’t been for her, I might have never found myself again. It was she who taught me to accept the deaths of Diogo and Maria da Luz. Their loss is still cause of great suffering for me, but now I know that they fought for what they believed in and that even if we hadn’t won the war, it would have been worth it because we fought on the right side.

            In the precise moment when I’m writing these lines, sitting on a small sofa in my humble living room, Eugénia sits in a sofa opposite my own, embroidering a monogram upon one of my handkerchiefs. On the floor, Pedro Miguel, the son that God has presented us with three years ago, is playing with Cecília, who comes to visit now and then. We gave him the name of the two warring princes as a way to symbolize our wish that in the future, there may be unity and that problems can be solved without war.

            Although she did not go to work for my Father again, Cecília kept up with his situation. We found out from her that after selling the Roseiral, my Father’s health started to wither and he eventually died, but not without sending for Cecília, who he instructed to ask for my forgiveness. I forgive him because I know that Luz and Diogo, wherever they are, certainly bear him no grudge.

            When I look at my son, I can’t help thinking that if the son of Maria da Luz and Diogo had lived, he and little Pedro Miguel would be friends as inseparable as Diogo and I were.

            Despite everything, I am happy. I have a devoted family and I have hope that all I did will allow my child to grow up in a more just world. I hope I have wisdom enough to teach him to always fight for what is right, but avoiding whenever possible bloody and deadly conflicts like the ones Diogo and I were a part of.

THE END