Before Porto, we had moved from Hong Kong to Cascais.
Here our first two daughters moved from pigtails to sneakers and fitted tops.
My youngest moved from my breasts and her Baby Björn.
He used to say about her,
“When she travels, she runs.”
Before packing up our household in Sai Kung.
He and I had visited possible schools for our girls.
Mallorca.
Barcelona.
Lisbon.
By the time we chose
Lisbon for schooling,
Cascais for grilled chicken and the beach,
the cliffs above the Atlantic for space,
Sintra as home,
I had whizzed us around in a Fiat 500, like our little Smart in Sevilla, all those years ago,
compared the price of a meia de leite to a grand crème in Paris,
purchased French luggage and Italian shoes for him at Avenida da Liberdade,
fucked him at the NH Hotel,
sent one postcard home to each daughter.
By the time we moved from Hong Kong to Lisbon,
we spent a month in Italy,
my womb and torso still aching from being sliced open so my youngest could be born.
The dock workers’ strikes doubled our shipping cost and time waiting.
The house we finally rented remained a construction site for months.
We moved out before we moved in.
By the time we found a home that fit,
by the time we cleared our belongings from customs,
Covid shaped everything.
He’d take the girls on long walks along the dunes of Praia do Guincho.
Teach the girls how to make kimchi.
Keep investors steady, development going.
Set up computers, screens for the girls,
while losing hope the school would ever function online.
After lockdown,
before masks came off,
he and I drove north,
to Porto,
to the Douro,
to time and open spaces without our girls.
At the Douro Suites Hotel,
I showered for him.
I showered with him.
I showered him with my body.
I took him deep inside,
harboured him,
cleared him,
steadied him,
placed him back in orbit.
By the time we retuned to Cascais my husband was back.
By the time we repeated the trip north with our girls,
by the time they splashed in the hotel pool,
by the time we rode the cable car in Gaia,
the girls said, “let’s move to ‘the Porto’.”
By the time we packed up Lisbon and moved north
we had given Portugal another chance.
