The Nazaré Breaks – Chapter 3

Day 1

Morning came soft. The shutters held most of the light back, but enough slipped through that I could see Bonnie still pressed tight against me, her breath rising slow and gentle. She’d migrated in the night. Like every morning when she slept with me, we’d wake up back to back and as soon as she felt movement on my end, her head would come and nudge mine with the grunt of a wild boar looking for pets. My hand landed on her ear for scratches and I spun around to cuddle some more.

After a few minutes of softly coming to reality, I coaxed her down with a kiss to her head, slid into jeans, and padded to the kitchen. Dona Teresa had left the coffee machine already loaded, which felt like divine intervention. Soon enough the hiss and burble filled the silence, and the first cup — strong, black — was in my hand.

I cracked the shutters, and the air that slipped in was crisp and damp with salt. The rain had stopped but still clung to the cobblestones. Across the narrow street, a woman shook a quilt out over her balcony, the fabric snapping once, twice, before she draped it to breathe over the railing. Nazaré was awake in its quiet way, mop buckets clattering, gulls shrieking overhead, the smell of baking bread filling the alleys.

Bonnie’s nails tapped on the tile. She stretched, yawned, then nudged me toward the door with the blunt insistence of routine. I clipped her leash and stepped outside. She led me from doorway to doorway, nose deep in every corner, tail in a lazy wag. An old man passed carrying a bag of rolls, gave me a nod, then whistled softly at Bonnie. She wagged harder, darted towards him to sit on his feet expecting the flow of love she usually received from strangers who dared look at her.

Back at the house, I faced the thing I’d been avoiding. The car.

The STOP light.

I slid behind the wheel, half hoping some overnight miracle had fixed it. The engine caught, rattled, and the red word blinked on again, bright as a fresh wound. STOP. My throat tightened. I let it idle for a few seconds, listening to the tick and hum, then killed it before it could tell me anything worse. My reflection in the dash screen looked older, wearier. I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel and whispered, “Today. I’ll sort it out today.”

The sound of footsteps broke the thought. I looked up to see my host shuffling down the stone path from the upstairs flat. She wore a blue cardigan, wool slippers, her face looked carved from both laughter and kindness. She called out a cheerful “Bom dia,” then peered toward the car.

“Problemas?” she asked, tilting her head.

I gave a helpless little shrug and told her in my best Spanish that the engine light had come on, and that I needed to find a mechanic.

Her laugh came low and full. She stepped closer, eyes sharp, took my arm and told me to follow her upstairs. The apartment was right above the house I rented from her. A bright space adorned with photos of who I imagined to be her husband. Late husband, probably.

You can always tell, walking into someone’s home, when they’ve filled it with the memory of someone gone, like a shrine. I hadn’t been able to look at photos of mom in the two years since she’d died. I didn’t purposefully avoid them, but I didn’t actively seek them out either.

She caught me looking. “Mi marido,” she smiled faintly, a hand over her heart. She sat me down at the kitchen table while turning on the kettle for some tea, and told me about how she’d repurposed part of the house to rent on Airbnb. It was too big for her now, and her retirement income insufficient to cover all the bills. A tinge of reality we don’t often think about when traveling.

I smiled despite myself, though the lump in my throat pressed higher. She followed my gaze to the ocean, the roar of it was a constant undercurrent. Her smile kept warm. She told me about the ocean culture in Nazaré, how the big waves had shaped tourism in the past decade, how over fishing by the big industries had killed the main town’s resource overnight, and how the mayor had rebranded the town to rebound.

She explained the waves had always been the true heart of Nazaré. Terrible and Magnetic. Here, you didn’t fight them. You learned to respect them, watch for their rhythm. She told me how the fishermen had learned to count to seven calm ones, then maybe — just maybe — it was safe to return to shore.

The words resonated in my chest. I nodded, but unsure I understood any of it. She patted my arm, as if that settled it, then told me her son would stop by later to help with the car.

I thanked her, voice thinner than I meant.

Back inside, Bonnie acknowledged me with a few happy wags, sat on my feet for cuddle tax, then flopped against the door with a sigh. My phone buzzed where I’d left it on the counter—Theo.

“Hey,” I said, settling on the couch again, scratching Bonnie’s ears.

“How was the night?” His voice was warm..

“Good. Rainy. I ate too many croquettes. The car’s still giving me that STOP light.”

He exhaled like he was right there with me looking for solutions. “Well, I guess you’ve got your afternoon cut out for you, looking for mechanics. Want me to help and make some calls?”

I picked at the seam of the couch. He was incredibly sweet. “Thanks babe, I’ll make a few calls and see if I can muster out some Portuguese with Google Translate. The landlady also said her son would stop by later, I’m hoping he might be able to help with the mechanic.”

“You’ve been through worse,” he said gently, a knowing smile in his tone. “Don’t let it ruin your day, go to the beach, do your thing, maybe catch some big waves and send photos.”

His words were safe, they’d always been a solid anchor. I closed my eyes, listening, waiting for the warmth they used to carry. Instead, they left me still, like rain tapping on glass.

After we hung up, I leaned back on the couch, Bonnie pressing her head against my hip. My mind drifted to the early days, to us. To how it used to feel electric. We used to laugh harder, kiss harder, fight harder, before the diagnosis…when we still sparked like live wire.

I clicked my laptop open and shuffled through the last of the buyers’ bank documents, making calls half on autopilot. It was busywork, something to fill the hours before Bonnie’s next walk and before Dona Teresa’s son arrived.

The comfort of routine should have grounded me, but instead it pulled me into contrast. Back to the beginning, when there was nothing routine about our lives at all with Theo.

Our first year together was full of promise. And then the illness showed up. And with it, a prognosis of one to four years. I’d caught myself thinking in that moment, hand tightly wrapped around hers in the oncologist’s office: what will the quality of life be? What are we looking at, here? And the answers were incomprehensible. They sounded like gibberish. My brain had tuned out.

For the first few months, I threw myself into intimacy with fiery passion as if sex could outrun grief. And then the fatigue set in.

The hospital smell, holding my mother’s hair while she threw up for days after each chemo treatment, until there was no hair left to hold. Cleaning her wounds myself at home when they had to drain fluids over several days.

It broke me down piece by piece until I wasn’t sure how to function outside of caregiving. Because the medical system had failed her, and there was no help.

Somewhere along the way, I just stopped wanting. I was tired. Scared. Angry. Theo felt it, and went along with it, supporting me in both lust and indifference.

I turned onto my side, pressed my nose into Bonnie’s fur. Grief had stripped me down until even sex felt like another chore, something I had to do to keep my relationship alive, although Theo never pressed. Desire had slipped through my fingers without me noticing.

Outside, a gull shrieked. A door slammed. Somewhere close, Dona Teresa hummed a tune, faint and steady, like the rain.

I thought of her words again. Count to seven calm ones, then maybe — just maybe — it was safe to return. What was that in ‘grieving years’?

Bonnie shifted closer, as if she’d felt it too.