When we got home, I was tired and desperately missing my children. Pedro chattered for a long time, telling me how he'd helped take care of his little brothers and sisters and how they were now sleeping with full bellies.

I went to bed with a twinge in my head and had a very restless sleep, not because of caring for the babies. In fact, they were very calm, and Alessandro was a wonderful father. He would wake up at night and help me change and feed them. But I had disjointed nightmares and a feeling of dread that wouldn't go away.

I woke up very early with a terrible headache, perhaps from the previous hectic day, but my head hurt terribly. I stopped by my children's room and they were asleep, as was Pedro. So I went to the kitchen to get some coffee before swallowing the painkillers.

I was in the kitchen with Lygia when we heard the thud of something falling in the living room and went to look. When I arrived in the living room, I shivered with fear. Junqueira was standing in the mid