IBy the time we left Porto,
our life was already split
between long weekends in Biarritz,
ice skating and Disneyland in Paris.
Porto was enigmatic.
Fresh seafood in Matosinhos.
Some easy days.
A life that functioned just enough.
By the time we left our home in Porto,
I left him and Padme to close down the house.
I drove to our first charging stop with my little one, Pheby,
our two Portuguese Water Dogs curled up on the car floor,
and my first baby, Petra, with one of our cats contained on her lap.
My hips heavy behind the wheel,
like the bulging transport box pressing down on the tow bar behind the rear axle.
My eyes on the navigation screen,
shushing my girls;
it was pouring down in sheets,
the sky dark before sunset,
the highway wet and black.
We placed our stuff in storage,
my motorcycle with friends.
By the time he followed us in our small car,
with Padme sitting beside him and our other cat boxed on her lap,
I called and sent them to McDonald’s to catch up with food.
By the time I got to the Supercharger,
the entire complex was blacked out.
Hotel and all.
No charging possible.
Travel plans collapsing.
I called him.
He baggsed a charger at Burger King in Fefe.
I found him there, half an hour back the way we came.
The lights were on.
Charging did not work either.
30 km battery range left.
Enough to get us nowhere.
By the time the power was restored,
he had searched everywhere in Fefe for a working charger.
Even Galp’s charger was offline.
I wasn’t enraged as I might have been.
Situations like this were typical of our experience living here.
Now we were leaving.
I had no commitment to making it work.
The house we left behind breathed water from every direction.
Sewage.
Groundwater.
Rainwater.
Months of him in the souterrain while the landlord hid.
Nights without a husband.
Days the girls barely saw their father.
By the time we left, I had no rage left for Portugal.
Porto made us wobble.
Five moves in seven years.
Boxes. Storage. Silence after pitches.
Money late, or not at all.
Him steadying what kept shifting.
Playing a game where the rules changed mid-hand.
Me keeping the house moving.
School. Dogs. Dinner. Bedtime.
Before Porto, we had moved from Hong Kong to Cascais.
Here our first two daughters moved from childhood to adolescence.
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.
Before rushing back to Hong Kong to pack up our home.
We chose
Lisbon for schooling,
Cascais for the beach,
Sintra as home.
It was in Azenhas do Mar,
20 years ago, that the storm waves gushed against the windows of my hotel.
My flanks wanting him
to take me hard,
to hold me tight.
It was then I sat on cliffs above the Atlantic
when I knew he would come.
I knew he was mine,
and I would be his.
It was here 30 years ago he prepared the opening of the Penha Longa Resort.
It was here a few years earlier we took our annual break away from our girls
to fuck fully,
to shop and stroll with fingers intertwined along Avenida da Liberdade,
like a small shaded Champs-Élysées,
to dine, drink and sway at JNcQUOI.
My appetite said yes.
My sashay signalled to him and me.
My hips made him spill for me.
By the time we got to Lisbon,
we’d spent a month in Italy,
my womb and torso still aching from being sliced open so my youngest could be born.
The house in Sintra did not happen.
The dock workers’ strikes doubled our shipping cost and time from Hong Kong.
The house we finally rented remained a construction site for months.
We moved out before we moved in.
By the time we moved to 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 Praia do Guincho.
Teach the girls how to make kimchi.
Keep investors integrated and development going.
After lockdown, he and I drove north
to Porto,
to the Douro,
to open spaces without our girls.
At the Douro Suites Hotel,
we took a long weekend.
I took him deep,
placed him,
cleared him,
harboured him,
and held him steady.
The Douro Valley resembled the hillsides above Lake Como.
It was the change of scenery we needed.
We repeated the trip with our girls.
It was the change of scenery they needed.
We packed up Lisbon and moved north to Porto
to give Portugal another chance.
At the time he said, "This is great, we're three hours closer to Biarritz."
By the time we got to our first stop outside of Burgos,
the sky turned from black to grey.
We never saw the sun as we pushed on after midday towards France.
By the time I collapsed onto the mattress at our Airbnb near the Atlantic,
I had fought off a cough and cold for a week.
I stayed in bed for three days
and slept occasionally,
managing him and my daughters by text message.
He brought me crisp, buttery croissants
and cooked Magret de Canard,
served in bed.
After the third night,
I drove 15 minutes in downpour
to charge the car and shop for food.
I even found him some Haribo liquorice.
By the time I got back,
I drove with a full charge and a smile.
The French know how to navigate roundabouts
and didn’t cut me off.
The next morning we went on house viewings.
Rain alternating between hard and harder.
The first house spoke to me.
Our bedroom would open like a hotel suite
to the saltwater pool,
the garden.
I stopped.
I pointed.
I said,
“I want you to build us a Balinese outdoor bathroom here,
with a bathtub big enough for two.”