Emília always remembered the smell before anything else. It was sharp and wrong, a foul mixture of sewage, fuel, and wet earth that didn’t belong to a normal afternoon in Vila Madalena. One moment she was adjusting the weight of her grocery bags, careful not to strain herself, the next she was swallowed by a freezing wave of filthy water that slammed into her side with such force it stole the air from her lungs. Mud streaked across her blouse and soaked into the fabric clinging to her body, spreading in dark, ugly stains over the gentle curve of her five-month-pregnant belly. The shock rooted her to the spot. Oranges rolled free from torn bags, bumping against the curb and disappearing into the gutter. Someone shouted in the distance, but it sounded far away, distorted, like she was underwater. Instinct overrode everything else. Emília dropped to one knee and wrapped both arms around her stomach, shielding the place where a life was growing—a life doctors once told her she would never be able to carry. For years she had lived with the belief that her body was broken, that motherhood was something she was not allowed to hope for.