293 DAYS WITHOUT MY SON

WHEN VALENTINO WAS ABDUCTED, I KNEW THREE THINGS: HE'D BEEN TAKEN BY HIS FATHER, HE WAS SOMEWHERE IN INDIA AND I WOULD NOT REST UNTIL I FOUND HIM

- BY CAMILA VILAS BOAS

VALENTINO WAS BORN ON FEBRUARY 4, 2021, AT CENTENARY HOSPITAL IN SCARBOROUGH.

I'd been nervous about giving birth, but as soon as they put my son in my arms, I started laughing and crying simultaneously. He was just so beautiful. The very fact of him felt like a magic trick. I knew right then that I would do anything to keep him safe.

I had met Valentino’s father, Kapil, on a dating website in 2017. I was 27 and living in my hometown in the Brazilian state of Rondônia, near Bolivia. My mother and I managed two hair salons, one on each side of the border, and I helped support my brothers while one pursued his doctorate and the other studied law. When Kapil messaged me, I was excited. Our conversations were playful, easy and warm. I knew only Portuguese and Spanish, and Kapil, whose family was Indian, mostly spoke English. Luckily, he knew a bit of Spanish, and we made it work. He told me he was in his early 40s, lived on a 15,000-square-foot property near Toronto and owned a successful printing company.