Chapter 3 - Why the twins remembered Elena
“Elena worked here?”
My voice sounded unfamiliar.
She shook her head.
“Not officially.”
“Then why do my children know you?”
Genevieve’s letter gave part of the answer.
Elena gave the rest.
Two years earlier, before Genevieve became severely ill, Elena worked as a home-care aide for an agency in Evanston.
Her primary client was an elderly woman named Dorothy Greene.
Genevieve met Elena in a waiting room while both were collecting prescriptions at Northwestern.
Blythe was four.
Jonah was four.
Genevieve had brought them because the nanny was sick.
Blythe threw up.
Elena helped.
Not heroic.
Paper towels.
Water.
Holding a small child’s hair away from her face.
Genevieve remembered her.
Three months later, after Genevieve’s fatigue worsened, she hired Elena privately for occasional help during medical appointments.
Not through Mercer House.
At Genevieve’s insistence.
Why secretly?
Because Genevieve had started distrusting our household medical structure.
That sentence embarrassed me.
We had a concierge physician.
A house nurse.
Security drivers.
Everything efficient.
Everything controlled.
Genevieve wanted one person nobody in Mercer administration had hired.
Elena became that person.
She drove Genevieve and the twins to several appointments in a borrowed Honda.
Took them to a small apartment when Genevieve wanted a place away from Mercer House for symptom tracking.
Stayed with the children during two overnight diagnostic visits.
Blythe remembered her because Elena repaired the stuffed rabbit she still carried.
I looked toward the bedroom.
“Mr. Buttons?”
Elena smiled faintly.
“She ripped his ear off trying to pull him through the slats of a playground bench.”
That was specific.
Blythe had never told me how the tear happened.
“Jonah?”
“He hated me.”
From the bedroom came a weak voice.
“I didn’t.”
Elena’s eyes closed.
Jonah had been listening.
He continued:
“You made oatmeal wrong.”
For the first time in months, I almost laughed.
Elena whispered:
“You said cinnamon was suspicious.”
“It is.”
Six years old and dying, still himself.
Then another memory returned.
Two years earlier, Genevieve told me she had hired “a woman named Elena” to help during appointments.
I had barely registered it.
Why?
Because Victor called me the same afternoon about a security concern.
A temporary caregiver had allegedly copied internal household information and removed files.
Victor recommended barring her from the property.
I approved the restriction electronically from New York.
Never met her.
Never asked Genevieve.
Elena had been turned into a red flag in my security database by my signature.
“Did you steal anything?”
“No.”
“What files did you take?”
“Copies Genevieve handed me.”
“Of what?”
“Elena.”
Daniel’s warning.
Too many questions too fast.
She reached into the folder.
“I brought what she gave me. But before you look at any of it, your children need to leave this wing.”
I stood.
“You don’t give orders in my house.”
“No.”
She met my eyes.
May you like
“But Genevieve tried asking.”
That landed harder.
