Chapter 6 - Genevieve’s final year
My wife had not been secretive by nature.
Genevieve Mercer talked through everything.
Paint colors.
Medical articles.
Which school was best.
Whether Jonah’s habit of sleeping with socks on represented a moral failure.
When she became ill, that changed.
I thought illness made her withdrawn.
Now I wondered whether I had.
Her first symptoms appeared twenty-two months before her death.
Fatigue.
Nausea.
Headaches.
Intermittent numbness.
Then abnormal liver tests.
Then palpitations.
She had an autoimmune marker.
That became the organizing diagnosis.
Specialists considered autoimmune disease, medication reaction, post-viral complications, rare metabolic problems.
Nothing fit perfectly.
Genevieve began saying:
“I feel better when we’re away.”
I pointed out obvious explanations.
Less stress.
Different routine.
Better sleep.
She said:
“The twins are different too.”
At that time they were not critically ill.
They had headaches.
Stomach complaints.
Unusual fatigue.
Children have all three.
Pediatricians found nothing alarming.
I used that as reassurance.
Genevieve used it as evidence that no one was looking correctly.
We fought.
The worst argument happened thirteen months before she died.
She wanted to take the twins to stay with a friend in Wisconsin for six weeks while environmental testing continued.
I said:
“No.”
Why?
School.
Medical continuity.
Security.
And because I believed she was becoming obsessed.
I actually said:
“You’re building a conspiracy because doctors haven’t given you an answer.”
She stared at me.
Then:
“You grew up inside a conspiracy and somehow learned to distrust the person asking questions.”
I left the room.
Two days later I flew to London for work.
That trip became evidence against myself in my own mind.
Not legally.
Emotionally.
During those nine days, Genevieve took the twins out of Mercer House.
They stayed partly at a hotel.
Partly in Elena’s apartment.
Partly at Genevieve’s friend’s home.
Blythe later remembered the apartment.
Jonah remembered suspicious oatmeal.
Genevieve’s symptoms improved.
The children’s minor symptoms improved too.
Then security found out.
Victor called me.
He framed it as:
“Genevieve has removed the children from their established medical support and is staying with an unvetted caregiver.”
I called Genevieve.
We fought.
She returned.
Elena was barred from the property.
That was the moment Genevieve stopped telling me everything.
I had thought she was becoming irrational.
She had decided I was not safe to tell.
May you like
There are forms of betrayal that do not involve infidelity.
That was one.
