Pure, uncontrolled laughter—the kind you can’t fake. The voices of Lucas and Mateo, his twin sons, filled the garden. Alejandro froze as his briefcase slipped from his hand and fell onto the grass. For months, Isabel had told him the same story: the boys were difficult, broken by their mother’s death, always crying, screaming, destroying things. Impossible to handle. Their sadness, she said, was wild and unmanageable.
But there, in the warm afternoon light, Lucas and Mateo were flying through the air on an old wooden swing. Strong yet gentle hands pushed them forward, perfectly balanced between care and play.
It was Elena.
The new housekeeper Isabel had hired a month earlier. Alejandro barely remembered her—quiet, always in a blue uniform, eyes lowered when he passed by. That very morning, as Isabel adjusted his tie, she had casually warned him:
“Be careful with that woman. I think she’s rough with the children. I’ve seen them cry when she’s near.”