Chapter 4 - Marianne Had Seen the Raincoat
Marianne began crying before Alejandro even asked why.
“I saw her.”
He turned.
“What?”
“The day she came.”
Marianne had worked in the mansion for fourteen years.
She remembered a woman standing near the front entrance wearing a dark green raincoat.
Long brown hair.
One overnight bag.
Marianne had been carrying fresh towels upstairs.
She saw Isabel walk the visitor into the morning room.
Nothing unusual.
Later, Marianne passed again.
The woman stood by the door crying.
Isabel said something quietly.
The woman answered:
“Then tell him I’m sorry I came.”
Marianne stopped.
She almost asked whether anything was wrong.
Isabel saw her.
“She’s an old foundation volunteer.”
Marianne believed her.
Why wouldn’t she?
At the time, Marianne had never met Lucia.
Alejandro kept few photographs downstairs because the estrangement hurt too much.
Most family portraits were stored upstairs.
Then Marianne remembered one more detail.
The woman touched the place near her collar where a brooch had been.
She looked down at the floor.
Searching.
Isabel said:
“Your car is waiting.”
Lucia left.
Marianne looked at the silver hummingbird now resting on the desk.
“That was her.”
Alejandro nodded.
“I think so.”
Marianne covered her mouth.
“I could have—”
“No.”
Alejandro stopped her.
“You saw a stranger and believed what you were told.”
The sentence applied to too many people in the house.
Then Marianne remembered another day.
A month after Lucia’s visit, Isabel asked her to clean the antique cabinet in the upper corridor.
One narrow drawer was locked.
Marianne asked for the key.
Isabel said:
“Leave that one.”
For years, Marianne never touched it.
The drawer became just another small private space in a mansion filled with them.
Sophie had opened it because the old wood warped and the lock no longer caught properly.
A seven-year-old defeated six years of secrecy by pulling on a sticky drawer.
Alejandro almost laughed.
Then Sophie, sitting beside Marianne, asked:
“Why didn’t the lady just tell you herself?”
No one answered immediately.
Finally Alejandro said:
“She tried.”
That was the truth he would have to live with.
Lucia tried.
He had always told himself:
If she wanted me, she knew where I was.
She did know.
She came.
Someone intercepted her before he even knew a decision was being made.
But another question remained.
Why had Isabel become violent today?
The brooch alone proved she lied about meeting Lucia.
It did not explain striking a child across the face.
Unless Isabel feared the hummingbird connected to something else still hidden inside the cabinet.
Security searched it carefully.
Behind the lower drawer, they found a second compartment.
Inside were seven unopened envelopes.
May you like
All addressed to Alejandro.
All in Lucia’s handwriting.
