He encountered moments that hurt him and saved him at the same time: Elena teaching the girls to make a paper crown, Elena pretending a broom was a microphone, Elena inventing different voices for a story.
“How?” he wondered. “How is it possible that this works when everything else failed?”
One day, he returned earlier than usual. The mansion was strangely silent, but it wasn’t the sick silence of before. It was a calm silence, like that of a house where someone is about to laugh.
He went up the stairs and heard stifled giggles coming from the girls’ room. Ricardo felt his heart rise to his throat. He approached slowly, fearing that if he opened the door, everything would disappear.
He pushed it barely open.
He saw Elena lying on a mattress on the floor, pretending to be sick, with a blanket up to her chin and an exaggerated expression of suffering. Lucía and Daniela, in toy lab coats, were examining her with comic seriousness. One held a teaspoon as if it were a thermometer; the other had a glass of water.
Elena coughed theatrically.
“Doctor… I feel terrible…”
And then the impossible happened.
“Mom, take your medicine,” said Lucía, clearly, like someone pronouncing a miracle without knowing it.
Daniela added, with a worried but firm tone:
“Yes… if not, you won’t get better.”
Ricardo stood frozen in the doorframe. He put his hand to his mouth to stop from sobbing. His daughters’ words exploded in his chest like thunder. They had spoken. After months. They had spoken.
Elena looked up and saw him. For a second, she was scared, as if she had done something forbidden. The twins also looked at him, and their faces tensed, as if they suddenly remembered that speaking was dangerous.
Ricardo took a deep breath, his eyes shining.
“It’s okay… it’s okay…” he whispered. “Nothing is wrong. You did amazing.”
That night, Ricardo called Dr. Victoria, expecting her to share his joy. But on the other end of the phone, there was no celebration, but a cold silence.
“Ricardo, that can be dangerous,” Victoria said. “It is not healthy for the girls to call an employee ‘Mom.’ It is a sign of emotional confusion.”
“But they spoke…” Ricardo squeezed the phone. “They spoke, Victoria! Don’t you understand what that means?”
“I understand perfectly. And that is why I’m warning you. That woman… Elena… we don’t know who she is. She could be manipulating them.”
The word “manipulating” was left floating like a stain.
Upon hanging up, Ricardo felt a new unease. He hated himself for doubting, because Elena had brought light, but Victoria’s voice had the weight of prestige, the authority of one who speaks from knowledge. The seed of distrust was planted.
Days later, Victoria arrived at the mansion with a different folder and a graver tone.
“I found worrying information,” she said. “Elena Robles… worked as a nurse. She was accused of negligence. She was expelled.”
Ricardo felt his blood run cold.
That night, he called Elena to the office. She entered with hands still damp from washing dishes, and an expression that went from calm to alert in an instant.
“Is it true?” Ricardo asked, showing the document. “Were you a nurse? Were you accused of negligence?”
Elena looked down. She didn’t deny it.
“Yes, sir,” she said finally. “I was a nurse. And yes… they accused me. But I didn’t do what they said. It was… complicated.”
“Complicated?” Ricardo hit the table with an open palm. “We are talking about my daughters!”
Elena raised her eyes, full of held-back tears.
“I know. And I would never hurt them. What I do with them isn’t medicine, it isn’t a trick. I just… am there.”
Ricardo was trapped between two forces: gratitude and fear. Fear always screams louder.
“I’m sorry,” he said in the end, voice broken. “I can’t take the risk. You have to go.”
Elena didn’t beg. She just nodded, like someone already used to losing good things because of an old lie. She packed her backpack and left in silence.
As soon as she crossed the door, the mansion sank again.
Lucía and Daniela stopped talking immediately, as if someone had ripped out their voices. They stayed glued to the window, looking out, waiting. Ricardo tried to distract them, take them to therapy, buy them new toys, hire another nanny. Nothing. Everything returned to being an airless room.
Ricardo blamed himself every night, but told himself he had done the right thing. “I protected them,” he repeated. And yet, he watched them fade.
One afternoon, looking for papers in the office, Ricardo opened a drawer he almost never touched. Between bills and contracts, he found an old, yellowish envelope. It had a foreign stamp. Barcelona.
He opened it with trembling hands. It was a medical report: Dr. Héctor Solano, neurologist. Ricardo read a sentence and felt the world tilt.
“Temporary mutism with excellent prognosis. Recovery expected in three to six months with a safe environment and adequate emotional accompaniment.”
Ricardo read it again. And again. It didn’t speak of permanence. It didn’t speak of extremely expensive treatments. It didn’t speak of intensive medication.
A chill ran down his spine.
He called the doctor’s number. They answered after a while.
“Dr. Solano’s office.”
Ricardo introduced himself, explained his situation, asked for confirmation.
“Yes, Mr. Salvatierra,” said the doctor’s voice, calm. “That report was sent months ago to Dr. Victoria Álvarez. With a copy for you. It is an emotional case, not neurological. It does not require invasive procedures.”
Ricardo felt a void forming in his stomach.
“Are you saying… that everything that was done…?”
“I am saying that, according to studies and typical evolution, there were no reasons to sustain a diagnosis of permanence at that moment.”
He hung up without knowing the second his hand started to shake. The idea assembled itself, with horrible pieces: Victoria had hidden the report.
She had kept his daughters in a circuit of treatments, machines, and medication… for money.
Rage rose in him like a black wave, but alongside the rage appeared something else: guilt.
Because he, with all his power, had been blind. He had fired the only person who had managed to get his daughters to speak again.
He didn’t wait any longer. He prepared a trip to Barcelona with the twins, as if his instinct knew he needed to see the truth with his own eyes. And, in an impulse that tightened his chest, he looked for Elena.
It wasn’t easy, but he found her in a modest residence, working whatever job she could. When Ricardo knocked on the door, Elena opened it and stood still, with the same dignity as the night she was fired.
“I didn’t come to blame you,” said Ricardo, swallowing his pride. “I came to ask for your forgiveness. And to ask for your help… if you still can.”
Elena looked at the twins behind him. Lucía and Daniela, upon seeing her, took a step forward, as if recognizing a home in her gaze.
“Elena…” whispered Daniela, and although it was a small word, Ricardo’s eyes filled with tears.
Elena took a deep breath.
“For them, yes,” she said.
In Dr. Héctor Solano’s office, the twins appeared surprisingly calm, especially when Elena took their hands.
The doctor examined them with patience, spoke to them sweetly, asked simple questions, invited them to draw.
Then he looked at Ricardo with a kind seriousness.
“These girls never had permanent mutism,” he said. “It was a strong emotional block. The real treatment isn’t a machine. It’s affection, safety, routine, someone to hold up the world when it breaks.”
His gaze shifted to Elena.
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