The housekeeper, a broad-shouldered woman named Teresa, appears in the hallway and motions impatiently. “Come on,” she says. “You can stare at the chandeliers later. The first floor must be done before lunch, and don’t touch the study. No one touches the study.”
You nod at once. “Yes, ma’am.”
She gives you the brisk once-over of a woman who has seen too many new hires arrive humble and leave dishonest. “Bathrooms after the formal salon. Silver room only if Marta tells you. Children’s playroom only when one of the nannies is present. And if Señor Santillán happens to be home, you keep your eyes down and your work fast. He dislikes idleness.”
“Is he home now?” you ask before you can stop yourself.
Teresa snorts. “If he were, you’d know. The whole house breathes differently when he’s here.”
At that, something flickers in the face of the handyman across the hall. So quickly that anyone else might miss it. Amusement, maybe. Or irritation. You cannot tell. But you tuck the reaction away the way poor women tuck away useful information: silently, for later.
You spend the first two hours cleaning rooms so large they feel more like hotel suites than places people actually live. Marble floors that reflect your movements back at you in polished ghost form. Shelves lined with books no one seems to read. Vases taller than your nephew had been at seven. Windows that frame the city in perfect expensive rectangles, making the world outside look curated instead of lived in.
Still, beneath all the wealth, the house feels tired.
Not dirty exactly. Houses with this many employees are rarely dirty in visible ways. But there are subtler things. Toys abandoned in corners as if children lost interest too quickly. A dining room set for too many guests and used too little. A piano in the music room with a layer of silence over it so thick you can practically dust it. Family portraits in gilded frames where everyone is dressed beautifully and smiling just a little too carefully, like people who know how to perform happiness better than inhabit it.
By midmorning, you hear the girls before you meet them.
One voice is high, bright, quick to challenge the world.
The other is softer, slower, carrying its thoughts more carefully.
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