Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN ON THE FLOOR
My brother told our mother to scrub harder before he noticed me standing in the doorway.
She was on her knees beside a shattered wineglass.
Sixty-eight years old.
Wearing a maid’s uniform.
Cleaning the marble floor of the ₱52 million house I had bought so she would never have to clean anyone else’s again.
“Bianca will make you start over if you leave streaks, Mom.”
“Rafael.”
He turned on the staircase, coffee halfway to his mouth.
My mother looked up first.
For one beautiful, stupid second, I expected her to smile.
Instead, she flinched.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ll be finished in a minute.”
My suitcase slipped from my hand.
“Mom. It’s Andrea.”
Her eyes moved over my face. Something flickered there, then disappeared when Rafael came down another step.
“You weren’t supposed to be back until next month,” he said.
“Why is she wearing that?”
“She likes keeping busy.”
“On her knees?”
“Don’t come home looking for a fight.”
His wife appeared upstairs in a silk robe.
Bianca looked at my suitcase, then at me.
“You could have called.”
I had spent six years flying between Dubai, Singapore, and Doha, overseeing hotel developments. Every month, I sent ₱700,000 for this household.
Food. Medication. A driver. Maintenance.
And Cora Mendoza, the caregiver who was supposed to keep my mother company five days a week.
“Where’s Cora?”
“She quit,” Rafael said.
“When?”
“A while ago.”
“How long?”
Bianca folded her arms. “You can’t disappear overseas and expect everyone to report every little thing.”
I knelt beside my mother. Her fingers trembled around the rag.
Near the bucket sat a medication box.
“Who prescribed this?”
“Her doctor,” Rafael said.
“Name.”
“Stop interrogating us.”
I turned the package over. A clinic in Tagaytay. A date from nineteen months earlier.
Rafael sighed.
“Mom gets confused now. She signs things and forgets. That’s why she gave me authority to manage everything.”
“What everything?”
He gestured around the house.
“This, for starters. Legally, it’s mine.”
Bianca smiled. “We have notarized documents.”
I took out my phone and called Mikaela Santos, my lawyer and the external administrator of A.V. Prime Holdings.
“Flag any new request involving the Alabang property. Get the title, corporate records, and every transfer or mortgage attempt from the last three years.”
Rafael’s smile vanished.
As I put the medication away, I saw a handwritten name along its edge.
CORA MENDOZA.
Underneath it: a patient number and an admission date.
The same date Cora had supposedly quit.
I called her old number.
A man answered.
When I gave my name, his breathing changed.
“Andrea Villanueva?”
“Yes. Where’s Cora?”
A long silence.
May you like
Then:
“She left a video for you before she disappeared.”
