The Morning at Greenhaven Memorial Park

The sky over Greenhaven Memorial Park in Oregon was heavy with low gray clouds the morning Marianne Keller pushed open the iron gate. She knew every step of that path by heart. For almost two years, visiting her son’s grave had been part of her daily routine—like brushing her teeth or checking her email. Only, this ritual hurt every single time.

Marianne was the kind of woman who made people straighten their backs when she entered a room. She had built Keller Innovations, one of the largest construction companies in the region, after her husband passed away, and she ran it with precise control and a reputation for never hesitating. Her suits were always perfect, her hair in place, her posture unshakable. She decided everything—for the company, for the family, and especially for her only son, Andrew.

At least, that’s what she had believed.

On that morning, as her heels clicked along the familiar walkway between rows of stones, something broke the routine. She slowed. Someone was kneeling at Andrew’s grave.

The Young Woman and the Child

It wasn’t a gardener or a stranger passing by. It was a young woman in a simple, worn jacket, holding a little girl on her hip. The woman’s shoulders shook with quiet sobs. At the base of the headstone, someone had placed a small bunch of daisies—humble, ordinary, nothing like the long-stemmed roses Marianne always brought.

Marianne’s voice came out sharper than she intended.

“Who are you, and what are you doing at my son’s grave?”

The young woman flinched and turned. She couldn’t have plus than twenty-five. Dark circles framed her eyes, and there was a tiredness in her face that didn’t belong to someone so young. The child she held—a little girl with light hair and wide, curious eyes—stared at Marianne as if trying to figure her out.

“I… I’m sorry,” the young woman whispered, shifting the child on her hip. “I was just about to leave. I didn’t mean to bother anyone.”

“Answer the question,” Marianne insisted, stepping in front of her. “How did you know my son?”

The woman swallowed hard and hugged the little girl closer, as if Marianne were a threat.

“Andrew was… important to me,” she said, barely above a whisper.

“Important?” Marianne’s voice rose. “My son has been gone for almost two years. I never saw you at the service. I’ve never heard your name. Who do you think you are, coming here and acting like you had some special place in his life?”

The accusation hit like a slap. Tears rushed back into the young woman’s eyes, but this time she didn’t try to hide them.

“My name is Elena Brooks,” she said, her voice shaking but steady. “I wasn’t at the funeral because you made it very clear long ago—I was not welcome in your son’s life. You personally made sure I disappeared. And you succeeded.”

The Past She Refused to See

For a moment, Marianne forgot how to breathe. There was something in Elena’s voice she could not ignore—pain that couldn’t be faked. And her eyes… for a heartbeat, Marianne felt a strange familiarity she couldn’t place.

“What are you talking about?” Marianne asked, but some of the steel had left her tone.

Elena sank onto a nearby bench; her knees seemed ready to give out. The little girl settled in her lap, thumb in her mouth, tiny fingers playing with Elena’s collar.

“Andrew and I met a few years ago,” Elena began, staring at the headstone as if speaking to him, not to Marianne. “He was volunteering in Willow Point Community, where I lived. I worked days at a laundromat and studied at night. He was different from everyone I’d known.”

Marianne’s chest tightened. Andrew had insisted on volunteering. She had called it a waste of time, told him to focus on “real responsibilities.” He had only smiled and kept going.

“We started talking after the reading classes he taught,” Elena continued softly. “He never treated me like I was less because I was poor, or because I didn’t go to private schools. He saw me. Really saw me.”

“So you got… involved,” Marianne said, the word tasting like something bitter.

“We fell in love,” Elena corrected quietly, lifting her chin. “He used to tell me I was the most genuine person he’d ever met, that I didn’t want anything from him except his presence, that I loved him for who he was, not for his last name.”

Marianne felt anger rise—not just at Elena, but at the idea that her son had lived a whole love story she had refused to see.

“If that were true, why did I never see you? Why didn’t he bring you home?”

“He tried,” Elena answered. “Again and again. Seventeen times, to be exact. I counted. Seventeen dinners, coffee plans, small gatherings he set up so he could finally introduce me. Every time, you had an excuse. The company was going through something. The timing wasn’t right. And the three times I actually reached the gate of your house, security stopped me because my name wasn’t on the approved list.”

The silence that followed seemed to pull all the air out of the cemetery.

Slowly, memories that Marianne had buried began to return: Andrew asking her, almost begging, to let him invite “someone special” to dinner. Her firm “no.” Her calls to security, her instructions about who was allowed in and who wasn’t.

The Child with His Eyes

Marianne lowered herself onto the bench beside Elena. Her legs suddenly felt too weak to hold her.

“I had my assistant look into you,” she admitted, the words scratching her throat on the way out. “When Andrew kept insisting, I gave in just enough to pull a background check. When I saw you were from a struggling neighborhood, no stable family, no degree, no ‘future,’ I told him he had to end it. I thought I was protecting him.”

“You weren’t protecting him,” Elena replied, and now there was quiet anger under her grief. “You were protecting your image. You made sure I was cut out of his life. You never gave him the chance to choose for himself.”

The little girl on Elena’s lap began to fidget, sensing the tension. She babbled and patted her mother’s face, trying to pull her attention back.

“My love,” Elena murmured, kissing her forehead. “It’s okay. We’re almost done.”

It was then that Marianne really looked at the child. Not just as an extension of Elena, not as a background detail, but as a person. A little girl with light hair, round cheeks, and big eyes that seemed to take in everything.

Those eyes.

The shape of her face. The way she tilted her head when curious.

Marianne felt her heart stop for a second. She had seen that exact expression before—on baby pictures tucked away in albums she hadn’t dared open since the day they lost Andrew.

“How old is she?” Marianne asked, her voice barely audible.

Elena’s arms tightened around the child, as if she expected Marianne to try to take her.

“She’ll be two soon.”

“Two,” Marianne repeated, doing the math.

Andrew had been gone for one year, ten months, and some days.

“One year, ten months, and thirteen days,” Elena corrected softly. She didn’t need to count; she lived with that number.

“It’s his daughter,” Marianne whispered. It wasn’t a question. She knew. She saw Andrew in every feature of the little girl.

“Her name is Lily,” Elena said. “He always said if he ever had a daughter, he’d want to call her that. He loved the story Alice in Wonderland and believed the world was full of wonders people stopped seeing when they grew up. He wanted his child to remember that.”

Something inside Marianne cracked. Andrew had become a father. She had a granddaughter. And for almost two years, she had known nothing.

The Secret Pregnancy

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Marianne demanded, her voice turning sharp again because she needed to put the blame somewhere. “Why didn’t Andrew tell me he was going to be a father?”

Elena’s answer came like a blow.

“He didn’t know.”

Marianne stared.

“What do you mean, he didn’t know?”

“When I found out I was pregnant, I went to his office,” Elena said, wiping tears that kept coming. “I somehow got past reception and made it up to his floor. I never even reached his door. You stepped out of the elevator, and that was the end of it. You had security escort me out. You called me someone who didn’t know her place. You said if I came back, you’d call the police.”

“I was protecting my son,” Marianne protested weakly, but even to her own ears, the excuse sounded empty.

“You were destroying his life,” Elena answered, and this time her anger was clear. “You didn’t let me talk to him. You didn’t let him know he was going to be a father. You took away his right to choose.”

“I thought if it were serious, he’d come find you,” Marianne tried. “He could have looked for you.”

“He didn’t know I’d tried,” Elena replied. “I sent letters to the office. They never reached him. I called, but my number got blocked. I barely had enough money for food; I couldn’t keep trying forever. I carried your son’s child alone. Lily was born in a tiny back room behind the laundromat where I work, with a neighbor praying everything would go well. He never knew.”

The word settled heavy between them. Never.

“When I saw the news about the car accident on TV,” Elena said quietly, “I went to the service. I stood all the way in the back. You walked past me several times. You didn’t recognize me. Maybe you never really looked at me at all.”

Marianne remembered the service only as a blur of pain, sedatives, and faces she couldn’t name. But now, she imagined a young woman, already a mother, standing alone in the back, holding grief she didn’t have the right to show.

“Why do you come here?” Marianne asked, looking at the simple daisies on the stone. “Why bring Lily to his grave?”

“Because we loved him,” Elena said simply. “You did everything you could to tear us apart, but that doesn’t erase what we felt. Lily deserves to know who her father was, even if it’s only through stories and visits to this stone.”

Lily had stopped fussing and was watching Marianne with wide eyes. Suddenly, she stretched out her small hand toward her, that universal gesture toddlers use when they want someone to hold them.

“She never does that with strangers,” Elena said softly. “She’s usually very shy.”

Marianne stared at the tiny fingers reaching for her. Every instinct told her to back away, to protect herself from the pain of loving someone new. But something inside her shifted.

Slowly, she extended her hand. Lily’s little fingers wrapped around hers with surprising strength, and the little girl smiled—a small, toothy smile that looked so much like Andrew’s baby pictures that Marianne felt herself fall apart and rebuild in the same instant.

A Chance Marianne Didn’t Deserve

“She has his eyes,” Marianne whispered.

“Yes,” Elena replied. “His eyes, his smile, and the way he tilts his head when he’s curious.”

“I ruined everything,” Marianne blurted. The words spilled out before she could stop them. “I destroyed my son’s happiness because I thought I knew what was best for him. I thought I was protecting our name, our business. Instead, I took away the only thing that truly mattered.”

Elena didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. They both knew it was true.

“Did he ever… talk about me?” Elena asked after a long silence. “After you forced him to leave?”

Marianne thought about lying to soften the blow, but she had spent too many years hiding the truth.

“He changed,” she admitted. “He became quieter. Threw himself into work like he was trying to fill some empty space inside. He stopped volunteering. He stopped smiling the way he used to. I thought he was finally ‘growing up,’ becoming the leader the company needed. Now I understand he was just surviving.”

Lily yawned and rubbed her eyes with her fists. Elena looked at the sky, judging the time.

“I have to go,” she said, shifting Lily in her arms. “I work this afternoon, and I need to drop her off with a neighbor who watches her when I’m on late shifts.”

“Where do you work?” Marianne asked, suddenly hungry for every detail of their lives.

“At the same laundromat as before,” Elena replied. “I take double shifts when I can. The money barely covers rent and food. The owner lets me bring Lily on days when I have no one to leave her with.”

Marianne noticed the worn but clean clothes, the patched shoes, and the faded bag that probably carried diapers and snacks. She saw not a “girl from a poor neighborhood,” but a young mother fighting every day to give her child what she could. And inside that fight, she saw traces of Andrew—the stubbornness, the quiet strength, the insistence on doing the right thing even when it hurt.

“Elena,” Marianne called as the young woman began to walk away. “Don’t go just yet.”

Elena turned slowly. There was caution in her eyes—the caution of someone who had learned that powerful people rarely brought good news.

“I have to fix this,” Marianne said. For the first time in years, her voice sounded vulnerable. “I don’t know how, but I have to try to put right what I’ve broken.”

“You can’t bring Andrew back,” Elena said. There was no anger in her voice, just truth.

“No,” Marianne agreed. “But I can do something for you. For Lily. For my granddaughter.”

The word felt strange in her mouth—granddaughter—but it was real now.

“I don’t want charity,” Elena replied, lifting her chin.

“I’m not offering charity,” Marianne said quietly. “I’m offering a chance. A chance for both of us to know Lily the way Andrew would have wanted.”

Elena looked at the headstone, then at Lily, then back at Marianne.

“I don’t trust you,” she said honestly.

“I know,” Marianne answered. “And I will have to earn that. But please… don’t take away my chance to know her. Don’t let my mistakes keep Lily from knowing this part of her family.”

Lily chose that exact moment to reach her hands toward Marianne again, making soft little sounds as if calling her.

Elena stared at her daughter’s face—the eyes so much like Andrew’s—and realized she couldn’t deny Lily the choice Andrew had never had.

“One meeting,” she said finally. “In a public place. If I feel, even for a second, that you’re trying to take her away from me or do anything that feels threatening, I’ll disappear. And you’ll never find us.”

“I accept,” Marianne replied without hesitation. “Where and when?”

Elena named a small park near Willow Point Community, the same neighborhood where Andrew had volunteered.

“I’ll be there,” Marianne promised.

Learning to Be a Grandmother

Two days later, Marianne stood in front of her huge closet and realized for the first time how much of her wardrobe had been chosen not for comfort, but for power. Everything looked expensive, distant, like it belonged in boardrooms, not in a neighborhood park. She finally chose something simple, with no flashy jewelry, and hoped it made her look less like the woman who had once ordered Elena out of a building.

When she arrived at the park, fifteen minutes early, she was surprised. It wasn’t the dangerous place she had imagined all those years. It was modest, worn in some spots, but alive. Kids ran barefoot in the grass. Mothers talked on benches. Teenagers kicked a ball on a makeshift field.

Near an old swing set, she saw Elena, pushing Lily gently back and forth. Elena was still in simple clothes, but she looked different now—lighter, at least in that moment. She was singing something softly while Lily laughed, legs kicking forward with every swing.

“Higher, Mommy!” Lily giggled.

“Not too high, sweetheart,” Elena replied, kissing the top of her head. “I don’t want you flying away.”

That was when Lily spotted Marianne. Her eyes widened, and she pointed eagerly.

“Mommy, it’s the lady from the garden!”

Elena’s smile faded, replaced by caution.

“Hello, Ms. Keller,” she said when Marianne approached.

“Hello,” Marianne answered, unsure of what to do with her hands. “I’m a little early. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine,” Elena said, though she stayed where she was.

Lily, however, had no such hesitation. She squirmed until Elena took her off the swing, then ran in her wobbly toddler steps straight toward Marianne.

“Hi,” she said shyly, thumb back in her mouth.

“Hi, Lily,” Marianne replied, her voice rough.

“Did you know my daddy?” Lily asked suddenly, her small face serious.

Marianne felt tears burn her eyes.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I knew him. He was my son.”

Lily thought about that for a moment, then tilted her head the way Andrew used to.

“So you’re my grandma?”

The word hit Marianne like a bolt. Grandma. She had a granddaughter who was asking to claim her.

“Yes,” she managed. “I’m your grandma.”

Lily smiled, wide and bright.

“Grandma pretty,” she declared.

Right there, on the patchy grass of a small community park, Marianne sank to her knees, not caring about her clothes. She wanted to be at Lily’s level. For the first time in years, she cried in front of someone else—really cried.

“Forgive me,” she whispered, not even sure if she was talking to Lily, to Elena, or to Andrew. “Please forgive me.”

They sat together on a nearby bench after that. Lily played with her one old doll, chattering to herself, while Elena and Marianne spoke in halting sentences, slowly opening doors that had been slammed shut for years.

“I want to be part of her life,” Marianne said at last. “If you’ll let me. Not to control anything. Not to take her away. I just want to be there. And I want to help.”

“Help how?” Elena asked carefully. “By deciding where she goes to school, what she wears, what kind of person she becomes?”

“No,” Marianne said, taking the hit. “You are her mother. I will never try to replace you or push you aside. I want to help so you don’t have to carry everything alone. So Lily can have chances you never had. So she can be a child, not a little adult worrying about bills.”

Elena sat quiet for a long time, watching Lily share her worn doll with another child as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Andrew would be proud of her,” Marianne said softly.

“I know,” Elena replied, tears in her eyes. “Every day, I see him in her. In the way she laughs, the way she wants to help everyone, the way she finds something beautiful in the smallest things.”

“Let me tell you about him,” Marianne offered. “About how he was as a little boy. The stories you’ve never heard.”

Elena hesitated, then nodded.

And so, on that old park bench, a grandmother and a young mother sat side by side while a little girl ran in the grass. Marianne began to speak—about Andrew’s fear of the dark, his awful drawings that he insisted on taping to the fridge, his habit of bringing home kids from school who had nowhere else to go. Elena listened, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying.

For the first time since Andrew’s car accident, his memory felt less like a wound and more like a light guiding them forward.

When the Family Pushed Back

For a short time, things felt almost peaceful. Marianne met Elena and Lily a few more times, always in public places, always respecting the boundaries Elena had set. Lily started calling her “Grandma” with that same easy warmth that had once belonged to Andrew.

Then, one Thursday, Marianne arrived at the office and found trouble waiting. Her cousin Patricia Royce sat in the lobby, perfectly dressed and stiff as marble, alongside Attorney Miles Hardwick, the family lawyer who rarely appeared unless something serious was at stake.

“We need to talk,” Patricia said as soon as she saw her. “It’s about that woman and the child who claims to be Andrew’s.”

Inside Marianne’s office, the conversation turned cold fast.

“You’ve completely lost your mind,” Patricia said. “You’re ready to accept some random woman’s story because you’re lonely and grieving? She shows up out of nowhere with a child and a sad story, and you just believe her?”

“She didn’t show up out of nowhere,” Marianne replied, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Andrew loved her. He was looking for her the night of the accident.”

“That’s what she says,” Patricia countered.

Attorney Hardwick folded his hands calmly.

“From a legal standpoint, we need proof,” he said. “The fortune Andrew left behind is substantial. If this child is truly his, she has rights. If she isn’t, you’re vulnerable to manipulation. Feelings don’t hold up in court. Documents and tests do.”

“We’re not digging up my son,” Marianne said instantly, hearing where this was going.

“There is another option,” he replied. “We can do a DNA test using your blood and the child’s. It’s not as strong as testing with the father, but still a significant indicator. It has to be done in a certified lab, properly witnessed.”

Marianne’s stomach turned at the thought, but she also knew one thing: if the test confirmed what she already felt, no one in the family could deny Lily’s place.

“I’ll do the test,” she said finally. “But on one condition. No one talks to Elena or Lily. No investigators, no scare tactics, nothing. You leave them alone.”

“And if she runs?” Patricia asked. “If she takes the child and disappears?”

“She won’t,” Marianne said, hoping she was right.

Later, in the quiet of her office, Mrs. Donna Hale, the long-time housekeeper who had helped raise Andrew, found her staring at the window.

“You did the right thing,” Donna told her gently. “If Lily is really Andrew’s child, no one will be able to deny her again.”

“And if Elena feels betrayed?” Marianne whispered. “If she thinks I don’t trust her and just walks away?”

“Then you go after them,” Donna said simply. “Because when you love someone, you don’t give up the moment things get hard.”

The Letter Andrew Left Behind

The next day, Marianne drove to the laundromat where Elena worked. In the back room, between bins of clothes and the hum of machines, she explained everything—the family meeting, the pressure, the test. With each word, Elena’s face went paler.

“So they want to use his body to check if I’m telling the truth,” Elena said quietly, horrified.

“No,” Marianne answered quickly. “I won’t allow that. I agreed to use my DNA instead. But they’re pushing. They’re afraid you’re after money.”

“Money?” Elena repeated, anger sparking again. “I’ve raised Lily in a storage room behind this place. I’ve skipped meals so she could eat. I never came to you asking for anything. I only brought her to his grave so she would know him in some small way. And now they want to treat me like a liar who has to prove she isn’t?”

“It’s not about trust,” Marianne tried.

“That’s exactly what it’s about,” Elena cut in. “You say you’ve changed, but the first time your family raises their voices, you come here with a lab form in your hand. Maybe I should take Lily and go somewhere you’ll never find us.”

Marianne felt the ground slipping again.

“Please,” she begged. “Give me one week. We do the test, we prove what we both know is true, and then no one will be able to deny Lily again.”

“And if something goes wrong?” Elena asked. “If the test is inconclusive, or there’s some mistake? Do you have any idea how easy it would be for them to twist that against me? I have nothing. They have lawyers, money, influence. You say you’ll protect us, but how?”

“You have me,” Marianne said, surprising herself with how much she meant it. “And this time, I will fight. I will not abandon you the way I abandoned my own son.”

“I need to think,” Elena said.

“We don’t have much time,” Marianne replied.

“Then I guess you already have my answer,” Elena said, turning back to the laundry. “I won’t do it.”

Marianne left, heart heavy, wondering if she had already lost them both.

That afternoon, while Donna and a small team were organizing Andrew’s old office, they opened a small safe that had been left untouched since the accident. Inside were several sealed envelopes.

“Look at this,” Donna said, bringing them to Marianne.

One envelope had her name on it. Another read: “For Elena Brooks – To be opened only if I don’t make it back.” Another said: “For my child, if I ever have one.”

With trembling hands, Marianne opened her own letter.

In Andrew’s familiar handwriting, she read his confession: how he had been searching for Elena, how he had hired a private investigator, how he planned to go to her, apologize, and choose her no matter what his mother said. He wrote that if Marianne ever read this letter, it meant he hadn’t been brave enough in time. He begged her—begged—to take care of Elena and their child, if there was one. To love them freely, the way she had never allowed him to love.

Marianne read the letter three times, tears blurring the ink.

“I don’t need a test,” she said at last, voice hoarse but steady. “I have everything I need right here. My son told me the truth himself. This time, I’m going to listen.”

Choosing Love Over Control

When Elena arrived at the office later that day, she came prepared for a fight. Instead, she found Marianne sitting alone at her desk, eyes red, an envelope in her hand.

“We found letters Andrew wrote,” Marianne said, offering her the one addressed to Elena. “This one is for you.”

Elena opened it carefully. As she read, her lips trembled. Andrew’s words reached across time and distance, admitting his fear, his weakness, his love for her, his regret for not standing up to his mother, his promise that he had been trying to find her again.

“He really was coming back,” Elena whispered.

“Yes,” Marianne said. “And I kept blocking his path until it was too late. I will not do that again.”

“What about the test?” Elena asked.

“I canceled it,” Marianne replied. “I told the lawyer and the family I don’t need it. I have Andrew’s own words. They are enough for me.”

The door burst open then. Patricia, other relatives, and Attorney Hardwick walked in, ready to argue. But they stopped when they saw Elena there, and Lily holding Donna’s hand just behind her.

“You canceled the test?” Patricia demanded. “Have you lost all sense?”

“I finally found it,” Marianne answered calmly. “Elena is the woman Andrew loved. Lily is his daughter. From now on, they are part of this family.”

“You can’t just decide that,” Attorney Hardwick objected. “This involves inheritance, control of assets—”

“You can contest my role at the company if you want,” Marianne said. “You can try to take away my position, my board seat, every title you think matters. But you will not take away my granddaughter. Not again. I’ve already lost my son by choosing power over love. I will not lose Lily too.”

Little Lily, sensing tension, tugged free from Donna’s hand and ran to Marianne.

“Grandma,” she said, her small voice cutting through the room. “Why is everyone upset?”

“No one is upset, sweetheart,” Marianne murmured, pulling her close.

“Yes they are,” Lily insisted. “But you don’t have to be. Daddy takes care of you.”

The room froze.

“Where is Daddy, Lily?” Marianne asked gently, kneeling to look her in the eye.

“In the sky,” Lily said, pointing upward. “Mommy says he watches us. Now he watches you too, Grandma.”

Tears poured down Marianne’s face. Not just from grief this time, but from something like release.

Patricia stared at the child, really seeing her for the first time.

“She has his eyes,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Marianne said. “His eyes, his smile, and his heart. Lily is a second chance we do not deserve, but we have anyway.”

If the family didn’t like it, they would have to live with it. Marianne had finally chosen which side she was on.

A Different Kind of Family

Weeks later, Marianne, Elena, and Lily stood together again at Greenhaven Memorial Park. But this time, the air felt different. The grief was still there, but it no longer crushed every breath.

“Daddy, I brought you flowers,” Lily said, placing a little bunch of daisies on the stone. “Grandma bought me a new doll, but I still love Mommy’s old doll too. And you know what? Now I have a big family. Grandma, Mommy, Aunt Patricia, Uncle Martin, Aunt Glenda. Everyone loves me. Everyone loves you.”

Elena and Marianne shared a look full of emotion.

“Thank you for giving me this chance,” Marianne said to Elena. “For letting me know Lily. For letting me try to be better than I was.”

“Thank you for finally fighting for us,” Elena replied. “I think Andrew would be proud of you.”

“He would?” Lily asked, looking up at them.

“Very proud,” Marianne said, kneeling between them and wrapping an arm around each. “Because today, we are a real family. The kind he always wanted.”

Lily hugged them both.

“I love you,” she said simply.

“We love you too, sweetheart,” they answered together.

As the sun dipped lower in the sky, three generations stood united—not by contracts or tests, but by something stronger.

By the love Andrew had planted in both of them.
By the courage it took for Elena to keep going, alone, when no one believed her.
By the painful choice Marianne finally made to let go of control and hold on to the people in front of her.

For years, Marianne had believed that power, status, and perfect decisions defined a successful life. It took losing her son—and almost losing her granddaughter—to understand something much simpler and far more important:

Real family is not proven by documents alone.
Real family is built, day by day, through love, acceptance, and forgiveness.

And for Marianne, Elena, and Lily, this was only the beginning.