I was hired to care for an anonymous grave for five years. No family ever came—until the day I saw the photograph on the headstone. It was a picture of me as a child.
My name is Mateo Reyes, and I was twenty-five when I began working as a cemetery caretaker. In Manila, the job sounded grim, but in reality it was quiet, almost meditative. I cleaned headstones, trimmed weeds, replaced flowers, and lit candles for graves whose families lived overseas—or had vanished with time.
Five years earlier, a woman named Doña Isabela had contacted me through the cemetery office. She was refined, her face mostly hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat and dark sunglasses. She asked me to tend to a single grave, tucked away in the farthest corner of La Loma Catholic Cemetery, where the paths grew narrow and few people walked.
The contract was strange.
I was to care for the grave as if it belonged to my own family. It had to remain spotless—no weeds, no dust, no neglect. And most unusually, the headstone was to bear no name.
“If anyone asks,” Doña Isabela said in a low, weathered voice, “tell them it is the Nameless Grave.”
She offered me ten times the usual rate.
And she paid exactly as promised. Every month, without fail. Not a single peso was ever missing.
Over the years, I transformed the dry patch of ground into a small garden. I planted bougainvillea behind the stone, laid fresh sampaguita garlands every week, and covered the soil with smooth river pebbles. I worked carefully, respectfully, as if the person beneath the earth could feel my presence.
Yet something about the grave always troubled me.
No one ever came.
Doña Isabela never returned. No relatives left flowers. No whispered prayers. No tears. Just silence.
I often wondered who could be so completely alone in death. A criminal? A forgotten soul? Or someone whose existence had to be erased?
As I worked, I spoke softly to the grave.
“Mangoes are cheap this season,” I would murmur. “I suppose there are no mangoes where you are.”
“The rainy months were long. I had to change the soil again. I hope you’re not cold.”
Talking filled the silence—and eased the guilt of being paid to care for someone no one remembered.
On the final day of the fifth year, as I watered the bougainvillea, Doña Isabela appeared without warning. She no longer wore dark glasses, though her hat still cast a shadow across her face.
She handed me a small, carved wooden box…
“Mateo,” she said softly. “Today makes five years. You kept your promise.”
Her voice trembled as she looked at the grave.
“One last request. Inside this box is something important. Tomorrow, place it on the highest point of the headstone, where I marked it.”
I wanted to ask who lay beneath the stone, but her eyes stopped me—heavy with exhaustion and finality.
“After that,” she added, “you won’t need to care for this grave anymore. I’ll pay you for a full sixth year. In gratitude.”
Then she turned and disappeared among the cemetery trees.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. Ending the contract felt like losing a silent companion. Eventually, curiosity overcame restraint, and I opened the wooden box.
Inside was an old bronze picture frame, carefully polished.
The photograph inside made my blood run cold.
It was a smiling five-year-old boy, missing his two front teeth, wearing a striped shirt and standing beside a pot of flowering gumamela.
The boy was me.
The next morning, my hands trembled as I placed the frame on the headstone. The innocent smile looked painfully out of place among the graves.
Why my photo?
I remembered that picture clearly. It had been taken one Christmas in the yard of our old house in Quezon City. My mother, María, had taken it shortly before moving us away, leaving behind the man she said had abandoned us—my father, Rafael Reyes, an alcoholic who disappeared without explanation.
I grew up hating a man I never knew.
So why was my childhood photo here?
Driven by dread, I lifted the stone slab at the base of the grave. Beneath it was not soil, but a sealed metal box.
Inside lay a leather-bound journal, an old press ID, and a folded document.
A death certificate.
Name: Rafael Reyes
Date of death: Five years earlier—the exact day I was hired
Relationship: Father
I collapsed to my knees.
My father had been beneath my feet the entire time.
The journal revealed the truth.
Rafael Reyes had not abandoned us. He was an investigative journalist who uncovered a smuggling ring trafficking looted pre-colonial artifacts—protected by a powerful political family.
“They know,” one entry read. “They came looking for María and my Mateo. I can’t escape, but I can protect my son. María, tell him I left because of drink. Erase me.”
The final entry was written in shaking ink.
“I won’t live long. Keep Mateo’s photo—the one with his missing teeth. That smile is why I fought. Let that photo be on my grave. A nameless grave. So one day, when it’s safe, he’ll know the man here died for him.”
Doña Isabela was my aunt.
When I stood before her door, grief had settled into calm.
“I found the box,” I said.
She nodded. “It was your mother’s idea,” she whispered. “She wanted you close to your father—without danger. She wanted you to care for him with your own hands.”
I returned to the cemetery one last time. I lit a candle and stood in silence.
“Papa… forgive me. Thank you for protecting me.”
The Nameless Grave would remain nameless to the world.
But not to me.