I still remember that rainy afternoon—when I was kicked out of the house I once called “home” in Quezon City with only a suitcase of clothes and a phone that was about to run out of battery. My husband—the one who had sworn to “love you forever”—mercilessly threw me out onto the street after my second miscarriage.
“I married you to have children, not to raise someone who only knew how to cry,” he growled and closed the door. The sound of the door closing was like a sentence.
I stood there, stuck in the rain. My parents had died early, I had no siblings, and very few relatives. All my friends were busy with their own families. I took a night bus to Manila, escaping the pain. I returned to Batangas, the poor countryside where I was born and left so many years ago. No one remembered the brilliant student. I rented a small room next to the market, I lived every day: helping sell vegetables, cleaning—doing whatever people asked.
Then I met Tomas.
He was my age, working as a construction worker for a small team near the market. Tall, tanned, quiet, but with strangely gentle eyes. That day he stopped by the room and asked:
“Did you just come back from your province? Why do you seem strange and familiar?”
I smiled without hesitation: “Strange, but familiar because… We are both poor.”
Tomas laughed—rarely but sincerely. From then on, every afternoon after work, he stopped to buy vegetables, even though he clearly didn’t need much.
One day, it rained heavily, and the room I was renting was leaking everywhere. Tomas stopped, saw me huddled under the blanket, and said:
“You’re just staying at my house for a few days. I don’t leave my room. I live alone.”
I was confused but tired so I nodded. He was kind, gentle, and didn’t cross the line. We lived in the same house but we didn’t sleep next to each other. He cooked rice, and saved some for himself; I washed and dried his clothes. Everything happened naturally.
A week. Then two. One afternoon, as he cleared the table for dinner, he hesitated:
“I know you’ve suffered… I have nothing—no home, little money—but if you don’t mind… Shall we get married?”
I was stunned. A part of me wanted to say no because my wounds hadn’t healed; In truth, I had wanted a real home for a long time. After all, I nodded.
The wedding at the barangay hall was simple: a few trays of food, a few members of the construction team. No wedding dress, no wedding bouquet. I wore my mother’s old Filipiniana; the wedding ring was a silver bracelet that Tomas had made himself.
After the wedding, life was surprisingly simple. Tomas still worked, waking up early in the morning to cook porridge for me before going to the construction site. I grew vegetables and sold them at the market. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t drink, didn’t gamble. When he came home in the evening, he simply asked:
“Have you eaten yet?”
“Are you sad?”
“Did someone hurt you?
I started to feel important—not because I had children or not, but because I considered someone important.
Until one day, while cleaning the house, I discovered a wooden box hidden under my bed.
Surprised, I opened it.
Inside were…
three certificates of land use rights—all in the name of Tomas Reyes—and a time deposit book with a term of over ₱1.8 million.
I was stunned. The factory wife wearing plastic sandals, eating dried fish with stir-fried spinach at night… With three lots of land and a lot of savings—and never said a word?
Why? Who was she really? Why did she choose to live like a poor person? And… Why did she marry someone like me?
I put everything back where it belonged, but I couldn’t sleep all night. The questions kept coming: “Why did you hide me? Who are you? Did you mean to approach me?”
The next morning, Tomas came home wearing a sweaty shirt, and I couldn’t help but say:
“Tomas … I’m sorry. I saw something under the bed.”
He stopped, looked at me for a long time, and then sat down. His voice was hoarse, his eyes unblaming—just tired:
“I knew this day would come. I didn’t want to keep it from you forever.”
I held my breath.
“I’m not as poor as you think. I used to be a construction engineer, with a small company and my own house in Lipa. Four years ago, my husband … He left me for someone else. He took all the company’s money, including the title to the house. I went bankrupt and almost committed suicide.
My mother—who had the title to the land—later passed away and left it to me. The time deposit money I saved from various jobs: construction sites, driving tricycles, gardening for rent… I lived frugally not because I didn’t have money, but because I wanted to learn how to start over. I didn’t trust anyone. I didn’t love anyone.”
He raised his head, his voice low:
“Then I met you—a thin man, with eyes that were both painful and hard. I saw myself in you. I didn’t tell you the truth because I was afraid you would think I pitied you, or that I was using money to seduce you.”
“But… Why did you marry me?” I whispered.
He laughed—very sincerely:
“Because you didn’t ask me how much money I had. I just wanted a roof over my head, some food, and someone who wouldn’t yell at me.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. After years of losing faith in men and marriage, this man—who made no big promises—quietly gave me the kindest thing he had.
Since then, we haven’t hidden anything from each other. He took me to a piece of land next to a mangrove forest near the coast: where he planned to build a wooden house with his own hands.
“I plan to live alone until I’m old. Now that you’re here… Let’s build two rooms.”
I nodded—for the first time, I felt like I was chosen, not “put up with.”
We envisioned a future: I grew organic vegetables, raised free-range chickens; Tomas used his knowledge to design drip irrigation, build barns, and roast coffee by hand to sell at the sari-sari shop down the street. The land gradually became a peaceful garden—the birds chirping in the morning, and the smell of coffee in the afternoon.
Three months later, the miracle happened: I was pregnant.
After two miscarriages in my previous marriage, I thought my uterus had “given up.” But this time—with a man who never asked me to have a child—I received a gift I thought I had lost.
Tomas hugged me, his hands shaking:
“I don’t need a child. You are enough as long as I am here. But if God blesses us with a child—that would be the best gift.”
I hugged him, tears streaming down my cheeks. For the first time, I understood: marriage is not a cage—it is a home, a place where people come and go willingly every day.
Now, every morning I hear the sound of sawing wood, the sound of roosters crowing, the sound of my wife whistling as she sweeps the yard. Life is still hard, but for the first time in my life I feel so rich—rich because of love, respect, and trust.
If I hadn’t been kicked out of my house, I probably wouldn’t have met this man—Tomas Reyes—who chose to live alone in the middle of the crowded Philippines, to love me with the kindest things.