On a cold, wind-laden evening in Baguio, my baby cried inconsolably, and my life was crumbling, until I opened the door to two elderly strangers shivering in the chill, carrying a painful truth and the salvation we didn’t know we needed.
The apartment was steeped in tense silence, broken only by the agonizing cries of my five-month-old daughter. She had been crying like that, with brief pauses, for almost two hours. I, Marco Santos, paced the small living room of my unit in Baguio City, cradling my daughter, Alba, against my shoulder. Her tiny body was stiff as a plank, tensed by the relentless colic that always seemed to worsen as the sun dipped behind the mountains.
“Shhh, baby. Shhh, Papa’s here. It’s okay… it’ll pass,” I whispered, even though I knew it wasn’t true. It never passed. Papa was there, yes, but utterly useless.
Six months had passed since the accident on the Kennon Road that took Lucia from me. Six months since the policeman removed his cap at my door and my world turned gray. It was 7:43 PM on a late November Friday, and I was on the edge of sanity. The first wave of the cold season had hit Baguio hard. The thermometer read 2°C, normal for the mountains, but that night, the wind bit like a predator. Snow was predicted for the early morning—a disaster for a city of steep streets and cobblestones.
I had tried everything for Alba. Bicycle leg movements taught by the pediatrician at the public hospital. Gas relief drops, costing ₱1,200 at the pharmacy, seeming miraculous only in price. Circling the apartment until my calves burned, singing softly all the songs I remembered from local bands, even trying the white noise of a hair dryer. Nothing worked. Alba’s cries escalated into piercing shrieks. Her face flushed crimson, arching backward with a strength that terrified me.
“I know, darling. I know. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do. I’m a mess,” I whispered, tears stinging my eyes.
Then, there was a knock.
At first soft. Tap, tap, tap. Hesitant. Then louder, more insistent. Urgent.
Frozen in the middle of the living room, I hesitated. No one knocked on my door on a Friday night. My neighbors were either elderly retirees or students who kept to themselves. My brother Carlos in Manila hadn’t spoken to me for weeks. Friends… well, friends didn’t know what to say when you were a widower at thirty-two, so they stopped calling.
The knock came again, desperate, almost frantic. My first instinct was to ignore it, pretend I wasn’t home. I had enough problems. A screaming baby, rising utility bills, a job at a small real estate office barely covering rent and diapers. My apartment still smelled faintly of the fabric softener Lucia loved, and I lacked the energy to even change the sheets.
But Alba screamed. Whoever it was could hear her. And there was something in that desperate knocking, in the sharp raps against wood, that twisted my stomach.
I walked to the door, cradling Alba, and peered through the peephole.
My heart stopped.
An elderly couple stood on the landing, wrapped in thin jackets meant for Manila weather, useless against Baguio’s biting cold. The woman’s gray hair was messy, and her eyes appeared swollen and haunted. The man held her shoulders as if she might collapse at any moment. They looked terrified, lost, as if they had walked to the end of the world and found an abyss.
My hand froze on the latch. Don’t open it, my brain screamed. You have a baby. You don’t know them. It could be a scam, a robbery.
But the woman clung to the man, shivering violently. I saw the man’s face, etched with the shame of having to bother someone. I had known that shame myself when I begged for an advance to pay for Lucia’s funeral.
What if something happened to Alba? But the woman’s lips were literally blue.
I made a decision. I turned the latch and opened the door.
The icy hallway air rushed in, mixing with the heat from my heater. The woman’s eyes went straight to Alba, still wailing, then to my face—a mixture of relief and guilt.
“Oh, child. I’m so sorry. We didn’t know where to go. We need help, please,” her voice rasped, broken, as if she had been crying for hours.
I raised my voice over Alba’s cries.
“What kind of help?”
The man’s voice trembled, not just from the cold. Fear. Pure shame.
“We are lost. We have been walking for hours looking for our new home. It’s dark, it’s freezing… we have no phone, and my wife, Catalina, isn’t well. We just need to warm up, maybe use your phone… please, sir, we wouldn’t ask if we weren’t desperate.”
I looked at them closely. No gloves. No scarves. Catalina’s hands shook violently. I recognized the signs of mild hypothermia.
Alba screamed again, and Catalina’s expression shifted from fear to recognition. Instinct. The instinct of someone who had cared for decades.
“She has colic,” Catalina said firmly, cutting through Alba’s cries. “Strong colic. I can hear it. How long has she been like this?”
“Two hours tonight. Five months in general,” I replied, exhausted.
“May I?” Catalina extended her trembling hands.
All my internal alarms blared. Don’t hand your baby to a stranger. But Alba was screaming as if being murdered. The woman had something… wisdom, genuine compassion. I stepped aside.
“Please, come in. But I will have the phone in my hand. I don’t know you, and I must protect my daughter. I hope you understand.”
The relief that flooded their faces was painful to witness.
I brought them into the living room. The apartment was messy, toys scattered, half-eaten sandwiches, laundry piled on the couch. My phone weighed like a weapon in my back pocket.
“Sit. I’ll bring water and turn up the heat,” I said over Alba’s cries.
I raised the thermostat to 24°C. Héctor and Catalina shivered so violently the sofa trembled. I grabbed a thick wool blanket from the closet and draped it over Héctor first.
“Here. You need to warm up gradually.”
“You’re very kind,” he said, voice cracking.
Catalina reached for Alba.
“Let me hold her, please. I know how to calm her.”
I handed Alba with extreme care. Catalina adjusted her, placing her face down on her forearm, supporting her head in her palm, legs dangling. Then she began rubbing her back rhythmically.
“Gas pain,” she murmured. “This position uses gravity. I’ve raised two daughters, seven grandchildren. I worked in a daycare in Cebu before retiring. Colic usually improves around the fifth or sixth month. I’m just helping her find relief faster.”
I froze. My hand hovered near the phone. But this was skill. Love. Expertise.
Alba quieted. She fell asleep.
The next hours were transformative. Catalina established routines for Alba. Héctor fixed the leaky faucet, painted the corridor, organized the storage room, and cooked. Simple, nourishing Filipino meals: adobo on Mondays, sinigang on Tuesdays, rice and fresh vegetables on Sundays. The apartment, once a silent tomb, was alive.
Weeks later, with my legal friend Tomas’ help, we discovered the truth: Diego, our relative by marriage, had stolen Héctor and Catalina’s life savings, faking a property purchase in Baguio. The couple had been stranded on the streets, helpless. We recovered part of their money, but the real miracle was the family we had built.
Years passed. Alba grew up calling Héctor “Lolo” and Catalina “Lola.” I met Elena, a nurse, who embraced this unconventional family with warmth. Héctor and Catalina passed away peacefully, leaving behind love, not bitterness. Alba thrived surrounded by their wisdom.
Now, I sit in that same living room, watching Alba, now twelve, doing homework, the same door that one November night separated despair from hope. Life is strange. Miracles are sometimes just a knock on the door and the courage to open it.