The Reyes house in Forbes Park, Makati, was far too big for four people—yet it felt empty all the same.
Not the emptiness of missing furniture or dim lights, but the kind left by an absence that still echoed inside, even when no one dared to say the name out loud anymore.
Eight months had passed since Isabel died. And each of those months had settled over Adrian Reyes like dust on an old photograph—first blurring everything, then slowly hardening into something heavy and permanent.
That afternoon, Adrian came home without warning.
He left Bonifacio Global City earlier than planned, like a man running from a fire that was actually burning inside his chest. The day at work had been a series of blows: a failed product launch, investors pulling back, a board meeting filled with cold questions from people who had never tried to hold a broken family together with shaking hands.
At four o’clock, he walked out of the glass tower with his briefcase clenched tight, his tie loosened, and a directionless anger pounding through him. His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.
He wasn’t angry at work.
He wasn’t angry at the board.
He was angry at life.
And in his darkest moments, he was angry at God—for taking Isabel away and leaving him alone with three children he no longer knew how to touch without hurting them.
When he parked in the driveway, what he felt wasn’t rage anymore—it was exhaustion.
The kind that sleep can’t fix, because it lives in the soul.
He walked toward the door expecting the same thing as always.
Silence.
That silence that greeted him every day like a sentence, reminding him that his wife was gone and that his children—his triplets—had turned into quiet shadows, walking on tiptoe as if afraid of breaking.
He slid the key into the lock, pushed the door open—
And froze.
It wasn’t silence.
It was laughter.
Real laughter.
Not nervous sounds. Not careful noises.
But the kind of laughter that bursts out freely, without permission.
Adrian felt his heart stop for a second, as if his body didn’t know what to do with a miracle after so much grief.
Rafael, Nico, and Mateo—his three sons—laughing.
Laughing like they hadn’t laughed even once since the night Isabel died. Since that unfair, senseless night when a drunk driver hit her while she had gone out just to buy medicine. She had been thinking about cough syrup, a thermometer, groceries—never imagining it would be her last walk.
The briefcase slipped from Adrian’s hand and hit the floor with a dull thud.
He walked down the hallway following the sound, his breathing shallow, afraid that getting closer might make it disappear.
The walls were lined with Isabel’s paintings—abstract, colorful pieces she had painted during sleepless nights. Yet none of them had brought warmth back into the house.
But that laughter…
That laughter was warming the walls from the inside.
He opened the living room door—
And time split in two.
Lina Cruz, the woman his mother-in-law had hired a month ago, was kneeling on the floor.
She wasn’t “watching” the children the way a nanny keeps an eye on them from a distance.
She was inside the game with them.
All three boys were piled on her back like little riders, cheeks flushed, eyes shining. Mateo had looped a soft rope around her neck like reins.
Lina neighed like a horse, shook her imaginary mane, tossed her head, and laughed with them—without embarrassment, without fear of looking ridiculous, as if the outside world didn’t exist.
Adrian couldn’t move.
He couldn’t breathe.
The scene hurt him in a strange way—because it was beautiful, and because it accused him.
His sons—the same boys who woke up crying, who sat in silence for hours, who asked every day when Mommy was coming back—were truly playing.
And not with him.
With her.
With a woman he barely knew.
A worker who had entered his home because his mother-in-law chose her—because he hadn’t even had the strength to choose himself.
The laughter stopped suddenly when Lina looked up.
Her eyes met Adrian’s, and in an instant the air grew tense. Lina froze, fear crossing her face, like someone who felt she had crossed an invisible line.
The children instinctively slid off her back and clustered near her, as if protecting her.
Adrian’s throat closed.
He wanted to say thank you.
He wanted to say you have no idea what you just did.
He wanted to say I’m sorry I couldn’t do this myself.
But all that came out was a small nod. Awkward. Insufficient.
Then he turned around and left before the tears could fall in front of them.
That night, Adrian didn’t sleep.
He stayed in his home office with the lights off, staring at the ceiling, listening to laughter that was no longer in the house but echoed in his memory like a stubborn sound that refused to fade.
He asked himself the same question over and over:
How did she do it?
He had tried everything.
Books about childhood grief stacked on his desk.
The best child psychologist in Metro Manila, Dr. Patricia Lim, coming twice a week with her gentle voice, sitting on the floor, inviting the boys to talk about feelings they didn’t even know how to name.
New toys.
Routines.
Schedules.
Fresh air.
Healthy food.
Nothing had broken the wall.
The children had slowly gone quiet, like candles burning down where no one could see.
And then Lina appeared.
Adrian opened the file his mother-in-law had sent—the one he had barely read.
“Lina Cruz, 28 years old. References from a family in Quezon City.”
No college degree.
And a handwritten note at the bottom:
“I understand grief. I will not run from it.”
Adrian stared at those words until his eyes burned.
Most people ran from grief.
He himself ran from it.
Friends stopped calling after the funeral—not out of cruelty, but fear. Fear of not knowing what to say. Fear of standing useless in front of pain that couldn’t be fixed.
His mother-in-law came and went with worry in her eyes.
And he…
He hid at work, as if meetings could cover the empty space in the bed.
The next morning, he came downstairs early.
He told himself it was for a call with Tokyo, but the lie was obvious even to him.
He wanted to see her.
He wanted to understand.
Lina was in the kitchen, moving calmly—scrambled eggs, orange juice, warm plates. Nothing extraordinary, yet her presence felt like a steady hand during an earthquake.
The boys came running in their pajamas.
Mateo saw her first and smiled.
A real smile.
—“Ate Lina, can we play horses again today?” he asked, without fear.
Adrian felt something tighten in his chest.
Lina looked up and saw him. Her smile faltered for a second.
—“Good morning, Mr. Reyes…” she said softly.
—“Adrian,” he corrected, more roughly than he intended. “Just Adrian.”
Rafael tugged at Lina’s shirt.
—“Can we?” he asked again, and Nico jumped in with a spontaneous “Please!” so bright Adrian barely recognized it as his son’s voice.
Lina looked at Adrian, hesitant—asking permission, afraid he might suddenly remember that she was “just” an employee.
Adrian swallowed.
He thought of Isabel.
Isabel would have said yes without hesitation.
She always knew how to play.
He always knew how to work.
—“It’s okay,” he said at last. “Let them play.”
Three pairs of eyes stared at him as if he had opened a secret door.
Lina stared too—surprised.
During breakfast, the boys spoke to her in short sentences. Mateo told her about a dream. Nico asked if she liked dinosaurs. Rafael didn’t talk much, but stayed so close to her it was as if his body needed that closeness to feel safe.
Lina listened as if every word mattered.
Adrian started coming home earlier.
He made excuses—less work, lighter schedule, traffic.
But the truth was simpler.
He wanted to hear that laughter again.
He wanted to recover something he thought was gone forever.
The house was still full of Isabel.
Her handwriting on the grocery list on the fridge:
Milk, eggs, blueberries. Don’t forget the medicine.
Her coffee mug in the cabinet, untouched, as if washing it would betray her.
The master bedroom—bed perfectly made, her pillow holding the shape of a head that would never return.
Adrian still slept on the couch in his office, surrounded by papers that no longer mattered.
He felt that if he changed anything—if he moved even one thing—he would be erasing Isabel a second time.
One night, close to midnight, he wandered the house until he saw a soft light in the library.
Lina was there, barefoot, curled in one corner of the leather sofa with a book open. She didn’t look intimidated by the weight of the house, as if her heart had an anchor his had lost.
Adrian cleared his throat.
Lina looked up, calm.
—“You can’t sleep either?” she asked.
He shook his head and sat across from her—not close, but not far.
The silence between them was different from the hallway silence.
It didn’t accuse.
It didn’t suffocate.
It simply existed.
—“What are you reading?” Adrian asked.
Lina showed him the cover.
—Beloved, by Toni Morrison.
—“Heavy reading before bed,” he murmured.
She shrugged, simply.
—“Heavy thoughts need heavy books.”
Adrian almost smiled.
Almost.
Then the smile broke inside him.
—“They laughed yesterday,” he said quietly. “They laughed for real. I haven’t heard that sound since… since Isabel.”
Lina didn’t look away.
She didn’t fear the name.
—“They talk about her,” she said.
Adrian felt his chest tighten.
—“What do they say?”
—“That she smelled like flowers. That she sang off-key in the car. That on Tuesdays, she let them eat dessert first.”
Tears rose in Adrian’s eyes without permission.
Those details…
He had forgotten them. Or pushed them away to survive.
And there they were again—alive in his children’s voices—because a woman had chosen not to run.
—“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for… not erasing her.”
Lina closed the book. For a second, she looked more tired than usual.
—“You can’t heal by pretending it didn’t happen,” she said. “Sometimes laughter comes back when you stop fighting sadness.”
Adrian studied her.
There was something in the way she said it—as if she spoke from experience.
—“Where does that courage come from?” he asked without thinking.
Lina grew still.
Then she took a breath.
—“From having been a coward before,” she answered.
And for the first time, Adrian stopped seeing her as “the helper.”
He saw her as someone who had also lost—and still had hands strong enough to lift others.