Shortened Version
Paulo and Mira had been married just a week after a modest but heartfelt wedding in Batangas. Mira impressed everyone—gentle, respectful, always smiling. I’d boast to friends, “We’re blessed to have her.”
Days later, I noticed Mira changing the fresh bedding multiple times daily. When I asked, she said, “I’m allergic to dust, Nanay.” But something felt off.
One morning, I slipped into her room and was struck by a metallic odor. Pulling back the sheet, I found the mattress seeded with dark, heavy bloodstains. In the drawer lay bandages, antiseptic, and a blood-stained undershirt.
I hurried her upstairs. She trembled, eyes brimming with tears, before collapsing into my arms and confessing: “Nanay… Paulo has late-stage leukemia. Doctors said he’d live only months. I rushed the wedding because I couldn’t bear to be without him.”
That night I lay awake, heart aching for both of them. At dawn I joined her in washing the stained sheets, silently pledging to stand by them.
Three months later, Paulo passed peacefully in his sleep with Mira holding his hand, whispering “I love you.” No agony—only serenity, his faint smile the last image of his peace.
Mira stayed. Never returned to her parents, never remarried. She helped run our food stall and treated me as her mother. Now, two years on, when asked why she stays, I simply say with a smile:
“She wasn’t just my son’s wife—she became my daughter. This will always be her home.”