The old woman’s funeral took place on a drizzly afternoon. I stood silently beside the coffin, my hands still shaking from the last warmth she had left. Ten years… I have never left this house for more than one night. For ten years, I was a daughter-in-law, a servant, and a daughter who didn’t know

The old woman’s funeral took place on a drizzly afternoon.
I stood silently beside the coffin, my hands still shaking from the last warmth she had left.
Ten years… I have never left this house for more than one night. For ten years, I was a daughter-in-law, a servant, a daughter who couldn’t give birth — in their eyes.
And today, when she closed her eyes, I felt liberated.
But unexpectedly, what I received in return—not freedom, but a cold divorce paper.

The day I walked to his house, there were only two people in the fourth-grade house on the outskirts of Marikina: his mother and me.
At that time, Julius Enriquez had already packed up to go to Manila to study for graduate school, saying that as long as he tried for a few more years, he would succeed, and he would take me into a different life.
I believed.
Because at that time, I was just a nineteen-year-old girl, from the Visayas, orphaned by my parents, who had just finished high school, clinging to him like a lifebuoy.

His mother — Aling Nida — didn’t like me at first. She said that I was a provincial girl, not a registered student, her face was austere, and she had no blessings. But then when her rheumatism recurred, I was the only one who applied porridge, changed diapers, and applied heat to her every night. She gradually softened her heart.
“I’m going to suffer anyway,” she muttered once as I massaged her legs.

When he was in Manila, I plowed in the field, and in the evening I also went to sell noodles. There were days when it was bitterly cold, I had to soak my feet in cold water in the middle of the night to carry more batches of vegetables to the market early in the morning.
That time, he called back, saying that there was still a shortage of tuition fees, if he did not pay, he would not be able to take the semester exam.
I didn’t hesitate, collecting all the money I had saved, including the handshake that Aling Nida gave me as a dowry — all to transfer to him.

I used to believe that I was his wife, even though I had not yet organized a wedding. Everyone in the neighborhood thinks so.
We registered our marriage when he returned to his hometown for summer vacation that year.
No wedding invitations, no white dresses, no blessings.
There is only one piece of paper and two signatures.

In the summer of her sixth year, Aling Nida had a stroke.
I stayed up for three nights at the provincial hospital. Every evening, the nurse looked at me with concern:
“If you don’t sleep, you will collapse.”
But I couldn’t fall. Because if I fall, who will clean for my mother-in-law, who will fertilize the porridge, who will help her when she has a heart attack?
I clearly remember the rainy night, I walked more than 3km because I couldn’t catch a car, just to bring her the woolen towel she liked the most. When I arrived at the hospital, I had a fever and shivered.
Three days later, the doctor told me that I had severe inflammation, affecting the uterus.
I couldn’t have children later.

When I told him the news over the phone, he was silent for a long time.
In the end, he just said:
“It’s okay, having you is enough.”

I believed so.

Ten years passed, I got old, I got thinner. He became a university professor.
I was still in the old house.
He didn’t come back once.

It was only when Aling Nida was dying that he appeared.

He walked into the hospital room, his figure was tall, his white shirt was straight, and the smell of perfume was faint. I was both happy and sorry, reached out and grabbed his hand, and he coldly backed away.
“Wait for mom to go, I have something to say.”

The thing is that the divorce papers he has just signed.

I was shocked.
He told me to understand my identity.
“I can’t give birth. Clarisse is pregnant. She is my future.”
I stood dumbfounded.
“And am I your past?”
“No, it’s a mistake,” he said, his eyes unwavering.

I didn’t cry.
Can’t cry.
I just laughed, and then quietly signed.

The divorce papers were signed in the gloomy afternoon, when the chanting for his mother had not yet ended.
I folded it up and put it in my bag like a meaningless piece of paper.

The next day, I left that house — without looking back.
In my house, I used to kneel down to scrub the floor, cook rice, change diapers for patients.
The house I used to call “my husband’s house.”

I started over—from empty hands, a weak body, and a heart with nothing left to lose.

I went to Quezon City and rented a small room in Barangay Doña Imelda.
I didn’t have any money to carry, but I used to sell vegetables, wash dishes, do all the most authentic things to survive — so I wasn’t afraid.

During the day, I go to work by the hour, and in the evening I come back to receive folded paper bags for a printing factory.
In my free time, I studied computer at a nearby center.
People laugh at me for being 29 years old when I learned Word and Excel. I don’t care.
Because I knew I wouldn’t sit and wash dishes for the rest of my life.

Three months later, I applied for a job as a receptionist for a small company of acquaintances in the countryside. The salary is small, but the environment is civilized. I worked hard to learn more office skills, basic English, how to write emails, and how to communicate at work.
A year later, I was promoted to assistant director—because the director himself said,
“You’re the only one who doesn’t complain despite having to do the most work.”

I still remember the day I received my first salary of ₱12,000.
I held it in my hand, tears rolling down my face, not because of the money, but because I understood—I didn’t die.

Three years later, I was the head of the administrative and human resources department of an import-export company that had just been invested by foreign investors.
I cut my hair short, wore a suit, rode an old but clean, neat scooter.
I am no longer Marikina’s “half-hearted daughter-in-law”.
I am Maria Teresa Halili, a 32-year-old woman who has survived hell, and is stepping out of the ground.

It was at that moment that fate came again.

A conference linking universities and businesses held at a large hotel in Ortigas.
My company joined as a guest.
I was appointed as a representative to meet with the university organizing committee.

And I met Julius Enriquez again.
He is now the Vice Rector of the University of Economics and Education.
His hair had a few silver strands, but his appearance was still as arrogant as before.

His gaze paused when he saw me walk over — in a cream-colored suit, high heels, short hair, and a slender figure but exuding self-control.

I looked him straight in the eye.
“Hello, it’s been a long time.”
He was embarrassed:
“I… How are you living these days?”

I smiled.
“It’s much better than ten years ago. Thank you for giving me a chance to change my life.”

I turned away, leaving him standing naked in the middle of the hall.

A little later, I happened to know that Clarisse, the woman he had left me to marry, was in trouble.
She used to be a contract lecturer, but due to her involvement in scholarship violations, she was suspended.
Their son—the one I once compared to a “hen that doesn’t know how to lay eggs”—was diagnosed with autism.

One day, I received an email from Julius Enriquez himself.
He said he wanted to meet, “talk once and everything.”
I agreed.

We met at a café near UP Diliman.
He is no longer arrogant. It’s just a middle-aged man who is slowly losing everything.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’ve been too ruthless. I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”
I took a sip of tea.
“You don’t need my forgiveness. You just have to accept that I’m no longer at your feet.”

I stood up, pulled out an envelope from my pocket.
“This is a transfer receipt of ₱20,000. Send it to your child. Not for him, but for the innocent child.
And in

I left. It was very beautiful that day. Manila in autumn, the yellow leaves fell as gently as my heart — after ten years of turbulence, it was finally peaceful.

They said an old woman like me couldn’t change.
They say divorce is the end of a person’s life.

But I chose to use it as a comma.
To start over — with courage, with yourself, without anyone to save you.

I used to be a shadow in a narrow house in Marikina.
Now, I am the light that comes out of the night.
Alone — and enough.