“Mama, there’s another woman sleeping in you and Papa’s room.”
# CHAPTER 1
“Mama, there’s another woman sleeping in you and Papa’s room.”
My world stopped at that sentence from my seven-year-old daughter Jessa as I stared at the small screen of my cellphone here in my tiny room in Dubai, two in the morning here but noon in Quezon, and the first thing that came to my mind was that my daughter was just joking because she missed me so much and just wanted to make me laugh.
I gripped my phone tightly, the old one with a cracked edge on the left side, and tried to calm my voice even though it felt like a hammer was pounding in my chest. “Child, what do you mean? Maybe that’s Lola Aling Miling or Tita Nena?”
“No, Mama,” Jessa said with a hint of worry in her voice. “It’s a new person. She looks pregnant. She’s lying on your and Papa’s bed and she’s wearing a yellow dress with flowers.”
I froze in front of the small electric fan that was rotating its head beside my bed, feeling the heat of the room even though the air conditioning was on, but the cold feeling inside me was like ice flowing through my veins. Five years I worked as a housemaid here in Dubai, five years I endured being away from my family, five years I sent almost all my salary to build the house with a blue roof that my husband Roger and I dreamed of.
“Bring Lola Aling Miling, child,” I said while trying to stop my fingers from trembling. “Tell Lola to call me.”
Fifteen minutes later, I heard the voice of Aling Miling, our elderly neighbor who helped take care of Jessa since I left for Dubai. “Maria, child, I have something to tell you. Don’t get angry, okay.”
“What is it, Aling Miling?”
“Roger does have a woman, child. They’ve been together for almost a year now. She’s pregnant. She’s living in your house. Jessa has been sleeping here at my place every night because she has nowhere to sleep at your place.”
I felt the cold floor of the room beneath my bare feet as I sat on the edge of the bed, and my first tear fell like a hot drop of water sliding down my cheek. Five years I endured the back pain from cleaning the houses of the rich people here, five years I endured the longing for Jessa on every birthday I missed, five years I saved every cent for the house with the blue roof that now had another woman living in it with my husband.
“Oh, Aling Miling, I didn’t know,” I whispered while holding my pillow that was already wet with tears. “What am I going to do?”
“Come home, Maria. You need to fight for your family.”
The next morning, I went to my employer and asked to leave early, explaining my situation while standing before her with my head bowed, unable to see her reaction through the tears in my eyes. She gave me permission immediately and even gave me some help for the plane fare, and three days later I was standing in front of the house with the blue roof in Quezon, the house I worked hard for five years for, the house that now had someone else living in it.
The door opened and Roger came out with a mix of surprise and guilt on his face. “Maria, why did you come home? You didn’t even tell me.”
“Where is Jessa?” was all I could say.
But before Roger could answer, a woman came out from the door, pregnant indeed, wearing a yellow dress with flowers, and she looked at me as if unafraid. She approached and held Roger’s arm, and her gaze at me seemed to say I had no right to be there.
“Sister, I’m the woman. I’m pregnant and Roger is the father. Leave his life now.”
My whole body went cold as I stood in front of the house I had worked so hard for, the blue roof I wanted to show Jessa that I had built for her, the yard I had planted with plants before I left, all my dreams that now seemed like bubbles that had burst right before my very eyes.
# CHAPTER 2
I couldn’t move from where I stood as I stared at the pregnant woman standing at the door of my house, the house with the blue roof I had worked hard for five years in Dubai, and the only thing on my mind was my daughter Jessa who was seven years old and should have been by my side. I turned to Roger and told him I wanted to see my child, I wanted to be with Jessa right now, but his answer was full of excuses as if he was hiding something from me.
“Sister, Jessa is just in her room, sleeping,” the pregnant woman said with a smile I couldn’t understand—whether she was being malicious or trying to be kind.
But there was something strange in Roger’s voice, it seemed to tremble and he couldn’t look me straight in the eyes, so I immediately went inside the house and went straight to Jessa’s room, the room with pink curtains that I had sewn myself before I left for Dubai. When I opened the door, the room was empty, no Jessa, no belongings, no trace that my child had been here.
“Roger, where is Jessa?” I shouted as I came out of the room and saw them standing side by side in the living room. “Where did you take my child?”
“Maria, calm down,” Roger said as he reached out his hand to me but I ignored him.
I ran out of the house and went straight to Aling Miling’s house across from ours, catching my breath as I knocked on her door repeatedly. The door opened and I saw Aling Miling with a fresh wound on her forehead and swollen eyes, and at that moment I knew something bad had happened.
“Aling Miling, where is Jessa? Why do you have a wound?”
“Maria, child,” Aling Miling said as she pulled me inside her house and wiped my tears with her handkerchief. “Last night, I tried to get Jessa because I heard Roger and that woman arguing about the child. Roger said they wanted to give Jessa away to their relatives in town to be raised there.”
My knees trembled as I listened, like a huge stone was pressing on my chest and I couldn’t breathe properly. “Give away? She’s my child, Aling Miling. I can’t just give her away.”
“I tried to stop them, Maria. I confronted them last night but Roger drove me away, I fell against the door and this is how I got this wound,” Aling Miling said as she held her forehead. “They took Jessa in the early morning, I don’t know where.”
I ran back to the house with the blue roof and banged on the door loudly, Roger and the pregnant woman came out as if nothing had happened and as if they had done nothing wrong to my child.
“Where did you take Jessa?” I shouted repeatedly as I pounded on Roger’s chest.
“Maria, please, calm down,” Roger said but he still wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“Sister, Jessa isn’t here. The neighbor said the woman took her to town. They don’t know where anymore.”
I fell to the floor of the house I had worked so hard for, the floor I had cleaned and painted before I left for Dubai five years ago, and on that floor I sobbed and sobbed as I thought of my daughter Jessa who was seven years old, my daughter who was no longer by my side, my daughter taken by another woman to who knows where.
I called my sister Nena who lives in town and told her everything that happened, and she promised to help me find Jessa. “Sister, don’t worry, we’ll find Jessa. They have no right to take your child.”
But as I lay on the floor of the house that was no longer mine, I felt the cold cement against my skin, I heard the voice of the pregnant woman laughing with Roger in their room, and I thought of how I would face the coming days without my child, the only reason I endured five years in Dubai.
That night, as I stared at the blue roof of the house from Aling Miling’s window, I thought that I needed to fight, I needed to find Jessa, I needed to show them that they couldn’t scare me and they couldn’t just take my child like that.
# CHAPTER 3
I woke up early the next morning at Aling Miling’s house, my body felt beaten by pain and exhaustion but my mind kept working on how to find Jessa, my seven-year-old daughter no longer by my side because of my husband’s betrayal and that pregnant woman. I didn’t eat breakfast even though Aling Miling insisted, instead I prepared myself and said I was going to town to find my child with my sister Nena who was waiting for me there.
While walking to the jeepney stop, I passed a store selling clothes and saw a yellow dress with flowers similar to what the pregnant woman was wearing when I first saw her at my door, and suddenly all the pain and anger I had been feeling since yesterday came rushing back. I thought about how my life had come to this, from a happy mother working in Dubai for her family to a mother who lost her child and her house in a single day.
When I arrived in town, my sister Nena greeted me with photos of Jessa that we would post on poles and stores, and she told me she had already talked to some of Roger’s relatives but no one knew where the child was taken. “Sister, I’ve already told the barangay and the police, they said they would help, but we need evidence that Roger took Jessa.”
At that moment, I remembered Aling Miling who witnessed Jessa being taken, so I immediately called her using Nena’s phone and told her what we needed to do. “Aling Miling, I need you to testify, you’re the only one who saw what happened to Jessa that night.”
“Maria, child, I’ll do everything for you and for Jessa,” Aling Miling answered with tiredness in her voice but determined.
We decided to go back to the house with the blue roof to confront Roger and the woman and to get Jessa’s documents left there, birth certificates and other papers needed for the search. When we arrived, we saw Roger fixing things outside the house, and the pregnant woman was sitting at the doorway as if she didn’t care about anything.
“Roger, I need Jessa’s papers,” I said as I approached him. “And you need to tell me where you took my child.”
“Sister, I already told you, Jessa isn’t here,” the pregnant woman said with annoyance in her voice. “We don’t know where she is anymore. Maybe she’s in Manila.”
But while we were talking, three men arrived in an old vehicle, and one of them got out carrying some papers and approached Roger. I heard them mention something about the house and the land, and my heart suddenly pounded heavily.
“Maria,” Roger said as he approached me with fear on his face. “We need to talk.”
“What about?” I asked while staring at him.
“The house,” Roger said, his voice barely audible. “You need to leave. This is no longer your house.”
“What do you mean this is no longer my house?” I shouted while my whole body trembled.
“Sister, don’t bother coming back. The house is no longer yours. Roger sold it to me yesterday.”
I stood up and looked at the pregnant woman who was smiling at me as if she had won a battle, and I looked at Roger who was bowing his head and couldn’t look at me, and at that moment I felt the full weight of my five years of hard work in Dubai disappear in an instant. The house with the blue roof, the house I dreamed of for Jessa, the house I built with every drop of sweat from cleaning other people’s houses, had been sold by my husband to that pregnant woman.
I fell to the ground while staring at the blue roof of the house that was no longer mine, and beside me was Nena holding my hand and telling me not to give up, but the only thing on my mind was my daughter Jessa and the house I had lost.
# CHAPTER 4
I stayed at Nena’s house in town for several days while we continued searching for Jessa by posting her photos in every corner of Quezon and talking to anyone who might know what happened to my child, and every night that passed I kept replaying the events from when I came home from Dubai until I lost everything. I couldn’t eat properly, I couldn’t sleep soundly, and the only thing that kept me going was the hope of seeing my child again and getting back the house with the blue roof.
One afternoon, while I was sorting through Jessa’s old things that Nena brought from Aling Miling’s house, I found an old envelope under Jessa’s bed, an envelope with my grandfather’s name written on it, the grandfather who died before I was even born. I opened the envelope and found an old land title with my grandfather’s name and a note about transfer of ownership to my name.
“What is this?” I asked Nena while holding the old document that had turned yellow and smelled like an old box.
“Sister, I don’t know. Maybe Jessa found that in Lola’s old chest,” Nena answered as she approached me.
I began reading what was written on the document, and there I learned that the land where the house with the blue roof stood was not actually owned by Roger’s family, but was an inheritance from my grandfather given to me before he died. My grandfather was the original owner of that land, and since his children had passed away, the land went to me as the only granddaughter.
“Son of a bitch!” Nena shouted while reading the document. “Sister, that means the land is yours, not Roger’s or his family’s. They had no right to sell the house built on land that belongs to you!”
My hands trembled as I held the document, and for the first time since I came home from Dubai, I felt a spark of hope like light peeking through dark clouds. “We need to go to the municipal hall to verify this, Nena. We need to know if this is true.”
We went to the municipal hall the next day, and after a long process of verifying the document and checking land records, the official confirmed that the land was indeed registered in my name since my grandfather’s time. The house with the blue roof that I thought I had lost was standing on land that I owned, and Roger’s sale to that woman was void because he had no right to sell land that wasn’t his.
“Sister, the land wasn’t from Roger’s mother, it was from your grandfather, it was in your name as inheritance.”
Tears fell as I stood before the municipal official, and for the first time since I arrived in the Philippines, I felt that there was still hope, that there was still justice, and that my fight for my child and for the house I worked hard for was not yet over.
We went straight to the house with the blue roof and confronted Roger and the pregnant woman, and I showed them the document proving the land was mine. I saw on Roger’s face fear and regret, and on the woman’s face anger and disappointment.
“Maria, I didn’t know,” Roger said as he knelt before me. “I thought the land was mine, I thought I had the right to sell it.”
“It doesn’t matter what you thought, Roger,” I answered while staring at him. “What matters is the land is mine, and I will take back my house.”
But before the conversation ended, I received a call from a friend of Nena in Manila who said she saw a child who looked like Jessa at an orphanage in Tondo, and we immediately made plans to go there to find my child.
# CHAPTER 5
We went to Manila immediately with Nena and Aling Miling who helped me in the search for Jessa, and for three days of searching various orphanages and centers for street children, I didn’t know if I could endure the constant disappointment and hope that kept coming and going like waves in the sea. On the fourth day, an old woman approached us and said she had seen a child who looked like Jessa in a small house at the corner of an alley in Tondo, so we immediately went there.
When we arrived at that house, I saw a little girl sitting at the doorway wearing old clothes and barefoot, and even from a distance I recognized her immediately. “Jessa! Child!” I shouted as I ran towards her.
The child looked at me, and at first it seemed she didn’t recognize me because of how long we hadn’t seen each other and her condition—thin and dirty—but when I got closer and held her hand, her eyes suddenly lit up and she shouted, “Mama! Mama, is it really you?”
I hugged her tightly, feeling every bone in her thin body, and I felt my tears falling into her hair as I tightened my embrace around her. “Yes, child, it’s Mama. I won’t leave you again, Jessa. I won’t let you be taken from me again.”
We learned that one of Roger’s relatives had taken Jessa to Manila and left her with that old woman who had no ability to care for her properly, and instead of having a decent life, my child was neglected and barely ate enough for several weeks. I immediately took Jessa to the hospital for a check-up to make sure she had no serious illness, and in the following days the color gradually returned to her cheeks and the liveliness to her body.
Meanwhile, in Quezon, I consulted a lawyer about the land and the house, and with the help of the document I found in Jessa’s old envelope, I fought for my right to the land inherited from my grandfather. We had a meeting at the barangay with Roger and the pregnant woman, and I presented all the evidence that the land was mine and Roger had no right to sell the house.
“Roger,” I said while standing before him in the barangay hall. “I won’t pursue charges against you, I won’t ask for you to be imprisoned, but I want you to know that the pain you caused me and Jessa I will never forget. But I will not be like you, I will not seek revenge.”
I looked at the pregnant woman standing beside Roger with tears in her eyes who couldn’t look at me. “And you,” I said to her. “I don’t know why you did all this, why you helped Roger steal my house and my child, but I forgive you. Not because you deserve it, but because I need to be free from this anger so I can start anew.”
Roger knelt before me and asked for forgiveness, and said he was willing to leave the house and our lives, but he asked to still see Jessa occasionally. I looked at my child sitting beside Aling Miling, and I saw her eyes full of hope that everything would be okay, so I allowed Roger to see Jessa under my supervision.
When we returned to the house with the blue roof, me and Jessa and Aling Miling and Nena, I stood in front of the house that almost slipped away from me, and I held my child’s hand. “Child, this is the house Mama worked hard for, this is the house that will stay with us, and no one will ever take it from us.”
“I love you, Mama,” Jessa said while looking at me with a smile on her face.
That night, as Jessa lay in her bed with pink curtains and slept soundly for the first time since she disappeared, I sat by the window of my room and looked at the blue roof of the house I had regained, the house I worked hard for five years in Dubai and fought for with all my heart.
I remembered the days when I was cleaning other people’s houses in Dubai while thinking of my house here in Quezon. I remembered the nights I couldn’t sleep because of longing for Jessa while holding her photo beside my bed. I remembered the day I came home and learned that another woman was living in my house, that my child was gone, and that my hard work had been sold.
But now, as I held Jessa’s hand in her sleep and saw the blue roof of my house in the moonlight, I learned an important lesson that I would carry with me until I grow old.
Land and houses can be sold, cheated away, and lost in a blink of time. Hard-earned money can be stolen by people you trust. But the dignity of a mother who fought for her child, the courage to rise from failure, and the ability to forgive despite all the pain—these are the things that can never be taken from any mother who truly loves.
In the morning, when Jessa woke up, she smiled at me and said, “Mama, we’re okay now, aren’t we?”
“Yes, child,” I said while hugging her. “We’re okay. And as long as Mama lives, I will never leave you. We will never be apart again.”
And as the sun rose behind the blue roof of my house, the house I regained not just through a land document but through my stand as a mother, I knew that true wealth is not measured by the size of a house or the expanse of land, but by the strength of a family united and loving despite all trials.
Because in the end, a mother’s love for her child is the strongest foundation of any home, and no one, whoever they may be, can ever destroy that foundation.
