Both of us were expecting. “The one who gives birth to a boy will stay,” said my mother-in-law, and it was said by the same man. The other will depart.
I realized then that I no longer desired that existence. I immediately requested a divorce. I wouldn’t construct a house on shame.
However, Marco’s family would experience something that would change them forever seven months later.
When I found out I was expecting, I believed our marriage would be saved by this child. However, a few weeks later, everything fell apart. Marco was seeing someone else. Additionally, she was also expecting a child.
When the truth was revealed, his family turned to his mistress as if she were the true wife rather than denouncing his infidelity.
“There’s no need to fight,” his mother, Alina Corasson, said icily during a family gathering. The person who gives birth to a boy will stay in the family. She walks away if it’s a girl.
Her comments were like a dagger piercing me. So the gender of a woman’s child was the basis for determining her value? I looked for any indication of dissent on Marco’s face. But his eyes were downcast and he remained mute.
I realized that everything was over that night when I looked at the lights of the house I had previously called home. I refused to raise my child in a world based on injustice and hatred, even if I were to have a boy.
I visited city hall the following day. I signed the divorce papers with shaking hands, but my heart felt lighter. Yes, I sobbed, but a tiny light—the light of freedom—began to shine deep within.
I took some clothes and baby stuff with me, along with a lot of bravery. I worked as a receptionist in a tiny clinic in Cebu. I had to relearn how to breathe, smile, and live as my tummy expanded. My mother and friends turned into my haven and steadfast pillar of support.
In the meantime, I had been replaced by Marco’s mistress, Clarissa, who was stunning, sophisticated, and jewel-encrusted. She was treated like a queen in the Dela Cruz home. “Here is the one who will finally give us an heir!” was the boast my mother-in-law told all of the guests about her.
I stopped detesting them. Everything would be resolved in due time.
I gave birth to a young daughter in a Cebu public hospital seven months later. Tiny, fragile, yet vibrant. All of my animosity vanished as I embraced her. She was my miracle, so I didn’t care that she was a female.
A neighbor informed me a few weeks later that Clarissa had also given birth. The entrance of the “future heir” was being warmly celebrated by Marco’s family. However, a report so stunning that it paralyzed the entire neighborhood was circulating in Quezon City a few days later.
The district was rocked by the revelation one afternoon that the newborn was a girl, not a boy. Even worse, she wasn’t Marco’s offspring.
The baby’s blood type didn’t match the purported parents’, the hospital report stated.
It was verified by a DNA test that the child wasn’t Marco Dela Cruz’s.
Once a place of pride and fun, the Dela Cruz mansion descended into dreadful quiet. Overwhelmed by guilt, Marco stumbled.
The same woman who had advised me to stay if I had a boy, my mother-in-law, Alina Corasson, was hospitalized due to shock.
Alone and homeless, Clarissa fled Manila with her infant. When I heard all of this, I felt a profound sense of peace rather than triumph or retaliation.
In actuality, I didn’t require victory because fate had already taken care of it. Because goodwill always finds its way back, even if it is silent.
I stared up at the orange-tinged sky one afternoon while I was putting my daughter Alisa to bed.
I muttered as I caressed her sensitive cheek:
“I might not be able to provide you with the ideal family, my child.
However, I guarantee you a peaceful existence in which neither sex is more valuable than the other.
And where, just because you are who you are, love will be genuine.
Like a whisper from above, the wind blew gently through the open window.
I wiped away my tears and grinned.
They were a woman’s dazzling tears, totally free, and no longer tears of pain for the first time.
