I WORKED FOR FIVE YEARS IN ANOTHER COUNTRY TO PROVIDE A GOOD LIFE FOR MY HUSBAND AND MY OLD FATHER. I CAME HOME WITHOUT A WORD TO SURPRISE THEM, BUT WHEN I OPENED THE DOOR, I SAW MY FATHER ON HIS KNEES, SCRUBBING THE FLOOR, WHILE MY WIFE AND HIS MOTHER WERE LIVING ON THE SOFA LIKE QUEENS. IN THAT MOMENT, MY LOVE DIED.
The Five Years of Sacrifice
I am Elias, thirty-five years old. I worked as a Chief Engineer for five years in a large construction firm in Dubai. I endured the scorching desert heat, the extreme fatigue, and the crazy loneliness of missing my family, just to give them the life they had never experienced.
Before I left, I left my sixty-year-old father, Tatay Ruben, in the care of my wife Valerie. Valerie promised to take care of my father while I sent one hundred thousand pesos (100,000 pesos) every month. I had a large mansion built from my savings so that they could live comfortably with my mother-in-law Doña Matilda who had begged to live with us.
“Don’t worry, Babe,” Valerie told me before I boarded the plane. “I’ll treat Tatay Ruben like a real king. I’ll give him everything he needs. Be careful out there.”
I believed her sweet words. Whenever I would call on video chat, Valerie would always say that Dad was asleep or resting in his room so I couldn’t talk to him. Sometimes, when I did talk to him, my dad would always look down and only answer sparingly. Because of my tiredness from work and my complete trust in my wife, I no longer suspected anything.
The Secret Homecoming
My contract ended a month early. Because I wanted to see the surprise and joy in their eyes, I decided to go home secretly. I didn’t tell anyone. I brought expensive jewelry and designer bags for Valerie, and a new gold watch and imported coffee for Tatay Ruben.
When I got off the airport, I went straight to our subdivision. When I got in front of our big mansion, I noticed that the lights in the living room were on. I entered the gate quietly. Our guards and maids were gone.
Using my own key, I slowly opened the main door. I expected to be greeted with a warm hug. I expected to see my father sitting in his favorite rocking chair.
But the scene that dawned on me in the living room stopped my world from spinning.
The Queen and the Servant
I dropped my luggage, but they couldn’t hear it because of the loud music from the big TV and their laughter.
There, in the middle of the wide, cold marble floor, my father, Tatay Ruben, knelt. He was very thin, as if nothing more than skin and bones. He was wearing a very faded and holey t-shirt, and his small arms were shaking as he tried to scrub a stain on the floor with a rag. His sweat and tears were dripping as he cleaned.
In front of him, my wife Valerie and her mother, Doña Matilda, sat on my expensive leather sofa. Both of them were dressed in expensive silk robes, gold jewelry glittering around their necks and hands, and drinking expensive coffee from porcelain cups as if they were members of the royal family.
“Hurry up, old man!” Valerie scolded Tatay Ruben in a sharp and insulting tone. “You’re so slow at scrubbing! What if my guests come later?! You smell like dirt, you’re so lazy!”
“O-Yes, Valerie… I’m sorry… my rheumatism just hurts,” my father pleaded, sobbing and shaking, unable to even look straight at me in fear.
“Rheumatism?! I don’t care about your illness!” my mother-in-law Doña Matilda replied. The old woman deliberately threw the remaining coffee on the floor, exactly in the same place my father had just finished wiping. “There! Wipe it again! You should be grateful that my son and I are letting you live in this mansion! If that stupid Elias hadn’t sent me money, I would have thrown you out on the street a long time ago!”
Valerie laughed out loud. “That’s right, Ma! So hurry up, old man, before I deprive you of the leftover rice tonight!”
The Volcano Eruption
It felt like a grenade had exploded in my chest. All the blood in my body boiled. My father—the man who toiled to plow the fields under the scorching sun just after I graduated from engineering—was being enslaved and tortured by the women I was raising in luxury!
I couldn’t stop myself anymore.
“VALERIE!!!”
