I didn’t cry that night.
I sat in the old balcony chair where my husband used to drink coffee every morning, gazing at the distant lights of Quezon City while the house slept in silence.
Inside, Lily was snoring in the master bedroom.
My grandchildren were breathing softly in the guest room.
Everything seemed calm.
But inside me, something had changed irreversibly.
For seventy years I had lived thinking that love meant enduring.
To endure silences.
To endure contempt.
To endure so that the family would stay together.
But that night I understood something different.
Love can also mean leaving.
I entered the house carefully, without making a sound.
The kitchen clock read two in the morning.
I opened the drawer where I kept my documents.
My passport.
The deeds to the house.
The bank account documents.
Everything was there.
Tidy.
Waiting for a decision that I had postponed for too long.
For years Lily had believed that this house would be her inheritance.
It wasn’t a secret.
I heard her say it out loud more than once.
