I send my mother 1.5 million pesos monthly for my postpartum wife. Coming home early, I found my wife eating spoiled rice with fish heads. Furious, I confronted my mom, who sneered, “She doesn’t deserve better.” Then, I checked the family safe and found…

dried apricots, and iron supplements.

We were not poor. There was no scarcity. The only thing entirely absent from this house was mercy.

Behind me, the weak, pathetic sound of my wife weeping into her hands filled the room. I slowly closed the refrigerator door. The quiet thud felt like a vault sealing shut. I looked at the bounty, then looked at the continue reading …