I’m Maria Dela Cruz, and I married when I was twenty-three.

Over time, I became the mother of three daughters—Anna, Liza, and Mika.

We didn’t have much, but our life was peaceful and full of love. I truly believed that love alone could keep a family whole.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

One morning over breakfast, my mother-in-law, Doña Rosario—a wealthy woman of Spanish descent—said something that shattered my heart:

“If all you can give me are daughters, Maria, then leave my house. I don’t need any more chicks. I want a grandson, someone to carry the Dela Cruz name.”

My husband, Eduardo, bowed his head in silence.
He didn’t speak.
He didn’t defend me.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t argue.

The next morning, before sunrise, I held my three daughters close and walked away from that grand house in Quezon City.

In one hand, an old bag. In the other, their tiny, trembling fingers.

We found a tiny room for rent in Tondo – dark, cramped, smelling of wood and sweat. Yet it was ours.

And I told myself: Here, no one will ever make us feel less than we are.

That night, while I was folding clothes into an old suitcase, Mika—my youngest, just five years old—approached me, clutching a small wooden box.

“Mom,” she said, “I took this from Grandma Rosario’s room. She always hid it. I just wanted to see what’s inside.”

I opened it and my world stopped.

Inside were ultrasound scans.
Each page was marked clearly:

S3x: Male.

It was the ultrasound from my first pregnancy—the one Doña Rosario claimed “looked like a girl.” She made me drink “herbal remedies” to “cleanse my womb,” insisting that another daughter would bring bad luck.

Days later, I bled heavily and nearly di:ed. The doctor told me I had miscarried.

But now I knew the truth.

It was a boy.

And Doña Rosario had hidden the proof of what she had done.

My daughters wrapped their arms around me as I wept—not only for the child I lost, but for every woman who has been judged by the kind of child she bears.

From that moment, I vowed to rebuild our lives.

I started working as a freelance accountant. One client turned into two, then five, until I had enough to open a small office in Manila.

Years later, we were stable again. I even bought a house—right next to the Dela Cruz mansion.

The house that people once mocked as “tiny and shabby” I painted white and blue. Across the gate, I hung a sign that read:

“Home of the Three Little Birds.”

Every morning, when Doña Rosario opened her window, that was the first thing she saw.

One day, I sent an envelope to her doorstep.

Inside were three items:

A copy of the ultrasound—the proof that I had once carried her grandson.

A letter that said:
“Mama Rosario, you cast me out because you thought I couldn’t give you a grandson. But the truth is—you were the reason your only grandson was never born.”

A photograph of me with my daughters: Anna, recently admitted to a science high school; Liza, winner of the district Math Olympiad; and little Mika, proudly holding her Kindergarten Storytelling Champion trophy.

No hatred. No harsh words. Just the truth—wrapped in silence more powerful than anger.

Weeks later, neighbors saw Doña Rosario standing outside my gate, staring at the sign on my house.
Quiet. Regretful.

She didn’t say a word.

And me?

Every night, as my daughters study at our small dining table, I watch them—strong, bright, and full of dreams.

I smile to myself.

“They say a son brings honor to a family. But I have three daughters—and a mother who learned to rise. That’s more than enough.”

This isn’t a story of reve:nge.

It’s a story of awakening—of realizing that a woman’s worth can never be measured by the gender of her children.

And each morning, as I open the doors of my bookstore, Home of the Three Little Birds, I whisper to myself:

“I don’t need a son to feel whole.
Because in my three daughters, I found strength, dignity, and freedom.”