When The Poor Girl Suddenly Became Rich

It was a regular Saturday afternoon.

Bella was lying on the floor, drawing on scratch paper with scented pens—the ones Andi bought during the last "budget shopping trip that wasn't really budget."

Gesly was watching anime reruns while pretending not to read the comments on Alonzo's recent post with his sister.

And Andi? She was in the kitchen, frying lumpiang shanghai in full stay-at-home mode—oversized shirt, hair in a bun with a pencil stuck in it, and flip-flops with a broken strap.

Then—ding-dong.

Just one sound from the doorbell, but in a house that rarely had visitors, it felt like a warhorn.

Bella stood up. "Ate, someone's at the door!"

"Can you check? Maybe it's Kuya Alon—"

"No, Ate. He has bodyguards."

Andi froze.

She walked to the gate, still holding her spatula. She saw it— A black luxury car. A driver in uniform. Two men in suits. And stepping out, in a crisp white barong and black slacks, was a man she hadn't seen in months.

Lolo.

No need for a grand entrance. The air shifted on its own.

"Good afternoon, Andrea." His voice was calm. Regal. No anger, but heavy with weight. "I was in the area. Thought I'd visit my grandchildren."

Andi glanced down at herself—a shirt that said "Pizza is Life," an oil stain on her collar. No choice now. She had to summon her CEO soul even if she looked like a DOST scholar on laundry day.

She opened the gate fully and smiled—polite but sharp. "Would you like to come in, Lolo? We have… shanghai."

The house wasn't grand, but it was clean. Lolo Dela Vuega stepped in and looked around with quiet curiosity. Not judging—just calculating, like he was memorizing every corner.

Bella curtsied (yes, a legit curtsy—Andi taught her how to be extra).

"Hello, Lolo."

"Hello, Isabella. My, you've grown."

Gesly appeared, frozen mid-sip of his Coke. "Lolo," he nodded.

"Gesly. Your bruises healed?"

"…How did you know?" he asked.

"Your sister updates me. In her own language."

Andi, who had just reentered the room, nearly choked. "You saw that email?"

"I did. Quite… passionate." He smirked. "Your subject line was 'GENG GENG – Update on the Children.' Very creative."

They sat around the table. Lumpiang shanghai, garlic fried rice, iced tea in mismatched mugs.

Lolo, of course, ate like he was in a five-star hotel. Fork and spoon, slow and deliberate, napkin on his lap. As if even a single drop of ketchup didn't dare stain his plate.

"You've done well, Andrea," he said, breaking the silence. "I expected… more chaos."

"Give it time," Andi muttered. "My siblings are very creative."

He chuckled softly. "I wanted to ask—are you open to transferring them to a private school now? Somewhere more... aligned with their surname?"

Andi put down her spoon. "With all due respect, Lolo… I think they're better off learning how to ride a jeepney and survive the school canteen rush than worrying about golf club memberships."

Gesly paused mid-bite. Bella blinked.

Silence.

Then—

Lolo leaned back in his chair. "Spoken like your mother."

And for the first time that afternoon, Andi smiled—genuinely.

When he left, he placed something in Andi's hand.

Not cash.

A small black key. To a safety deposit box.

"Just in case I'm gone before you reach my age," he said. "You'll know what to do."

And with that, he got back into his car. No drama. No grand speech. Just quiet power and one last look before the engine purred and the car disappeared.

The last time he saw his daughter alive, she was screaming at him.

"I'm not a doll. I'm not a toy in your dollhouse, Papa!"

Her voice echoed across the marble floors of their ancestral home, bouncing off the walls with the silent stares of family portraits. She wore jeans and slippers—slippers, in his house—as if she had already begun shedding her Dela Vuega name before she even walked out.

"I love him," she said. "He fixes cars, Papa. He smells like grease and oil, and he can't even pronounce 'charcuterie' right. But he makes me laugh. And he treats me like a person—not an asset."

He remembered his reply.

"You'll crawl back when you're tired of being poor. And I won't open the gate."

God, what a cruel thing to say.

But back then, pride mattered more than people. Legacy weighed heavier than love.

She never crawled back.

Instead, she vanished into a life she never allowed him to touch.

He caught glimpses over the years.

A wedding photo she never sent. A blurry Facebook picture of her pregnant, wrapped in the arms of the man he once called "a mechanic with delusions." And eventually, a photo that cut deeper than any letter ever could:

Three children. A girl with her smile. A boy with her fire. And the eldest—Andi. The mirror image of the woman she was before she ran.

He thought he had time to fix it. To write a letter. To knock on their door. To say, "You were right. I was wrong. And I miss you."

But then the call came.

Car accident. Both parents gone.

And all that was left was guilt. And a girl with her mother's fire… and her father's stubbornness.

When he saw Andrea at the funeral, he almost didn't approach. She looked so much like his daughter, it hurt to breathe.

But she met his eyes with quiet defiance. She didn't cry. She didn't bow. She just held her siblings close, and in that moment, he saw everything his daughter had become—through her.

He lost a daughter. But maybe, just maybe… he had a second chance with a granddaughter.

That's why he gave her the account. Why he never forced them into the mansion. Why he let her choose thrift shop clothes, public school uniforms, and ₱150 daily allowance instead of chauffeurs and imported lunchboxes.

She wasn't rejecting his wealth. She was protecting the life her mother died trying to build.

And for that, he respected her. Silently. Quietly. Like an old man who knew that apologies couldn't bring someone back—but maybe they could stop history from repeating itself.

When he visited their house, he noticed the lumpia wasn't gourmet, but it was cooked with garlic. The iced tea wasn't brewed—it was powdered—but it was served in a chipped glass with love.

And when Andrea said, "They're learning more in public school than they ever would under a chandelier," he smiled.

Because in that moment, he heard his daughter's voice again.

As he sat in the backseat of his car, he stared at the small key in his palm—the one he gave to Andi.

It wasn't just a key to a safety deposit box.

It was the final piece of his daughter's life: A journal. A photo. A letter never sent. Her jewelry, her savings, the things she left behind.

And one sentence burned in his mind:

"If I die before we fix things, tell Papa I didn't hate him. I just wanted to be loved without being ruled."