YOUNG BRIDE CHANGES THE SHEETS EVERY DAY — Until the day her mother-in-law steps into the room and finds BLOOD across the mattress… unveiling a SECRET that shatters a mother’s heart
My son Paulo had been married to Mira for only a week. Their wedding in Batangas was simple—no grand hotel, no crystal chandeliers—just our church, plastic chairs under a tarp, pots of pancit and kaldereta steaming on long tables. Yet it was perfect: laughter loud enough to rattle the windows, tears that tasted of hope, and promises made with steady voices and shining eyes.
From the first moment, Mira seemed like the ideal daughter-in-law. Gentle, unfailingly polite, and generous with her smile, she greeted every auntie with two hands and called every elder “Tita,” “Tito,” or “Nanay” as if she’d known us all her life. Even the neighbors who rarely praise anyone could not stop complimenting her.
“We’re blessed to welcome such a graceful daughter-in-law,” I told my market friends, my chest lifting with pride.
But only a few days after the wedding, something began to trouble me.
The secret of the sheets
Each morning, without fail, Mira gathered the bed linens—sheets, blankets, pillowcases—and carried them outside to wash and leave in the sun. Sometimes she changed them twice in one day, as if the bed itself were an altar that demanded constant renewal.
One afternoon I finally asked, “Why do you change the bed linens every day, hija?”
She gave me that soft, careful smile. “I’m allergic to dust, Nanay. I sleep better when everything is fresh.”
It sounded reasonable, yet the explanation sat oddly in my chest. All the linens were new, chosen with care for the wedding—cotton crisp as a page, scented faintly of lavender. No one in our family had allergies. And still she laundered and laundered, the white fabric a flag she raised against some invisible enemy.
Little by little, suspicion took root. She was hiding something. I just didn’t know what.
The devastating discovery