Chapter I: Stone and Mortar
In the late 1940s, the sun shines golden over the cobblestoned street of Hermosa, a proud heritage town tucked in the heart of the province. Houses of weathered red bricks and polished narra wood line the main road, each standing like a page from an old Spanish manuscript. Horses neigh gently and the faint clatter of hooves echoes through the alleys, as carabaos lazily munch on grass behind bamboo fences. The world still moves slowly here. And in this world, a man named Melo rides his calesa like a general on a wooden throne.
He wears a wide-brimmed straw hat that dips just above his brow, with a white camisa shirt folded at the sleeves. His trousers are stained with sweat, dust, and a bit of molasses from the delivery earlier that day. Melo is one of over a fifty or less kutseros in Hermosa, all proud and tired men whose lives revolve around hoofbeats and wooden wheels.
His calesa, old but sturdy, creaks with every turn of the wheel. Painted bright red with gold swirls, it boasts the words "Reyna ng Daan" or Queen of the Road stenciled on both sides. Yet Melo is not the queen. He is the king. He whistles as he pulls on the reins, guiding his faithful horse, Rosita, through the swerving path of Calle Crisostomo.
While most travelers now lean toward fancy American automobiles, Hermosa's heart still belongs to the calesa. There's something nostalgic in it, something poetic. Maybe it's the rhythm. Maybe it's the way the breeze flutters through a lady's pañuelo as she rides with a parasol. Melo doesn't question it. He just rides.
Midway through Crisostomo, thirst creeps up Melo's throat. He halts near a corner shop named Sion, a humble wooden structure with an awning of striped abel cloth and crates of bottled drinks stacked by the door. Just beside it stands a panaderia that resembles an old trading post from the American era, its wooden signage creaking in the wind.
"Hard day, Melo?" the lady from the shop greets as she wipes a bottle with a rag.
Melo steps down from the calesa, stretches his back with a dramatic grunt, and chuckles. "Yeah. Fifty passengers today. I feel like my spine weaved into an Abel Loom."
He takes a glass bottle of water, cool with condensation, and chugs it as if he's returned from war.
"How much is it?" he asks, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Nah. It's free," the lady replies with a wink. "You're a regular customer. And besides, you always smell like work."
Melo laughs. "I'll take that as a compliment."
As he climbs back onto the calesa, the woman calls out, "Vaya con Dios!"
He tips his hat in thanks and clicks his tongue. Rosita moves forward, hooves echoing over the cobblestones. They pass the Central Plaza, where an obelisk rises like a misplaced Egyptian monument. It's dedicated to Father Jose, the priest who was convicted because of the Cavite Mutiny that made backlash to the friars and the Spaniards way back then. Though, he only got involved due to misleading works. Melo nods at the monument like greeting an old friend.
He passes by a large building and elegant building that almost takes up one block, full of priests, seminarians, and clergy man. This is the Seminario Conciliar de San Pablo.
Just parallel to the seminary, he reaches the grandest structure in Hermosa, the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Conversion of St. Paul. The sky behind it glows orange. Melo halts the calesa, dismounts, and looks up at the statue of St. Paul on a horseback above the entrance. Quietly, he then looks at the cross perched on the cathedral's steeple, and he makes the sign of the cross.
From the bell tower fifteen meters away, the cathedral bells clang. It's 6 p.m. Melo listens for a second, then sighs. Another day nearly done.
The cock weather vane on top of the bell tower points northeast.
Rosita snorts.
"Alright, alright. Let's move," Melo mutters, climbing back onto his perch.
He turns toward Quezon Boulevard, then goes north crossing the twin bridge, leading to the next town, Guardino. As the concrete pavement gives way to stone and more concrete, he stops by a roadside carinderia with sizzling smoke rising from its clay stove. A man flips bangus on a grill while a woman stirs a vat of Ladek, an Ilocano dish made of grounded pork face.
"Maysa man, Tacio, (One to-go, Tacio,)" Melo calls, sliding a few centavos over the counter.
He picks up a bundle wrapped in banana leaves and sniffs it. "Ah, makapabisin. (Ah, it's making me hungry.)"
"Smells like fat-rich Bagnet," the vendor laughs.
With his dinner in tow, Melo continues along the highway until he reaches a small barangay named Banggai, hidden among rice paddies and bamboo groves. There, standing beside the National Highway, is a small nipa hut—the kind that dances in the wind but never falls.
As Melo gets off the calesa, the door swings open and a woman appears. She's in her late twenties, slender, sharp-eyed, wearing a faded dress with a handkerchief around her neck.
"Tory," Melo says with a smile.
"Melo," she answers flatly. "Naladaw ka manen. (You're late again.)"
"I had to deliver someone's goat. You wouldn't believe how stubborn that thing was."
"You mean the goat or the owner?"
"Well, you can say both of them." Melo grins.
They sit under the nipa hut's awning, sharing dinner from the banana leaf. The rice is cold but the Ladek is warm. Their laughter floats into the humid night air.
They work hard. Every day, from sunrise to sunset, they break their backs for centavos. And yet, they do not complain. They dream. Together.
Two years pass. Melo and Tory no longer drive horses. They now drive trucks.
The early morning sees them behind the wheels of rusty cargo trucks, traveling 10 hours to the Northeastern Province of Caray-an. The road is winding and filled with bumps, but their determination never stalls. They trade for sacks of grains—rice, corn, even beans—and haul them back to Hermosa and Guardino.
Sometimes, they pass each other along the route.
"Hoy!" Tory yells from her truck. "Try not to fall asleep this time!"
"Only if you stop snoring on the way there!" Melo shouts back, grinning.
They've become legends on the highway. People cheer them on, wave when they pass by. Melo paints a rooster on the side of his truck. Tory paints a dragon. The rooster and the dragon compete for speed, but at night, they return to the same home.
Year by year, their business grows. The nipa hut evolves into a two-storey brick house, the finest in Barangay Banggai. Its Capiz shell windows gleam like ivory eyes in the moonlight, and large terraces that can give a nice view of the fields and the mountains in the east. Neighbors stop and stare, murmuring, "Is that Melo and Tory's place?"
They buy a generator, the first in town. When the lights flicker on, the entire barangay gasps. Even the parish church borrows electricity from their lines. On Sundays, the altar glows from their generosity. As the altar glows, it gives a shining and glowing aura to the Miraculous Image of the Our Lady of Charity that is ensconced at the main altar of the church. They then donate the generator to the parish, hence, the ones who gave lights to the shrine.
Then come the lands. Vast fields as far as the eye can see. They grow rice, vegetables, fruits. They raise pigs, cows, goats, chickens, and ducks. Melo insists the pigs are smarter than most politicians.
With the lands come workers. Melo and Tory treat them like family, sharing food during lunch and cracking jokes during harvest.
Soon, people call them Don Melo and Doña Tory. The titles feel strange on their tongues at first, like wearing someone else's shoes. But they wear them anyway. And they wear them well.
Despite the grandeur, they still sleep in separate beds.
"Why?" people ask.
Melo simply says, "We need space. She kicks."
"She snores," Tory adds.
Even royalty needs peace.
After nine years of hard labor and distant beds, something miraculous happens.
A cry echoes through the house. A baby girl is born. They name her Escolastica.
Melo weeps when he first holds her, his calloused hands shaking.
"She looks like you," he says.
"Poor child," Tory replies, but her eyes glisten with pride.
Years pass, and more children follow. Laughter fills the once quiet halls of their home. Among them is a girl who doesn't cry much, doesn't fuss. She simply stares with piercing eyes and a half-smile, as if she already knows the secrets of the world.
They name her Mercedes.
And though no one knows it yet, this girl—born in a house built by grit and grit alone—will one day become the center of legends, whispered in the corners of Hermosa long after her time.
But for now, she is only a girl. And her parents, once a tired kutsero and a sharp-tongued vendor, rest their heads each night—on separate beds—proud of the life they have shaped.
The road to Hermosa is never easy.
But it is always worth the ride.