Falling For You in the Wrong Century

CHAPTER 14: HOME AT LAST

Ma. Gracia Del Sol’s Point of View

Three months later, Romano and I stand on the veranda of the ancestral house, holding hands as the sun sets over the province. The capiz windows glow golden just like they did in my dreams, and the air still smells of wood, old books, sampaguita, and dried mangoes.

Romano has made the house feel alive again. He fixed the broken chairs in the dining room, planted new fruit trees in the backyard, and even learned how to use modern tools to maintain the old structure. We’ve turned one of the spare rooms into a small workshop where he makes handcrafted furniture—pieces that blend his 19th-century carpentry skills with contemporary designs, and they’re already selling well at local markets.

Linda still looks after the house, and she’s become like family to us. Every evening, we eat dinner under the mango tree, just like Lola used to do with me as a child. Romano tells stories of his life in the 1870s, and I tell him about the future he missed—about how women can now choose their own paths, how technology connects people across the world, how love like ours is celebrated instead of hidden.

Today, we’re preparing for our wedding—small and intimate, with only close friends and the church community that welcomed Romano when he first arrived. As I adjust the sampaguita flower crown in my hair, I look at the portrait of my great-great grandmother’s sister. Her expression no longer looks sad to me—now it looks like peace, like she knew all along that our bond would transcend time, that I’d find my way back to the love she’d lost, and that we’d finally give this house the happy home it was always meant to hold.