Its hands are rough and calloused.

“Mom, Dad, this is Carlo,” Bea introduced her boyfriend. “He’s the one I was telling you about.”

Donya Remedios looked Carlo from head to toe.

“And what is your job, son?” she asked politely.

“Carpenter, Ma’am,” Carlo replied politely as he extended his hand to shake.
Donya did not reach for his hand.
Instead, she wiped it with alcohol.

“Carpenter? So, construction worker? Bea, did I think the one you were introducing us to had a future?
Why laborer?”

“Mom!” Bea scolded.

“Carlo is hardworking. And we love each other.”

“Love? Love doesn’t fill the stomach,” interjected Bea’s father, Don Alfonso.

Dinner arrived.

Steak and expensive wine were ready on the table.

Carlo was about to sit down next to Bea when Donya Remedios spoke:

“Hey! Where are you going to sit?”

“At… at the table?” Carlo replied in surprise.

“I don’t want the smell of the sun on my dining table,” the old man said firmly.

“Nanny! Serve this man in the dirty kitchen.

Or in the garden, he’s totally used to the soil.”

“Mom! You’re too much!” Bea cried, tearfully.

He was about to stand up but Carlo held his hand.

“It’s okay, Bea,” Carlo whispered,
still smiling even though he was embarrassed.
“They’re your parents. I’ll respect them. I’ll eat outside.”

While Carlo was eating in the garden,
the steak was still on a plastic plate,
he held back the tears that fell.

Not for himself,
but for Bea who was crying inside.

After eating, Carlo said goodbye.
But before leaving, he handed her an invitation.

“Uncle, Aunt… Bea,” Carlo said.
“The groundbreaking of a project is tomorrow.
I wanted to invite you. So you can see what kind of carpenter I am.”

Don Alfonso laughed bitterly.
“What? You’re going to invite us to the construction site?
My shoes will just get dirty.”

“Just a moment,” Carlo begged.

They were forced to go the next day
because Bea threatened to run away.

The car stopped in front of a very large and exclusive subdivision in Tagaytay.
The gate was made of gold and marble.

“Grand Valle Heights? The land here is expensive, huh?”
Donya Remedios whispered in surprise.
“You work here, Carlo?”

Carlo just smiled.

The guards opened the gate and saluted Carlo.

“Good morning, Sir Boss!”

The couple was surprised.

They were taken to the highest part of the place.
There was a huge mansion.

Modern! Elegant! Three times the size of Bea’s house.

“Wow,” Don Alfonso whispered.

“Whose house is this? The developer’s?”

Carlo turned to them.

“Yes. The owner’s house.”

He smiled.

“My house.”

“N-now… are you the owner? But you’re just a carpenter?”
Donya Remedios’s voice trembled.

“Yes.
I started as a carpenter when I was eighteen,” Carlo explained.

“But while I was hammering nails, I was studying at night.
I learned to design, got a license,
and now… I’m the owner of CV Construction Corp.”

“We build the homes of the rich… including yours.”

Carlo took out a key and handed it to Bea.

“That’s why I came to you yesterday, not to eat,”

Carlo said while staring at Bea.

“But to ask for Bea’s hand in marriage.
I want her to live here.
As the queen of this house.”

Bea’s parents turned pale with shame.

They remembered how they had fed the man who turned out to be the owner of the land they were stepping on from a plastic plate.

Donya Remedios knelt down, crying.

“Son… forgive us.
We were blinded by pride.”

Carlo lifted Donya up.

“Don’t kneel down.
A person’s knees are only for church…
not for apologizing to others.”

“My only request…
the next time I visit…
I’ll eat inside.”

“Not because I’m rich…
but because I love your son.”

Bea hugged Carlo tightly.

While the parents learned
that true wealth is not measured by appearance or work—

but by the size of a person’s dreams and the purity of their heart.