My name is Thérèse, and I’m sixty-three years old. Widowed young, I raised my only daughter, Mary Lou, alone. She was intelligent, sweet, and beautiful. People said she had a bright future. And she did.
At twenty-one, she met Kang Jun, a Korean man almost twenty years her senior. I objected, not out of prejudice, but because of the age difference and the distance. But my daughter was stubborn. There was a determination in her eyes that I couldn’t change.
They married in a simple ceremony. A month later, she left with him for South Korea. At the airport, she hugged me and cried. I cried too, silently. I thought she would return in a few years. She never did. A year has passed. Then two.
Then five. I’ve removed asking questions. Only the money kept coming in—every year, exactly eighty thousand dollars, accompanied by a short message: “Mom, take good care of yourself. I’m fine.” That word—fine—was what worried me most. We had a video call once. She was still beautiful, but her gaze wasn’t the same anymore. Always in a hurry. Always distant. I asked her why she hadn’t come home. She was silent and then said, “I’m very busy, Mom.” I didn’t press the issue. Sometimes mothers become cowards for fear of hearing the truth.
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