Time has passed. My house has improved thanks to the money he sent me. Everyone told me I was lucky. But how can you be happy when you eat alone every day? Every Christmas, I set a table for him. I cooked his favorite stew and wept silently. Twelve years. It’s too long. Finally, I made a decision: I was going to Korea. I didn’t tell him anything. For a sixty-three-year-old woman who had never left the country, this was madness. But I bought my ticket with a trembling hand and left. I arrived And I took a taxi to her address. A two-story house, silent—too silent. The garden was pretty but lifeless. I knocked on the door. No answer. The door wasn’t locked. I went in. The house was clean, too clean. No sign of a man’s presence. No men’s clothing. No smell of food. I went upstairs. A room with women’s clothing. Another, like a desk, barely used. And the last one—my legs gave out. Boxes, so many boxes, full of money. I felt empty. Just then, I heard the door open downstairs.
“Mom.”
It was her voice. I ran. Mary Lou was there—thinner, more tired, but still my daughter. We hugged for a long time, without saying a word. Then I asked, “What kind of life is this?” She answered, “Mom… I never married.”
I felt like the world was crumbling around me. This money didn’t come from a husband. She had sacrificed twelve years of her life to earn it. She wasn’t a wife. She wasn’t free. She was a woman trapped in a contract—and she had two years left. If she broke it before the end, she’d have to pay back nearly a million dollars. That’s why she never went back. That’s why the house was deserted. That’s why her perspective had changed.
That night, we slept together for the first time in twelve years. I asked her if she was tired. “Yes, Mom,” she replied. “But I didn’t want you to suffer.” I took her hand. “I don’t need money. I need you.” She wept softly, as if her tears had been held back for a long time.
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