"I know how to love people. I don't always know how to repair them."
That made him smile faintly.
It was the first genuine smile I had seen on his face since Mrs. Lin left.
We sat together for several minutes without speaking.
Then Daniel picked up the letter again.
"Do you think she would see me if I went there?"
I felt my heart beat faster.
"I think she would."
"What if she doesn't want to?"
"Then you will have to respect that."
He nodded slowly.
For the first time, the possibility of meeting his mother no longer seemed like an accusation or a punishment.
It seemed like a choice.
A difficult one, certainly.
But a choice he could make for himself.
The Visit He Was Not Ready to Call a Reunion
Daniel did not leave for his mother's hometown the next day.
He did not even make a phone call.
Instead, he spent the following week thinking.
I could see it in the way he moved through the house. He became quieter, but his silence no longer felt quite as hostile.
Sometimes, he would stop outside the children's rooms and look at their photographs.
Once, I found him holding an old picture of himself as a boy.
It was one of the few photographs he had kept from his childhood.
He had not shown it to me before.
In the picture, he was standing beside a woman whose face was partly turned away from the camera. She had one hand resting on his shoulder.
"Is that your mother?" I asked gently.
Daniel looked at the photograph.
"Yes."
He traced the edge of the picture with his thumb.
"I used to carry this everywhere."
"What happened?"
"Nothing. I just stopped looking at it."
He placed the photograph back in the drawer.
Then he closed it.
I did not push him to say more.
A few days later, he told me he wanted to visit his mother's hometown.
He insisted that I should not come.
"I need to speak to her alone," he said.
I understood.
This was not a moment for me to intervene, explain, or persuade.
It was a conversation that belonged to the two people who had been separated by years of pain.
I helped him prepare a small bag.
Before he left, I asked, "Do you know what you're going to say?"
"No."
"Are you going to return the gold?"
He shook his head.
"I don't know about the gold yet."
He paused at the door.
"I just want to see her."
I nodded.
"Then go."
He looked at me for a moment.
"Thank you."
I watched him walk to the car.
For the first time since the revelation, I felt that something had shifted.
Nothing had been resolved.
No apology had been accepted.
No relationship had been repaired.
But Daniel had finally taken one step toward the woman he had spent years trying to escape.
I stayed home with the children, trying not to imagine what might happen when they faced each other.
I wondered whether Mrs. Lin would cry.
I wondered whether Daniel would be able to speak.
I wondered whether the years between them would prove too difficult to cross.
Late that evening, my phone rang.
It was Daniel.
"How did it go?" I asked immediately.
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, "I saw her."
My heart tightened.
"And?"
"I don't know how to explain it."
"Did you talk?"
"Yes."
"Did she tell you why she left?"
He exhaled slowly.
"She tried."
I waited.
"And did you listen?"
There was a long pause.
"Some of it."
I could hear the uncertainty in his voice.
He was not suddenly healed. He had not returned home with a dramatic confession or a promise that everything would be different.
Instead, he sounded like someone who had opened a door he had kept locked for years and discovered that the room behind it was still full of pain.
"I need time," he said.
"Of course."
"I don't know what happens next."
"Neither do I."
He was silent for another moment.
Then he asked, "How are the children?"
"They're fine. Sophie asked about Mrs. Lin again today."
He let out a quiet breath.
"Tell her I asked about her."
"I will."
Before ending the call, Daniel said something that I had not expected.
"She looks older than I remember."
I closed my eyes.
"Five years can change a person."
"I know."
His voice grew softer.
"She cried when she saw me. I didn't know what to do."
I wanted to ask whether he had hugged her, whether she had touched his face, whether either of them had apologized.
But I did not.
Some moments are too fragile to be pulled apart by questions.
Instead, I said, "You don't have to know what to do immediately, Daniel. You only have to be honest about what you feel."
He thanked me and ended the call.
That night, he did not tell me everything that had happened.
I did not ask.
I knew that the first conversation between them was only the beginning, not the conclusion.
A Place at the Table
Daniel returned home the following afternoon.
He looked tired, and there was a quiet sadness in his expression, but he seemed less burdened than before.
He did not tell me that he had forgiven his mother.
He did not say that he wanted her to return.
Instead, he placed a small envelope on the kitchen counter.
"What is that?" I asked.
"A letter."
"From your mother?"