But because of the age difference and the thought of my only child living on the other side of the world.
Still, my daughter had inherited my stubbornness.
There was a determination in her eyes that I recognized all too well.
Nothing I said could change her mind.
They married in a quiet ceremony.
One month later, she boarded a plane with her husband and moved to South Korea.
At the airport, she hugged me tightly and cried.
I cried too.
Only silently.
I told myself she would come back in a year or two.
She never did.
One year passed.
Then two.
Then five.
Eventually, I stopped asking when she was coming home.
Only the money kept arriving.
Every single year, without fail, exactly eighty thousand dollars appeared in my account along with the same short message:
“Mom, take good care of yourself. I’m doing well.”
That word — well — became the part that worried me most.
