The room felt smaller than usual. Its walls were a bland cream, and the air was lightly scented with lavender from the sachets she had brought. Mei sat beside a small desk, her phone pressed to her ear as the distant sounds of Beijing filtered through the line.
"Jie," she said softly, her voice steady but lighter than usual. "How's the garden?"
On the other end, her younger sister's laughter rang out, bright and familiar. "Still blooming, though not as wild as when you were here. Your peonies miss you."
Mei smiled faintly, running her fingers along the edge of her teacup. "They always thrive better with you looking after them."
Her sister sighed gently, her tone changing. "And how is Li Na and Guo Yu?"
For a moment, Mei hesitated. The question, though simple, pierced her like a tiny needle. She glanced out the window at the foreign skyline, shimmering with distant lights. Her reflection was there: elegant, composed... yet profoundly alone.
"She's fine," Mei finally replied. "The apartment is... beautiful. Too modern. Too quiet."
(She didn't mention anything about Guo Yu.)
"You sound worn out." Jie murmured.
"I'm just thinking," Mei murmured. "I keep recalling the old house—the sunlight streaming through the curtains, the kettle's whistle, your brother-in-law's slippers scraping the floor. Those mornings felt so certain. Just like a dream."
Her sister paused, the silence lingering heavily with unspoken truths between them.
Finally, her sister asked gently, "Did you ever talked to him ?"
Mei's hand froze. "Talked to who?"
"Your husband. After that argument. About why you left so abruptly."
Mei took a slow, trembling breath.
She could almost hear his voice from that night—calm at first, then sharp, then filled with unbearable disappointment.
He had urged her to let Li Na make her own choices. He had said love sometimes meant stepping back. And she—too proud, too fearful of losing control—had walked out before he could see her tears.
"I didn't leave out of anger," she said quietly. "Anger fades. Pride doesn't. "
"I left because... I thought if I could bring her back, if I could mend things there... then maybe everything here would mend too."
Her sister's voice softened. "And if she doesn't return?"
Mei looked at her reflection again, the composed facade she had honed over the years. "Then I'll bring her shadow back," she whispered. "At least I won't have lost her completely."
A pause ensued. "Mei," her sister said gently, "Sometimes love isn't about bringing someone back. It's about trusting they won't forget you, no matter how far away they go."
Those words resonated deeply, but Mei remained silent. She ended the call quietly, sitting still with her hands tightly clasped on the desk.
Outside, the city lights flickered—strange, restless, and foreign. And for the first time since her arrival, she truly felt the distance: not in miles, but in time, in change, and in a love that struggles to find its way home.
After the call, the space felt even more confined. The air remained still, with a faint hint of lavender. Only the distant hum of the city below served as a reminder to Mei that life continued to move somewhere — rapidly, carelessly, and relentlessly.
She sat in front of her desk, a half-burned stick of incense sending a delicate tendril of smoke soaring upwards before vanishing. Her gaze lingered on a blank sheet of stationery — the kind she had purchased years ago to write to Li Na, though it had never been used.
She touched the paper lightly with her fingers. Gradually, she picked up the pen.
> Li Na,
I saw you this morning next to that man, and for a brief moment, I thought — perhaps this is what happiness looks like now. But then I recalled the girl who used to hold my hand while crossing the street, the one who whispered she'd never leave me. I don't know when she transformed into someone I have to request permission to see.
I've convinced myself this struggle is for you. But maybe it's not. Maybe it's for the woman I once was — the one who still believes that love means keeping someone close enough to protect. Perhaps I am battling against time rather than against you.
Your father would laugh at me if he were here. He would say I'm stubborn and confuse control with care. And he would be right. All I wanted was to safeguard what was ours. I didn't realize I was suffocating it instead.
I wonder, my child, if you ever think of home — not as a location, but as a breath, a scent, a silence that remembers you. Because even now, in this room filled with all my belongings, I am surrounded by everything that's absent.
Her pen halted. A tear fell onto the page, smudging the ink into soft blue shapes. She chose not to wipe it away.
The next line she wrote was shaky and uneven.
> I can't keep fighting the gap between who you are and who I wish you to be. But I don't know how to stop.
She stared at those words for a long while, as if they might bring her some solace. Then she slowly folded the letter — not to send it, but to safeguard it, tucking it between the pages of an old photo album that still carried a faint scent of dust and peonies.
Outside, the wind gently caressed the curtains, bringing the distant sounds of the city — laughter, footsteps, the pulse of life she no longer experienced.
As she leaned back in her chair, eyelids fluttering closed, Mei came to the realization that perhaps the true struggle was never between her and her daughter. It was a conflict within herself and a version of love that couldn't let go.
" The lavender had faded , but the scent of ink lingered - faint , stubborn, like love that refused to disappear.