My name is Theresa, and I am sixty-three years old.
I’ve been a widow since I was young, and I raised my only son, Marcus, entirely on my own.
He was smart, gentle, and handsome. Everyone said he had a great future. And it seemed like he did.
At twenty-one, he told me he had married Li Mei, a Chinese woman who was already fifty years old.
I opposed it — not out of prejudice, but because of the age gap, the distance, and the way everything happened so fast.
But my son was stubborn.
There was a determination in his eyes that I had no power to change.
They had a simple ceremony.
A month later, he left with her for China.
At the airport, he hugged me and cried.
I cried too, but in silence.
I thought he would return in a few years.
He never did.
One year passed.
