Josie’swho watched her the entire way like he couldn’t quite believe his own luck.
Thea cried through most of the ceremony, torn between happiness and a fear she couldn’t fully name.
Three weeks later, Josie flew to Korea.
At the airport, they held each other for a long time. Neither one wanting to be the first to let go.
Josie’s flight was called twice before either of them finally stepped back. Thea watched her walk toward security, turning back three times to wave. Each time looking a little smaller againstthe crowd until she finally disappeared through the gate entirely. Thea stood there long after the flight had surely departed. Unable to make herself leave the terminal just yet.
“
I’ll visit soon,” Josie promised. “I’ll
come home for Christmas.”
She meant it when she said it.
Thea believed her completely.
Neither of them knew, standing in that terminal. How many Christmases would pass before that promise finally came true.
The first year, Josie called constantly.
Video calls, long ones, Josie walking Thea through every corner of her new life.
She’dprop her phone against a stack of books to show Thea the view from their balcony. Narrating everything like a tour guide, delighted by how much there was to share. Thea kept a small notebook those first months, jotting down street names and shop names Josie mentioned. Feeling closer to that faraway life than the distance should have technically allowed.
The apartment she and Aldric shared.
The market down the street where she’d learned to haggle in a language she was still learning.
The company office, sleek and modern,
whereshe’d started working alongside Aldric.
Learning the business from the ground up.
Josie described it in such detail those early calls that Thea felt she could have walked the hallways herself. The corner office with the wide window. The break room where Josie had already made a few friends among the younger staff. It sounded, back then, like exactly the life Thea had once worried her daughter might never find. Full and busy and genuinely happy.
She sent money too, that first year, smaller amounts, gifts more than anything else.A new coat.
A better mattress.
Small comforts Thea never would have bought herself.
The first transfer arrived with a note that made Thea laugh out loud, alone in her kitchen. “Buy something ridiculous, Mom. You’ve earned it.” She bought a set of good winter boots instead, practical to the end. Though she did treat herself to a nicercoffee maker the following month.
