Chapter 15: Her Father's Course

The letter did not contain the excuses Chaoyin had imagined.

Her father had written: I drew a clear route for everyone, yet never drew the one that led back to you. The sea did not keep me. Shame did. If the wind arrives one day, tell your mother that the deepest blue on every chart I made was the night outside her window.

Chaoyin read it and said nothing for a long time.

The old man understood then that a letter is not always meant to change the past. Sometimes it only gives waiting a shape at last.