When To Niem stepped onto the stage, the applause continued.
But Chu Dich Than no longer seemed to hear it.
He stared at my son.
The same eyes.
The same nose.
Even the way To Niem pressed his lips together when nervous was exactly like him.
Then the principal laughed.
“Mr. Chu, our outstanding graduate is quite handsome, isn’t he?”
Chu Dich Than didn’t answer.
His gaze dropped to the boy’s name card.
TO NIEM.
Then he slowly looked into the audience.
He found me immediately.
Our eyes met through my camera lens.
Ten years.
For ten years, we’d been strangers living in separate worlds.
And now he finally understood what I’d carried away with me.
After the ceremony, To Niem ran toward me.
“Mom!”
I lowered the camera.
Before he reached me, someone caught his wrist.
Chu Dich Than.
“How old are you?”
To Niem frowned.
“Ten.”
“What month were you born?”
I walked over.
“Let him go.”
Chu Dich Than released him immediately.
His face had turned frighteningly pale.
“To Tinh.”
That was the first time I’d heard him say my name in ten years.
“Is he mine?”
To Niem looked between us.
I had always promised myself that when this day came, I wouldn’t lie.
“Biologically?”
I looked directly at Chu Dich Than.
“Yes.”
His entire body stiffened.
“You were pregnant when we divorced?”
“Three months.”
He stumbled backward.
Then something changed in his eyes.
Anger.
“You hid my son from me for ten years?”
I almost laughed.
“You were in such a hurry to reach Hua Vy that you couldn’t even give me ten minutes.”
His anger disappeared.
Because he remembered.
The divorce table.
His watch.
His flight.
And the question I’d asked him:
Have you ever loved me?
He hadn’t even answered.
He’d simply told me to sign.
“I left you five million yuan.”
I stared at him.
“Do you think that bought ten years of fatherhood?”
“No. I mean—”
“I threw away your black card. I sold the house. Everything To Niem has today, I earned.”
His eyes moved toward our son.
“Does he know?”
“That you’re his father? No.”
To Niem interrupted.
“I know now.”
His voice was unusually calm.
Then he looked at Chu Dich Than.
“You’re the man Mom divorced?”
Chu Dich Than’s expression broke.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Neither of us answered immediately.
Finally Chu Dich Than crouched.
“Because I made choices I regret.”
To Niem considered that.
Then asked:
“Were you there when I was born?”
“No.”
“My first birthday?”
“No.”
“When I started school?”
Chu Dich Than swallowed.
“No.”
To Niem nodded.
“Then you’re my biological father.”
He took my hand.
“But you aren’t my dad yet.”
Chu Dich Than requested a DNA test.
I agreed.
Not because I needed proof.
Because he did.
99.99%.
He stared at the result for nearly an hour.
Then he asked for photographs.
So I showed him.
Not all of them.
Just enough.
To Niem as a newborn.
His first tooth.
His first steps.
His first school uniform.
Ten years of a childhood preserved through my camera, just as I had documented it while building my studio from nothing.
Chu Dich Than cried when he reached the photograph of To Niem’s first birthday.
“I should have been there.”
“Yes.”
No comfort.
No cruelty.
Only truth.
He wanted custody immediately.
His lawyer apparently convinced him not to try.
Instead, we agreed to gradual contact.
One afternoon a week.
Then weekends.
To Niem set the pace.
Chu Dich Than discovered quickly that donating five million yuan to a school was easier than becoming a father to one child.
Money couldn’t tell him To Niem hated mushrooms.
Money couldn’t explain why he became quiet when anxious.
Money couldn’t replace ten years of bedtime stories.
But, unexpectedly, Chu Dich Than tried.
He showed up.
Again.
And again.
Even after To Niem rejected him.
Even when there were no photographers.
Eventually, my son stopped calling him “Mr. Chu.”
Then came “Father.”
It took almost three years.
The first time I heard it, Chu Dich Than turned away so To Niem wouldn’t see him cry.
I pretended not to notice.
Hua Vy?
They had never married.
That surprised me.
After our divorce, Chu Dich Than flew to her.
Within two years they separated permanently.
One evening, he finally admitted why.
“I thought she was the life I’d missed.”
He smiled bitterly.
“Then I realized I’d destroyed the life I actually had.”
I said nothing.
He looked at me.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the pregnancy afterward?”
“Because every day that passed without you contacting me answered the question.”
His eyes reddened.
“I thought you wanted a clean break.”
“I did.”
“Could we…”
“No.”
I didn’t let him finish.
“You can become To Niem’s father.”
I closed my camera case.
“But you don’t get to use him as a bridge back to me.”
Years later, To Niem graduated again.
This time from university.
Chu Dich Than sat three seats away from me.
When our son crossed the stage, we both stood.
We both applauded.
And afterward, To Niem insisted on a photograph with his parents.
I set the timer.
Chu Dich Than stood on one side.
I stood on the other.
Our son between us.
Not husband and wife.
Not enemies.
Simply two people connected by the child one of us had raised and the other had learned, painfully and belatedly, to love.
Before leaving, Chu Dich Than stopped me.
“That day at elementary school… you said you’d waited ten years.”
“I did.”
“Were you waiting to punish me?”
I thought about it.
Then shook my head.
“No.”
“What were you waiting for?”
I looked toward our son.
“For you to see what you left behind.”
Ten years earlier, Chu Dich Than had signed our divorce agreement with relief, eager to catch a flight to another woman. The document had even stated that our marriage had produced no children, while I sat opposite him three months pregnant.
He thought he’d left me with a house and five million yuan.
He was wrong.
He left me with To Niem.
And To Niem gave me a reason to survive every year that followed.
Chu Dich Than eventually gained a son.
To Niem eventually gained a father.
But I never regained a husband.
Because some truths deserve to be revealed.
Some relationships deserve a second beginning.
And some endings deserve to remain exactly where they were signed.
Ten years earlier, Chu Dich Than walked out without looking back.
Ten years later, he finally understood what he’d abandoned.
By then, I no longer needed him to regret losing me.
I only needed him to become worthy of knowing the son I’d raised without him.
