He told her he had no right to ask for forgiveness and no illusion that he could erase ten years. But if she allowed it, he wanted to begin with the smallest possible promise: he would not disappear again.
That humility mattered more than any speech. He placed an international music scholarship file on the table and said he could not change the past, but he could try to open doors that should always have been there for her.
Emma did not embrace him then. But something had shifted.
Half a month later, Grace was moved into a special recovery room and her surgery was scheduled. Meanwhile, Emma was being chased by media, managers, and television producers who wanted to turn her story into a spectacle. She refused. Her mother had not even gone into surgery yet. She had not entered the contest to become famous. She had entered because she was trying to save a life.
Then the surgery came.
It lasted five hours.
When the surgeon finally emerged and said the tumor had been removed in time, though recovery would be long, Emma cried in complete relief. For the first time in years, she was crying not from fear, but because something precious had been saved.