Soo Young received the letter on a random evening following the week. It was enclosed in a brown envelope with no return address and no stamp, either; just her name, written in slanted handwriting.
It was delivered to the general store, the same address she provided. But no one saw who delivered it.
Soo Young took the letter and went to sit under the same persimmon tree. Her hands trembled as she opened the envelope.
"I've waited years to write this. I don't know what your father told you, maybe nothing. But we lived through a war and war doesn't leave room for clean endings. I didn't expect you to find the photo. But I hoped you would. I can't write more in this letter. Not yet. Meet me at the stone bridge on the east path, the day after the next full moon. Alone. I'll explain everything."
Again, there was no name or signature. The weight of the unspoken truth presses into each word.
Soo Young read it twice, then folded it neatly and kept it safe inside the inner pocket of her jacket, where the photo still rested like a stone.
The full moon was in two days.
The atmosphere at home shifted from being tense to careful. Her mother wandered through the rooms. She didn't mention the photograph again and didn't offer more stories. As if she had passed the story on and now chose not to interfere.
Soo Young saw her family with a renewed perspective. Her sister was drawing boats and rabbits in the dirt. Tae Soo still sulked when told to sweep the yard. Everything was normal, life had not paused, even when everything in Soo Young shifted and seemed off-balance.
She questioned whether her father, who used to sing folk songs at the dinner table and stitch her shoes with rough hands and soft eyes, had ever foresaw the past to come back.
"You're somewhere else again," Jun Ho said, sitting beside her at the fish-drying racks the next day.
"How can you tell?"
"You keep peeling your nails when you're anxious."
Soo Young looked down at the raw skin of her thumb.
She told him about the letter. Not everything, just enough.
Jun Ho's brow raised. "The bridge on the east path? That's not a place you go to alone. Especially not after dark."
"I can't take anyone with me. The letter was clear."
He seemed like he wanted to argue, but he only sighed. "Then I'll wait nearby. Not close enough to be seen. Just in case."
Soo Young stayed quiet. But her silence conveyed a deep sense of thankfulness.
Two days passed, and the full moon night is here. Soo Young was counting minutes the entire day. She had prepared her bag and kept a pouch in it, which had scraps of her father's handwriting like receipts, old lists, anything that might help if a voice tried to claim truth. Finally, at dinner time, she quickly finished her meal and got up. She carried a small lantern with her and stepped outside.
The walk to the stone bridge was quite long. Every sound, be it the clicking of her boots or the crackling of dry reeds, seemed louder in the silence of the night. The moonlight cast everything in pale blue.
The bridge was low and covered in moss, stretching over a creek that doesn't flow at this time of year. She waited at the far end, heart beating in her throat.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.
She then doubted it, that maybe it was a cruel trick. Then she heard footsteps. Deliberate. Unhurried.
A woman appeared from the darkness, her silhouette slender, her posture precise. She wore a dark brown coat and a scarf wrapped around her neck. As she stepped into the light, her face was older than Soo Young had expected. It had lined with time, eyes sharp and quiet.
They looked closely at each other without saying a word for a long moment.
"You're Yoon Soo Young," the woman said, her voice even.
"Yes. And you?"
She didn't answer the question. Instead, she held up a faded handkerchief.
"This was your father's," she said. "He gave it to me the night we said goodbye."
Soo Young stared at the handkerchief, and the stitching pattern seemed familiar. Her father used to carry handkerchiefs, folded neatly in his jacket. She remembered taking it out from his pocket once to wipe her nose.
"He never told me about you," Soo Young said. "About any of this."
The woman nodded slowly. "He wouldn't have."
"Was that baby in the photo... me?"
"No." She promptly answered. "Her name was Hae Rin. She was mine. And his."
Soo Young blinked. Her hands went cold, despite the coat.
"Where is she now?"
The woman's expression trembled for the first time. "Gone. Fever, years ago. There was no medicine, no help."
The words were earth-shattering in the silence between them.
"I'm sorry," Soo Young said, before she could stop herself. "I don't know what else to say."
"You don't owe me anything," the woman replied. "But I needed you to know. You look like him. Not just in the face, but the way you carry yourself. Quiet but stubborn."
Soo Young swallowed. "Why now?"
"Because I thought I could bury it. I tried. But when your father died, it felt like something unfinished had passed into silence. And then… I heard your name. From someone who still knew the old days."
Soo Young asked in a shrill voice. "Someone in the village?"
"I won't say more. But the past doesn't stay buried in places like this."
The wind whistled through the leaves. The creek bubbled softly under the bridge.
Soo Young stepped forward, gaze fixed on the woman. "Was he a good man?"
A pause.
"He was a man who wanted to be good. He carried guilt like a second skin. But he loved deeply. Maybe too many people, in too many ways."
There it was: not condemnation, not forgiveness. Just the truth, simple and bare.
The woman placed her hand into her coat and pulled out a small notebook, worn at the edges. She gave it to Soo Young.
"This was his. He kept it during the war. I don't know if it will help you. But it's yours now."
Soo Young accepted it with both hands, bowing slightly, not in respect for the woman, but for the burden of what they had shared.
When she looked up again, the woman had already turned to leave.
"I don't need you to write back," she said over her shoulder. "Just remember. That's all I ask."
Soo Young stood there watching the woman fade into the darkness.
She then went into the shed. Sat with the notebook open under the lantern's light. The writing was small and tidy. Some pages were written in Korean, others in a mix of languages she didn't understand.
One entry caught her eye.
March 2, 1951. "The child smiled today. Just once. I think she'll survive. But every time I hold her, I feel the weight of what I left behind. Soo Young hasn't been born yet. But I think of her often, and I wonder — will she know the sound of my regret? Or only the rhythm of my hands building her world?"
Tears clouded the page. She didn't wipe them away.
Outside, the stars twinkled gently in the sky. Somewhere not far, Jun Ho was waiting. She would find him soon. But for now, she read, not as a daughter unmasking the scandal, but as a woman solving the mystery of the man's past who raised her.
Not perfect. Not whole.
But real.
And that was enough for now.