“You’re full?” she asked.

“I am, sweetheart,” he answered gently.

She took another sip of tea, but she did it knowing she couldn’t hide behind that cup.

She knew the hole he had inside, a hole that had never been filled. He’d shared it with her, his Jian-Li—his baby girl, his sister—the last in six women of her line that grew to be his confidant.

She knew he was searching for something, knowing for years it was not there to find.

Until thirty years ago, when the empty feeling became something else. A clawing in his gut that got stronger and stronger, year after year, until it got to a point it couldn’t be ignored. It took an extreme effort of will to live day to day without jumping on his bike and riding the roads until he found whatever it was that would make the pain stop.

That night, the pain had stopped.

And Abel knew that, forty-five years ago, Jian-Li would have given anything to be the one who filled that hole. From birth, she’d grown up with him in her life. She’d loved him since she knew what that feeling meant. He’d loved her since before she was born.

But she’d fallen in love with him when she was in her twenties.

She was not the one who would fill the hole, and he’d helped raise her and knew he’d watch her grow, turn beautiful, age, and die. He’d done that before, too often. So he couldn’t give her that, even in the lesser way he might have been able to give it to her.

“I’m happy for you, Abel,” she said.

He straightened from the jamb. “Jian-Li—”

She lifted a hand and waved it, interrupting him. “I had that.”

He felt the squeeze in his chest. “I know.”

“I wanted it from you, but that was long ago,” she continued. “But you know I found it elsewhere. It’s just that he wasn’t long for this world.” Her next words were said with her eyes still kind but sharp on him, communicating more than what she was saying. “It takes time, but you come to terms with the fact that you were blessed, having once had it at all.”

She’d found a good man, Ming. He’d made her happy. He’d given her three strong, smart, loyal sons. He’d accepted all that was Abel into their family as Jian-Li’s mother’s husband had done, and her mother’s husband before him, and the mother before that, all the way back to the first who had found him and raised him from a pup.