My boyfriend left me when I was pregnant because his mother didn’t like me. I’ve raised my son alone for 17 years. Today, I ran into his mother. She burst into tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice trembling, “I’ve been looking for you all these years.”

Two days later, my ex-boyfriend’s mother asked to see me. I hesitated a lot before agreeing, but I did. We met in a quiet café. She was carrying a thin folder with yellowed papers.

“This is for him,” she said, handing me the folder. “Photos, letters… things his father wanted to give him someday, but never dared. I’ve kept them all these years. I don’t deserve for you to hear this, but… I do think he deserves for his son to know something about him.”

I didn’t know what to say.

For the first time, I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t trembling either. I felt… at peace, even if it was a fragile peace.

“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” I said honestly.

“I know,” she replied, looking down. “I just want you to move on without that weight. The one I placed on you without any right.”

We said goodbye without hugs, without promises. Only with the feeling that a painful story had finally reached its end.

That night my son opened the folder. He looked at each photo with reverent silence. When he finished, he looked at me and said:

“Perhaps he didn’t have the chance to be my father, but… I did have the chance to have you.”

And I understood, at last, that although the past couldn’t be changed, we could choose what to do with its remains. And we chose to move on. Without resentment. Without borrowed blame. Only with the truth and the strength that had sustained us from the beginning.