“Your mother has passed, and crying won’t change that—so wipe your face, prepare dinner, and don’t look like a mourning child when my guests show up,” my husband told me only two hours after I returned

I entered the boardroom. The room was large, cool, and dominated by a long oval mahogany table. Around the table sat elderly directors and auditors with decades of experience. I would never have even imagined entering this room before, but today I walked in with my head held high. Mr. Harrison stood to greet me and invited me to sit at the head of the table—the seat that had been empty, my mother’s seat. When I sat down, everyone fell silent, awaiting my instructions. With a calm but firm voice, I began the meeting. I discussed the company’s new vision, fairer employee welfare policies, and the eradication of the corrupt practices that had proliferated under the previous management.

I spoke not just as an heiress, but as someone who understood the values of hard work and honesty that my mother had instilled in me. While I was presiding over a meeting in a cool skyscraper, Mark was living a very different fate. In a squalid, overcrowded corner of the city, in a damp and narrow 10-by-10-foot boarding house room, Mark lay curled up on a thin foam mattress that smelled of mildew. The ceiling of his room leaked, and water from the previous night’s rain dripped onto the already cracked tile floor. There was no air conditioning, only a small, dusty, and noisy fan. Mark was awakened by loud banging on the door.

His heart leaped. It wasn’t a visitor; it was the debt collectors. Since being fired and kicked out, Mark’s life had completely fallen apart. His name was blacklisted in the industry. No company wanted to hire him after the embezzlement and immorality scandal spread. He tried to get a job as a rideshare driver, but his account was rejected for having a criminal record under police investigation. His savings were nil. His credit cards were blocked. His friends avoided him like the plague. Even the woman he once adored, Jessica, was now a witness for the prosecution, testifying against him to get a reduced sentence. Mark was truly alone.

The banging on the door grew louder, accompanied by rude shouts demanding payment. Mark covered his ears with the pillow, trembling with fear. His stomach ached. He hadn’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday. He only ate raw instant noodles because the gas for his portable stove had run out and he had no money to buy a new canister. His face, once neat and arrogant, was now gaunt, covered by a scruffy beard, and his eyes were sunken in terrible dark circles. He looked at the news on social media on the screen of a cheap, cracked phone. There was a photo of me next to Mr. Harrison launching a company social responsibility project.

I was smiling elegantly. Mark cried. Tears of belated regret soaked the old pillow. He remembered again the comfortable house, the delicious food, and the wife who had served him with all her heart. He had thrown it all away for a momentary pleasure, and now he had to pay the price with a life of suffering. Back in my life, after the meeting and signing some important documents, I asked the chauffeur to take me to the place I most wanted to go: Oak Ridge Cemetery. The evening sky was a reddish-orange color.

As I entered the cemetery grounds, a gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the trees. I walked to my mother’s grave. The grave was now well-tended. The grass was beginning to grow green, and her name was beautifully engraved on the black marble headstone. I knelt beside my mother’s headstone and placed a basket of fresh, fragrant jasmine flowers—her favorite. I gently caressed my mother’s name engraved on the stone. There were no more tears of pain constricting my chest as there were a month ago, only a warm longing and deep gratitude. I began to speak as if my mother were sitting next to me. I told her about today’s meeting, about Mr. Harrison, who had helped me so much, and about how I was beginning to rebuild my life. I also whispered softly that justice had been done, that the person who had hurt us had paid the price, and that for my own peace of mind, I had forgiven that past.