**Part 2**
During my first week, we barely spent any time together.
I ate breakfast alone because Hannah left for the laboratory early each morning and frequently did not return until after eleven at night.
Whenever we happened to meet inside the apartment, she asked ordinary questions.
“Have you eaten dinner yet, Dad?” she would ask.
“Yes, I ate earlier,” I would answer.
“Did you remember your daily medication?” she would ask afterward.
“Yes, I took it on time,” I would reply.
And that was usually where our conversations ended.
Hannah remained polite, thoughtful, and consistently helpful, but there was still an obvious emotional distance between us, almost as though I were simply another visiting guest.
Not long afterward, Samantha and Chloe began calling constantly.
At first, both claimed they were checking on my health, but their conversations soon shifted toward other concerns.
“Dad, could you ask Hannah whether she might recommend my husband’s company for a contract?” Samantha asked one afternoon.
“His business could probably provide materials for her laboratory.”
The following day, Chloe called with an even more direct request.
“Ask her whether there’s a job for me at the center,” Chloe suggested. “They manage huge projects, so surely there must be some position available.”
Their behavior embarrassed me deeply.
One Sunday morning, while Hannah worked on her computer in the living room, Chloe called again. While answering, I accidentally activated the speaker.
“Have you spoken with her about us yet?” Chloe asked loudly.
“She can’t keep every opportunity to herself! If she gets the best opportunities, surely the rest of the family deserves some consideration too!”
Hannah raised her eyes from the computer and looked directly at me.
“Let her continue, Dad,” she said quietly.
Chloe continued describing her problems until Hannah finally joined the conversation.
“Do you really want to discuss finances, Chloe?” Hannah asked evenly. “Then we can discuss them now.”
The change in Hannah’s voice immediately made Chloe stop.
“You and your husband currently owe nearly eight hundred thousand dollars, and your bank has already begun foreclosure proceedings involving your house,” Hannah explained calmly.
The line became completely silent while I stared at Hannah in disbelief.
“And Samantha’s husband is currently facing an investigation involving serious tax irregularities,” Hannah continued.
“A large portion of the money Dad gave her has already been used trying to address those debts.”
I sat motionless.
Neither of my daughters had ever told me about the extent of their financial problems.
“How could you possibly know all that?” Chloe asked nervously.
“Because when both of you began repeatedly pressuring Dad about my project funding, I hired professionals to make sure nobody could use family connections to influence my laboratory,” Hannah replied firmly.
“You need to address your own financial problems. I won’t pay those debts.”
She ended the conversation.
That evening, an uncomfortable truth became impossible for me to ignore.
I had divided my wealth believing I was rewarding the daughters who had made the right choices, yet Samantha and Chloe had simply absorbed the lesson I had taught them: that family responsibility and affection could be measured through money.
Hannah alone had refused to live by that rule, and I had punished her for it.
Over the following days, I started reading some of the technical books from Hannah’s shelves.
I understood barely half of the scientific terminology, but I discovered that preserving an ancient document required detailed knowledge of fibers, inks, humidity, acidity, and compatibility between different materials.
I also learned that one careless repair could permanently damage an irreplaceable historical object.
One afternoon, I passed Hannah’s open bedroom door and noticed her participating in a video conference with an elderly white-haired scholar.
Together, they moved comfortably between Italian and English.
After she closed the laptop, I approached her.
“Who was the gentleman you were speaking with?” I asked.
“That was Professor Lorenzo Rossi,” she replied. “He was one of my main mentors during my advanced studies in Rome.”
I suddenly understood how much of her adult life I had missed.
“I never knew you lived and studied in Rome,” I admitted.
She gave me a small, somewhat sad smile.
“We weren’t really speaking during those years, Dad,” she reminded me.
There was no accusation in her voice.
She was simply stating the truth.
I lowered myself into the chair opposite her.
“Do you hate me because of what I did?” I asked carefully.
Hannah remained silent for a long moment before answering.
“No, Dad. I don’t hate you,” she said gently.
“Then what do you feel when you look at me?” I asked.
“Sadness,” she answered quietly.
The answer went straight through me.
“Sadness for me?” I asked.
“Sadness that someone as gifted with his hands as you couldn’t recognize that same passion in his daughter simply because she chose paper instead of wood,” Hannah explained.
I lowered my head because I could no longer comfortably meet her eyes.
Then she told me something about her childhood that I had never known.
When Hannah was nine, I gave her a little leather dictionary.
One afternoon, she accidentally dropped it into a muddy puddle.
Afraid that I would be disappointed because she had damaged my gift, she carefully separated the wet pages, experimented with cooked rice as an adhesive, and pressed the book overnight between two wooden boards inside my workshop.
“That was my first restoration project,” Hannah said with a small smile.
“My whole career began inside your workshop.”
My eyes filled with tears as I listened.
“I chose this field because I admired you so much, Dad,” she continued.
“I grew up watching you rescue damaged doors, broken tables, and discarded pieces of walnut that everyone else considered useless.
I believed your hands could give almost anything another life, and I thought you would be the first person who understood what I wanted to do.”
Her words finally broke through every excuse I had carried for years.
I had not merely misunderstood my daughter’s profession. I had discouraged the dream of the child who had once admired me more than anyone else.
“Please forgive me, Hannah,” I said through my tears.
For perhaps the first time in my life, I was not apologizing merely because I wanted relief from guilt.
I apologized because I finally understood how deeply my choices had affected her.
Hannah did not wave the apology away or tell me that nothing had happened.
Instead, she looked at me quietly.
“Tomorrow morning, I’d like to take you somewhere,” she said.
The following day, Hannah drove us toward our home region to visit the cemetery where her mother, Margaret, was buried.
For many years, grief and regret had made it difficult for me to visit the grave.
From her car, Hannah retrieved white daisies, fine brushes, and several soft cloths.
She carefully cleaned the gravestone using the same patience and precision I had seen through the observation window at her laboratory.
“Mom always loved these flowers,” Hannah said while arranging the daisies beside the stone.
“She used to say they looked simple, but they could survive almost any difficult weather.”
I stood quietly beside her.
Then Hannah removed a cloth-wrapped object from her bag and placed it in my hands.
It was the childhood dictionary, now beautifully restored with clean pages, repaired edges, and a carefully finished binding.
On the first page, Hannah had written one word in elegant handwriting: Origin.
“Whenever work becomes overwhelming, I look at this book,” she explained.
“It reminds me of your workshop, the smell of sawdust, all your hand tools, and the phrase you always used to tell us.”
The old words returned to me before Hannah could repeat them.
“A good piece of work should never bring shame to your hands or your conscience,” I said softly.
Hannah smiled.
“Exactly, Dad.”
Standing there beside Margaret’s grave, I finally allowed myself to cry without trying to hide it from my daughter.
Hannah’s eyes filled with tears too.
“I never stopped being proud of you,” she whispered.
Then she took out her phone and showed me a photograph of an old wooden desk featuring intricate joinery and a tiny carved orchid in one corner.
I recognized it immediately.
Thirty years earlier, I had built that exact desk for a professor at a local university.
“He became my academic advisor in college,” Hannah explained with a warm smile.
“The first time I entered his office and saw that desk, I told him my father had built it and that he was the best carpenter in the world.”
I stared at the photograph in silence.
For years, I had imagined Hannah might be embarrassed by me, when in reality she had carried my name proudly through her life.
I was the one who had failed to show that same pride toward her.
