"You are our pride," they had told him. "Our tired backs are the bridge for you to walk toward the sun."

The weight of his high-pressure job and his city life felt insignificant compared to the quiet dignity of this porch. He realized then that he hadn't just come home for a visit; he had come to say what the song says so perfectly—that everything he was, every success he claimed, belonged to the two people who had given up their own dreams so he could live his.

He remembered his father’s hands—rough, calloused, and stained with the grease of the tractors he fixed to pay for Matei’s university tuition. He remembered his mother’s eyes, always tired but always sparkling when she managed to tuck an extra few banknotes into his coat pocket before he left for the city.

He stepped into the light of the porch, the music in his head swelling. "I'm home," he whispered. And for the first time in a decade, the restless man felt he was exactly where he was meant to be.

Matei walked toward the porch where his parents now sat, gray-haired and quiet. They didn't see him at first. His father was peeling an apple for his mother, a simple gesture of a lifetime of shared burdens.