Mei Lin arrived with a tentative knock - a knock that would have the subtle impact on Jean's life like a car crash.
She'd heard snippets of the former Mrs. Blake from Lucien in the time since his father's funeral. In the beginning, he'd only speak of her if he was that particular level of drunkenness between his pleasantly buzzed drunk and his "playing-piano-at-three-in-the-morning" and "punching-his-oldest-friend-in-front-of-the-town" drunk. Later, once he'd come back from China to see his daughter, once he started to settle, he'd tell her more of Mei Lin - how she was kind to servants and workers alike, how she had a razor-sharp mind and matching wit, how they met, how they fell in love, how he would read to her when she was pregnant with Li (Lucien's voice the only thing that calmed the baby and Mei Lin), how she always smelled of citrus and spice.
The appearance of Mei Lin on the doorstep brought everything Jean knew to a screeching halt. Gone was the future she saw with Lucien, like the wisp of a cloud on a scorching summer's day. Gone was her hopes at loving Lucien - becoming his wife and letting their love show to the public was a dream the moment Mei Lin stepped foot in 7 Mycroft Avenue. With all the quiet of a thunderclap, Jean's life changed and she returned the ring silently to Lucien's desk.
She couldn't blame Mei Lin, no matter how much her heart ached with Mrs. Blake's return. It was not her fault for returning to the one person she'd been seeking for eighteen years. It was not her fault for trying to pick up the pieces of a life long gone. After Derek Alderton's plan came to light, Jean could not fault Mei Lin for her actions - she was being threatened by a man who wielded power in a way neither she nor Mei Lin could imagine. No, Jean could not fault Mei Lin for trying to save the life of her daughter (and her own).
(If she had been in Mei Lin's shoes, Jean likely would have done the same. A mother's love was infinite, deep, and all-encompassing.)
Mei Lin - with her gentle kindness that Lucien spoke of - became an unlikely friend, and Jean cherished her. She cherished Mei Lin's quiet perseverance in the face of the divorce, their shared exasperation with Lucien's antics after the wedding, and the familiar slant of Mei Lin's handwriting after Lucien's disappearance. Through Mei Lin, Jean learned love and trust in those she cared for would guide her through the dark, that life would even itself out in the end, and that friendship could come from the unlikeliest source.