Chapter 28 — Cartographer of Lost Roads

After the inauguration of the memorial park, Van Khue's family's life gradually returned to its normal rhythm, but it was no longer the normal of the previous years - a new normal, lighter, more honest, no longer covered by the confusing silences and avoiding eyes that the whole family was so familiar with that they did not recognize their abnormality.

Mr. Tuyen, since the day he revealed the truth, seems to have become many years younger, although his body still bears traces of age. He began to tell more stories, not only about Van Dang, but also about the difficult years of apprenticeship, about memories with former colleagues, about the happy and sad things in everyday life that he had always kept secret, as if afraid that if he opened just one small door, his whole secret house would collapse.

"Have you told me this story?" One evening, when the whole family gathered to eat, Mr. Tuyen suddenly laughed, telling the story of how when he was young, he was lost in the forest for three days while surveying a remote mountain area, had to eat insects to survive, and was finally saved by a group of local hunters. That story, although Van Khue had never heard it in his twenty-six years of life, was now told by him in full vivid detail, mixed with the crisp laughter of the whole family.

"Why have you never told us this story before?" Van Khue asked, both amused and touched.

"Previously, every time I wanted to tell something funny, I felt guilty, afraid that if I told too much, I would accidentally say something about Van Dang," Mr. Tuyen answered honestly, the smile on his lips was a bit sad. "So he kept to himself, rarely talked about the past, and made it a habit. Now that he has nothing to hide anymore, he realizes how many stories he has to tell his children and grandchildren."

The relationship between Mr. Tuyen and Mr. Lam also gradually changed clearly. Previously, father and son had always kept a polite but distant distance, conversations only revolved around work, health, and safe topics that did not touch deep emotions. Now, Mr. Lam began to proactively spend more time with his father, walking with him in the morning, reviewing old photos with him, and asking about his childhood years that he had never dared to ask before because he was afraid of touching some nameless pain in his father's heart.

"Dad, you know," one morning, when father and son were walking in a small park near their house, Mr. Lam said, his voice somewhat hesitant, "during my childhood, I always felt like there was an invisible distance between me and dad, even though I didn't know why. Now I understand, it's not because dad doesn't love me, but because he's trying to keep a very heavy secret. I'm just sorry, if only I had known sooner, maybe we wouldn't have had to live so far apart. like that for all these years."

Mr. Tuyen stopped walking and looked at his son, his eyes filled with emotion. "I'm sorry, Lam. I let my own fear affect your whole life, even though you didn't know the reason. That's what I regret the most, even more than having to redraw the old map."

"Dad, there's no need to apologize anymore," Mr. Lam said, his voice also choked, hugging his father's shoulders. "From now on, how much time we have left, let's make up for it together, okay dad?"

Since then, every weekend, Mr. Lam has set aside a morning to take his father to Tuyen's favorite places - sometimes to the memorial park to sit under the shade of a banyan tree, sometimes to visit old friends in the planning industry with whom Mr. Tuyen has long lost contact, sometimes simply to sit and drink coffee, chatting about the trivial things in life that father and son have never had the opportunity to share together in such a natural way before.

Mrs. Nhai, after the inauguration ceremony, decided to move back to live closer to her brother's family, renting a small house just a few streets away from Mr. Tuyen's house, although initially Ms. Thoa and Mr. Duoc were somewhat worried about her health when they had to leave their small family in the coastal town. But Mrs. Nhai was determined. "I've been away from my brother for thirty years," she told her son over the phone. "I don't want to waste any more days of the rest of my life."

Mrs. Bich Nguyen, Van Khue's mother, became the person who nurtured this new relationship more than anyone else. She regularly invited Mrs. Nhai over for meals, taught her how to use a smartphone to make video calls to her far-away grandchildren, and gradually, the two women — one a daughter-in-law, the other a sister-in-law who had never met until recently — became as close as sisters. "Sister-in-law is so kind," Mrs. Nhai often joked whenever Mrs. Bich Nguyen took good care of her. "God loves me, not only did I find my brother, but I also had a big family to rely on in my old age."

For Van Khue, one thing that made her especially emotional was the way Mr. Tuyen, since all the secrets were exposed, began to proactively pass on knowledge and professional skills to her that he had never had the opportunity to fully share before. He taught her how to recognize ancient types of paper, how to distinguish printing inks from each period, and tips on manual measuring that are no longer officially taught in any schools, only existing in the memories of old workers like him.

“My job is to preserve the memories of an entire city, my child,” he said one afternoon teaching her how to read old symbols on another map from the archives. "I once did wrong, used these same hands to erase part of that memory. I hope that what I pass on to you will help you never have to face difficult choices like I did, and if you do, you will have the courage to choose right from the beginning."

The two brothers, now closer than ever, often meet, walk together in the newly built memorial park, sit under the shade of the banyan tree, review childhood memories, sometimes simply sit quietly together, without saying much, just to feel the presence of relatives who have been lost for so long.

One afternoon, when Van Khue visited her grandparents who were drinking tea on the porch, she encountered a scene that made her stop for a long time so as not to interrupt - Mr. Tuyen was holding a pen, drawing on a white piece of paper the shape of the family's old house in Van Dang from memory, and Mrs. Nhai was sitting next to him, occasionally giving comments and editing a few small details that she remembered more clearly than her brother.

"I remember there was a guava tree right in the corner of the yard, you missed it," Mrs. Nhai said, giggling like a child.

"Yes, that guava tree is very sweet, it bears fruit every year," Mr. Tuyen replied, adding a small drawing symbolizing the guava tree, his eyes shining with a simple joy that Van Khue had rarely seen in him all those years ago.

She stood silently looking at that scene, her heart filled with an indescribable warm emotion. This is what she had hoped to achieve from the very first days of starting this journey, even though she had not yet clearly imagined what it would look like — not only justice for a lost community, but also the revival of family bonds that seemed to be broken forever, now reconnected, little by little, by memories shared, cherished, relived once again.

That evening, when Van Khue told Duy Khanh about that touching scene, he listened silently, then held her hand, his eyes gentle. "I think it's no coincidence that you became the one to discover all of this," he said. "She has a special sensitivity to gaps, to things that are overlooked — perhaps because she grew up in a family that always had a silent void that she was unaware of, until she was mature enough to recognize and fill it."

Van Khue pondered that comment in silence, feeling it was strangely true. She remembered her childhood habits — always paying attention to small details that others overlooked, always annoyed when she saw something incomplete, not clearly explained. Perhaps, ever since she was a child, a part of her felt the existence of that silence in her family, even though she could never name it, until her job as a draftsman brought her to the right door that needed to be opened.

"Anyway," she said, smiling, resting her head on his shoulder, "I'm glad that everything has finally been properly filled, not with oblivion, but with truth."