Chapter 21 — Climbing Through the Storm

Four months after the storm, on a normal Tuesday morning, the shift roster posted on the dispatch room wall had a line that made Khánh Thi stand still and look at it for nearly a minute before entering the shift: "Field shift leader: Lữ Khánh Thi."

This was the first time she was assigned the role of team leader, in charge of a small team of three people handling a local power outage in a residential area due to short-circuited low-voltage wires caused by rat bites, a job that was not as dangerous as what she had experienced during the storm, but carried a different weight: for the first time, all decisions at the scene would be hers, without Thắng or Cả Xuyên standing behind her to guide her.

"Ready?" Vọng asked, now an equal colleague instead of the one who led her in the early days, waiting for her in the parking lot with a young worker who had only been in the job for a few months.

"Ready," Khánh Thi replied, her voice was more certain than she expected, although there was still a familiar feeling of nervousness in her stomach.

Before getting in the car, Cả Xuyên, who is now only working part-time in the last months before retiring, suddenly appeared in the parking lot, holding a small cloth bag.

"I heard that you became team leader today," he said, handing her the cloth bag. "Here's something for you."

Khánh Thi opened her bag, inside was an old leather-bound notebook, the pages yellowed over time, handwriting scattered all over the pages, measurement numbers, scribbled drawings, and brief notes about each pillar on many different transmission lines.

"This is the first notebook I used when I first started my career, when I was younger than you are now," Cả Xuyên said, his voice a bit nervous. "I kept it for nearly forty years, intending to leave it to someone who really needed it, not just keep it in a closet as a souvenir."

"I don't dare accept something so precious, uncle," Khánh Thi said, her hand trembling as she held the notebook, feeling that its weight was not just from paper and ink.

"Receive it," he said, his voice determined. "A notebook is only valuable when it is still in use and continues to be written on. Left in your closet, it is just a dead souvenir. In your hands, it can live on, adding your new lessons to the blank pages behind."

Khánh Thi hugged the notebook tightly to her chest, her throat was choked, unable to say anything more than a nod and a whispered thank you, and Cả Xuyên just patted her shoulder, turned and walked away, not wanting to prolong the emotional moment more than necessary before an important shift.

On the way to the scene, she continuously reviewed the entire process in her head, not because she didn't remember, but because it had become a habit, a personal ritual that helped her focus before each shift, just like how Thắng always checked his belt even though he had done it thousands of times.

At the scene, the damaged low voltage pole was not high, only ten meters, but this was the first time Khánh Thi had to make all the decisions herself, from confirming the power cut with the dispatch center, assigning tasks to two colleagues, to evaluating the repair plan.

"The wire was bitten off by a mouse about half a meter, and the outer insulation was damaged for a longer length," she said after carefully observing with binoculars from the ground, a skill she learned from Thắng himself, she always assesses the situation carefully before climbing up to avoid wasting time carrying the wrong tools. "It is necessary to replace about two meters of wire to ensure safety, not just temporarily connect the broken area."

"Wouldn't it be faster to just connect temporarily?" The young worker asked, unfamiliar with the team's careful working style.

"Faster, but not as durable," Khánh Thi replied, her voice had a certainty that even she was surprised to hear herself say. "Temporarily connect it and then have to come back to fix it again in a few months, which takes much more effort than doing it right from the beginning. I learned that from a story about a column whose reinforcement was delayed."

She didn't need to say clearly what the story was, but Vọng, standing nearby, immediately understood what she was talking about, and he just smiled, said nothing more, and let her continue running the business her way.

The safety process is fully implemented, without missing a single step: confirming power cut via radio, checking for zero voltage with a test pole, mobile grounding, hanging signs, and assigning supervisors. Khánh Thi herself climbed up to perform the rope change, her hands still shaking slightly as she reached the familiar height, but it was no longer the tremor of fear of complete takeover like the first days, but a healthy vigilance that she had learned to live with.

The work was completed in more than an hour, quickly and accurately, and when she reported the completion via the radio and asked for permission to test power, her voice rang out clearly, no different from the times she had heard Thắng report during stormy days.

"Successfully energized, there is normal voltage in the entire area," Dispatch center confirmed.

She stood on the ground, looking up at the newly completed pillar, a gentle but profound feeling of satisfaction spread in her heart, different from the tearful explosive feeling of the day the hospital had power restored, but no less meaningful in its own way.

"The first team leader handled the incident smoothly," Vọng said, patting her shoulder, the smile on his face was full of sincerity. "Uncle Thắng would be very proud if he knew about this."

"Don't tell me yet, let me inform myself." Khánh Thi smiled and packed her tools.

That evening, she called Thắng and told him about his entire first shift as a team leader, and when he finished listening, he was silent for a moment before speaking.

"I have a question," he said. "When you stood on the ground, without me or Cả Xuyên to guide you, did you feel lonely?"

Khánh Thi thought about that question for a while, looking out the window where the streetlight shone into her small living room, where little Bin was sleeping soundly in the next room.

"Are not," she replied, after a moment of silence. "I don't feel lonely, because I still hear your voice in my head the whole time, reminding me every step of the way. You're still there, just not standing next to me in the flesh." The other end of the line was silent for a moment, and when Thắng spoke again, his voice had an emotion that he didn't try to hide.

"So I did the right thing as a teacher," he said, simply but enough to contain everything they both felt in that moment.

"I still have something to tell you," Khánh Thi said, her voice became softer. "Uncle Xúyên gave me his first notebook, when he first started his career nearly forty years ago."

"Old leather notebook, the writing is dense, right?" Thắng asked, a pleasant surprise in his voice.

"Do you know that book?"

"I know," Thắng replied, his voice low with an ancient memory. "When I first started my career, Mr. Xúyên lent it to me to read a few times, teaching me how to take notes effectively. That notebook has taught more generations of electricians than you think, even though it has never left his pocket until today."

"I will keep it carefully," Khánh Thi said, her voice filled with determination.

"There's no need to be careful." Thắng smiled lightly. "Mr. Xúyên is right, a notebook only lives when it is used. Just keep writing in it, recording what you learn, the mistakes you make, the solutions you come up with. One day, you will also give it, or a similar notebook, to another of your students."

Khánh Thi was silent, looking down at the notebook placed on the table next to her, the yellowed pages under the living room light, and she suddenly imagined a distant future, where she stood in Cả Xuyên's position today, handing a similar notebook to another young person trembling on the eighth step of the exercise column, not knowing that a long journey was waiting ahead.

"I think I understand," she spoke, her voice as steady as ever. "Thank you, uncle, for everything."

"No need to thank me," Thắng replied. "Just keep doing well. That's the only way to thank a teacher, not with words, but by being a good teacher for the next one."

Hanging up the phone, Khánh Thi sat quietly for a while longer in the quiet living room, opened Cả Xuyên's old notebook, flipped through each page, read the scribbles of a young man nearly forty years ago, and she opened to the first remaining blank page, picked up the pen, began writing her own words, the handwriting was still a bit shaky but clear, recording the details of her first shift as a team leader, the date, the name of the pillar, and a short sentence at the bottom of the page: "Remember this day forever."