Chapter 1 — Debt Book at the End of the Alley

Dieu's phone vibrated right when she was presenting her third quarter revenue slide in front of five pairs of directors. She glanced down, saw an unfamiliar number, and was about to turn it off, but something made her finger stop - the area code was not a mobile number, but the desk number of the ward medical station, a number she had saved since her father was in the hospital four years ago, and had never deleted it.

"Sorry guys, I have to answer the phone," she said, trying to keep her voice calm, walking out of the meeting room before anyone could react.

“Hello, is Ms. Hanh's son selling rice in Ben Cat alley?” The woman's voice on the other end of the line was urgent, mixed with the noise of traffic. "She collapsed right in front of the restaurant. We're taking her to the emergency room. She's still breathing but can't speak, her left arm and leg can't move. I'll arrange to go to the district hospital right away."

Dieu stood dumbfounded in the middle of the company hallway, the fluorescent light above his head suddenly became blindingly white. She heard herself ask again, "Yes, the uterus is coming right away" in a voice that didn't resemble her voice at all, then hung up and stood there for a few more seconds before her feet moved automatically, not waiting for her mind to process.

She didn't remember how she got her bag, greeted her boss, or caught a taxi. Just remember when sitting in the car, her hands were shaking so much that she couldn't dial Huong's number - the only close friend at the company who knew about her family - she had to try three times before calling.

“You calm down,” Huong said over the phone, her voice trying to reassure even though she could clearly hear Dieu's rapid breathing. "I told my boss to give you emergency leave. Just take care of her, the company will leave it to me."

Dieu said yes, unable to say anything more, eyes glued to the car window, watching the city speed by and then slow down as the car turned onto smaller roads, near the area where she grew up. Six years. She calculated in her head like an unconscious reflex of an accountant - six years, two thousand two hundred and a few days since she last walked through the gate of Ben Cat alley, and now she was returning not because of any Tet reconciliation, but because of a phone call from the ward medical station.

The district hospital was crowded with people, the smell of antiseptic alcohol and sweat mixed in the stuffy air of the emergency ward. Dieu pushed through the crowd of relatives standing and sitting in the hallway, found the guidance counter, her voice was completely lost when she asked her mother's name.

“Miss Tran Thi Hanh, emergency room number three,” the nurse replied, without looking up from the screen. "A family member? Waiting for the doctor to come out and talk, it's being processed now."

Dieu stood against the hallway wall, holding her bag with both hands as if it was the only thing keeping her from collapsing. A man in his fifties, wearing an old greasy T-shirt, ran towards the door, panting.

"Dieu! Is Dieu back?"

She turned around and recognized Uncle Tu almost immediately even though he was much older than in her memory - his hair was grayer, his figure was slightly bent, but his eyes were still the familiar eyes of the man who used to repair bicycles for free for children in the alley in the past.

“Uncle Tu,” she called, her voice choked. “How is my mother, uncle?”

"I don't know, I just saw her falling right into the kitchen, still holding the soup spoon," Uncle Tu said, his voice also shaking. "You and Mrs. Sau Lien called an ambulance and followed me here. I'm glad you made it in time."

They waited together for nearly an hour before the doctor came out, with the familiar stern face of someone who had passed away Get used to reporting bad news to relatives.

“The patient had a stroke, bleeding in part of the right hemisphere,” the doctor said, his voice even but clear. "We have the acute condition under control, but she will need close monitoring for the next seventy-two hours. The possibility of left hemiplegia and speech difficulties is there, the extent of recovery will depend on further physical therapy."

“Can I...can I see you, doctor?” Dieu asked, her voice breaking.

"Okay, but just one person, five minutes. She's awake but still very weak."

Dieu entered the recovery room, the smell of antiseptic was stronger, and the heart rate monitor beeped steadily. Her mother lay there, much smaller than she remembered, one side of her face slightly drooping, an IV line stuck in her right arm. When she saw Dieu, her eyes opened a little wider, and even though she couldn't speak clearly, Dieu still heard a muffled sound like she was trying to call her name.

“Mom,” Dieu held her mother's still moving right hand, tears falling uncontrollably. "I'm home. I'm sorry I was gone for so long. Don't worry about anything, I'm here."

Her mother gently squeezed her hand, a weak squeeze but enough for Dieu to feel. Her eyes were filled with tears, looking at her as if she wanted to say a thousand things but couldn't utter a single complete word.

Five minutes passed as quickly as the blink of an eye. The nurse came in and reminded Dieu to go out so they could continue monitoring. She walked out into the hallway, leaned against the wall, letting the emotions that had been pent up all afternoon finally spill out into soundless sobs.

Uncle Tu waited outside, silently giving her a bottle of mineral water. "Drink, my child. You'll be dehydrated after crying a lot."

Dieu picked up the bottle of water but didn't drink it right away, just sat down on the chair and waited, her whole body exhausted as if she had just run a very long distance. "Uncle," she asked after a moment of silence, "how is my mother these days? I... I haven't been home for a long time, I don't know anything."

Uncle Tu sat down next to her and sighed. "The shop is still selling regularly, but I've noticed that your mother has been tired lately, often standing still in the middle of cooking. I reminded her to go to the doctor, but she kept saying she was busy, until next month. I didn't expect..." He left his sentence unfinished and turned away.

"What should I do now, uncle? I still have work in the city, and now my mother is like this..."

“Let's take care of her first,” Uncle Tu said, his voice more certain. "We'll talk about other things later. Don't think too much, just take it step by step."

Dieu nodded, but in her mind, the numbers were already running — hospital fees, medicine costs, physical therapy costs if her mother was truly partially paralyzed, the front of the restaurant unattended while her mother was in the hospital. The professional reflexes of an accountant emerged even in the most painful moments, as a way for her to stand firm, to have something concrete to hold on to instead of drowning in fear.

Near midnight, when her mother's condition was temporarily stabilized and the hospital allowed her family members to go home to rest and rotate duty, Dieu let Uncle Tu stay on the first shift, while she took the car to Ben Cat alley to get more belongings and necessary documents. The alley appeared before her eyes in the yellow light of the streetlights, the same old tiled road, the same houses close together with low corrugated iron roofs, only now some houses had been repainted, some houses had "for rent" signs that she had never seen before.

Mom's restaurant is located in the middle alley, the old wooden sign "Com Hanh" hangs crookedly, the door is still slightly open, no one has had time to close it after the panic this afternoon. Dieu pushed the door open and walked in. The smell of cooking oil and cold rice still lingered in the air, plastic chairs were arranged haphazardly, and a pot of soup was left on the gas stove that had turned off automatically because it ran out of gas halfway through.

She stood in the middle of the dark restaurant, with only streetlight shining through the door, looking around at the small space that had supported her whole family for over twenty years, the space she used to hate because it was "homely", because it made her embarrassed every time her friends asked what her parents did.

On the blackboard hanging next to the cash register, scribbled white chalk letters write the debtor's name and the amount of money owed, almost covering the entire board. Dieu looked at it, feeling something heavy rising in her heart, not just financial worries, but a vague question that had not yet been clearly formed: why did her mother let debt pile up like that, for so many years, without once complaining to her?

She sat down on the familiar plastic chair, where she used to sit and do her homework every night while waiting for her mother to pack the goods, letting the fatigue and confusion of a long day finally have a place to subside.

There was the sound of flip-flops deflating outside the door. Ms. Sau Lien, the owner of the grocery store opposite, poked her head in, still holding a small flashlight. "Is it wonderful? I heard a noise and thought it was a thief."

"Here I am, Uncle Sau," Dieu stood up, trying to force a tired smile. "I'll go get some things, come check out the shop."

Mrs. Sau walked in, looked around the messy restaurant, and sighed. “This afternoon I saw your cheek fall down right there,” she pointed toward the kitchen, her voice trembling. "Uncle ran over to help, called Uncle Tu and the ambulance. My mother tried so hard, her hand was still holding the spoon, her mouth moved as if she wanted to say something but no sound came out."

Hearing that, Dieu's heart ached, imagining that scene even though she did not witness it with her own eyes. “Thank you for helping my mother,” she said, her voice choking. “If it weren't for you and Uncle Tu, I would...”

“Don't say that,” Ms. Sau waved her hand. "Everyone in this alley loves your mother. For many years, your mother has helped people, now it's their turn to help back."

That sentence made Dieu pause, her eyes stopped at the blackboard filled with debt names. “Uncle,” she asked, her voice cautious, “how has my mother owed so much money to maintain the shop for so many years?”

Ms. Sau looked at the board and was silent for a moment, as if considering what to say. “That's a long story,” she replied, avoiding a direct answer. "Let me tell you the story slowly. For now, you should worry about cleaning up and resting, there's a lot of work tomorrow."

She turned around, gave a few more instructions about locking the door carefully before leaving. Dieu stood looking at her shadow disappearing around the corner of the alley, feeling both comforted and somewhat confused by that evasive attitude.

She started cleaning up, putting the cooled pot of soup in the refrigerator, rearranging the plastic chairs, and sweeping the greasy floor. Each familiar movement seemed to reawaken a certain layer of memories in her - her mother's hands quickly scooping rice, the sound of knives and chopping boards clicking in the early morning, her mother's voice calling out to regular customers in her unique Western accent that had never changed even though she had lived in the city for decades.

Nearly one o'clock in the morning, when most of the dishes were finished, Dieu sat down at the counter and opened the drawer to look for books so he could calculate them tomorrow. Drawer only A few sporadic bills, a sketchy notebook recording daily income and expenditure, were not enough for her to visualize the full financial picture of the shop. She knew she would have to dig deeper, find the root, but tonight, her body and spirit were so exhausted that she no longer had the strength to do anything more.

She locked the door of the shop, walked back to the small house behind - where her mother and her children had lived for decades - carrying a bag of hastily collected clothes, preparing for a short night before returning to the hospital to replace Uncle Tu's shift early in the morning, and before facing what was waiting ahead, things that right now, she could not fully imagine the scale of.