Chapter 10 — Late Night Radio

Two weeks passed so quickly that Vy almost didn't have time to realize the season had changed. The sea breeze blowing into Cam Duong city now brought a bit of cold air earlier than usual, the shops along the boulevard began to clear their canvases a little earlier every night, and on the calendar hanging in studio B, Vy realized she had circled a date that was less than a month away from the present - the anniversary of her father's death, according to the lunar calendar, was about to return this year, bringing with it the same familiar heaviness that had never become more comfortable no matter how many times it had passed.

She didn't tell anyone that she had started the countdown, but she knew Hai Duong also noticed, because every year when that day approached, he would quietly prepare a cup of ginger tea and place it on her table without her asking, a small but regular gesture like an unspoken ritual between the two of them. Ms. Xuan also began to gently remind Vy every time she visited the porridge shop, asking if this year she planned to make an offering tray at home or go to the grave first, and if she needed her to help prepare anything.

"Every year when this day comes around, I feel like I'm going backwards," Vy said one afternoon at the shop, her voice a bit more tired than usual. "All year long I've been trying to move forward, trying to find my own voice, and then every month, I find myself back on the night my dad passed away, like I've never taken a single step."

Ms. Xuan stopped scooping porridge and looked at her niece with eyes that were both sad and understanding. "It's not that you go backwards, Vy. That's how pain works - it doesn't go away, it just learns to lie more still over time, but every day that day, it wakes up again, demanding to be mentioned, to be mourned again. I think that's not weakness, but a way for me to never forget who my father is, how he lived, how he loved me."

That evening, before the broadcast, the atmosphere in the editing room on the third floor was completely different from usual. Instead of the familiar sound of tapping on the keyboard and Thao Nhi's shrill voice discussing new ideas for the fanpage, Vy walked in and encountered a small group of colleagues gathered around the desk of a morning program editor, their voices whispering, everyone's faces carrying a difficult-to-hidden tension.

"Miss Vy, have you heard?" Thao Nhi pulled Vy's hand closer, her voice lowered but she couldn't hide her worry. "It's rumored that the new general director, Mr. Do Bao Toan, is about to take office, maybe in just a few weeks. It's no longer a distant rumor. I heard the secretary of the administrative office say that last week a group from the parent corporation came down to directly survey the facilities, passed by my studio area, stopped to take pictures, and take notes for quite a while."

Vy felt her heart sink a beat. "Did they say anything, about how it would change?"

“No one has said it directly,” another editor chimed in, his voice a bit frustrated. "But I heard that he used to work at two other provincial stations before coming here. Both places cut off most of the talk radio broadcasts and switched to playing automatic music interspersed with advertisements all night. Someone said he believes that at night there is no need for people, the machines run cheaper, more stable, no need to pay, no need to take leave."

The room fell into a heavy silence. Vy looked around and saw in the eyes of each colleague a common insecurity, a feeling of standing in front of a door that was about to open but no one knew what was behind it. She thought of what Mr. Binh said at the briefing two weeks ago - "nothing specific yet" - and realized that now, that "nothing specific" has begun to take shape, even though it's still vague, even though no one has dared to say it directly in official documents.

Mr. Cao Viet Binh appeared at the door of the editing room at that moment, as if he had heard part of the conversation from the hallway. He walked in, his face more serious than usual, signaling everyone to calm down. “I know you're nervous,” he said, his voice low and steady, trying to convey a calmness that perhaps he didn't quite feel. "It is true that there was a survey team from the parent corporation down last week, and it is true that Mr. Do Bao Toan will officially take office in the near future. But I want to reiterate, there has been no specific decision on cutting any programs. I will meet with the board of directors this week, and I promise to announce it as soon as I have accurate information, instead of letting you guys live in rumors like this."

He looked around the room once, then his eyes stopped at Vy, a little longer than the others, carrying something that was both a word of encouragement and a silent guilt of someone who cannot promise anything for sure. Vy nodded slightly, trying to give him a reassuring smile, even though in her heart she felt that the gray cloud she once imagined was now much closer, close enough that she began to feel its shadow covering every familiar corner of this station building - the hallway hung with photos of generations of broadcasters, the storage room in the basement where hundreds of her father's tapes were stored, and even studio B, where his microphone still hung there every night, waiting for her voice.

That evening, when entering the studio, Vy felt a strange mixture of many emotions - worry about the future of the program, the heaviness of the approaching anniversary of her father's death, and, weaving in and out of all of that, a silent expectation for the phone ringing that could ring at any time of the night. She sat down on the chair, put on her headphones, and in the moment before the "ON AIR" light turned on, she closed her eyes, letting all those layers of emotions settle into a necessary silence, just like her father had taught her from the beginning.

That night's program went smoothly, but Vy noticed that her voice was a little deeper than usual, a little slower, as if her body was automatically reflecting the weight of everything piling up inside her. Near midnight, the anonymous line lit up, and White Night's voice rang out, warm and steady like it had become a familiar anchor in recent weeks.

"Hello, Vy. Your voice sounds different today, is something wrong?"

Vy smiled sadly, surprised by his sophistication, who in just the first few seconds noticed a difference in her voice that perhaps not all listeners noticed. "You're really observant," she said, then told briefly, in a slow voice, about the approaching anniversary of her father's death, and about the station's rumors that were becoming more and more clear about the new general director.

He listened silently, without interrupting, only when she finished talking did he speak, his voice was deep and firm in a way that only he had. "I don't know what to say to make you worry less, because I think, there are worries that I can only carry, but can't completely erase. But I want you to know, no matter what happens to the program, no matter how the station changes, I will always find a way to hear your voice, one way or another. You have given me a place to belong, amidst my long nameless nights. I don't think I can lose that so easily."

Those words made Vy bite her lip to keep her voice from shaking on the air. A feeling of both warmth and sadness crept into her chest - warm because of his steadfast presence, sad because she realized, amidst all the uncertainties surrounding her right now - the future of the program, the true identity of the man she was talking to, even the pain about her father that had never completely subsided - this fragile connection, only existing through radio waves, through phone calls. appointment, is becoming the most solid and real thing in her emotional life right now.

"Thank you," she said, her voice quiet but utterly sincere. "I don't know why, but every time I talk to you, I feel a little more confident, even though you don't even tell me where you are in this city."

"Maybe," he said, his voice a bit gentle and distant, "it's because of not knowing, that everything between us stays so intact. Sometimes I wonder, if one day you knew who I was, knew my face, knew my real name, would this still be as beautiful as it is now. I'm afraid of the answer, so I just let it be an open question, at least for now."

Vy remained silent, feeling a complicated vibration at that sentence - both a confession of his fear and a slightly opened door, showing that in his heart, the question of meeting had also appeared, even though neither of them had the courage to say it out loud clearly. "I don't know the answer either," she said honestly. "But I think, for now, I just need to know that, every night at eleven o'clock, there's a chance you'll call. That's enough for me."

They talked for a while longer, about lighter things, about the weather, about the stray cat he fed every night, and about the fact that Vy had started to practice cooking onion porridge like Ms. Xuan used to cook but had never succeeded. Towards the end of the call, the two were silent for a short while, as if implicitly understanding that it was time to end, and Vy signaled Hai Duong to prepare a familiar melody.

“The Light at the Cape,” White Night said softly, almost a whisper, before the line went dead. "See you again, Ms. Vy."

The melody resonates in the studio space, slowly and passionately as always, but tonight Vy listens to it with a different feeling - not only the familiar warmth of a ritual that has formed between the two of them, but also a vague premonition that, somewhere up ahead, something is about to change, inevitable, even though she doesn't know exactly which direction it will come from - from the gray clouds that are gathering on the fifth floor of the radio building, from the approaching anniversary of her father's death. brought with her a whole world of unresolved memories, or from the fragile but increasingly deepening connection between her and a man whose face she had never seen.

When the program ended, Vy sat quietly for a long time in the soft yellow light of the turned-off studio, looking at her father's microphone, looking at the wall calendar with the death anniversary circled, and looking out the small window where Cam Duong city was still in its late sleep. She felt like she was standing at some threshold, between the nameless nights that had passed and something greater was waiting ahead — unknown shape, unknown name, but approaching, as surely as the water rising quietly before a real tide.