Chapter 28 — Late Night Radio

Vy heard footsteps before she could see the person. It was a slow, steady sound, bouncing up from the moss-covered stone steps leading up to the cliff, a step she couldn't explain why that made her whole body stiffen, her heart pounding so loudly that she felt like even the quiet space around the lighthouse could hear it. She didn't come back immediately. She sat for another second, two seconds, trying to take a deep breath, then turned around on the rock, looking toward the slope.

The man was walking up, wearing a white shirt with new creases, his hands swaying awkwardly as if he didn't know where to put them, his figure was thin but sturdy, just as she vaguely remembered from the rainy afternoon at Ms. Xuan's shop more than two months ago. He stopped about ten feet away from her, standing there, not moving any further, as if he himself needed a safe distance to calm himself before coming closer.

There was a moment, the two just stood looking at each other in silence, no one could say anything, the sea breeze blew gently between them, carrying the smell of salt and the smell of weeds growing around the base of the lamp. Vy looked at that face - slightly sunken cheekbones, deep eyes with a quiet look she had once glimpsed through the door of the porridge shop, a small faint scar near her right temple that she had never known - and felt a strange thing happening in her heart: not the strangeness she had been afraid of all night, but a feeling of recognition, as if she had known this face for a long time, just had never seen it with her own eyes.

"Hello," he said, his voice ringing, and it was that sound — low, slow, with a slight pause before each word was released — that truly erased all remaining doubts in Vy. That was the voice that had accompanied her through many rainy nights, now no longer coming from the small speaker in the studio, but from the slightly trembling lips of the man standing in front of her, in the early morning sunlight, amidst the steady sound of waves at the foot of the cliff.

Tears welled up in Vy's eyes before she could stop them, not because of sadness, but because of an emotion too big to name - relief, happiness, and a deep emotion when realizing, just like he wrote in the letter the other day, the real person standing in front of her did not disappoint her, did not destroy anything beautiful that had been built over seven months, but only made it fuller, more real.

"You're here," she said, her voice breaking into a whisper, standing up from the rock, her legs shaking slightly. "I was afraid... I was afraid you wouldn't come."

"I'm also afraid I won't come," he replied, an awkward, genuine smile flickering across his lips, different from the calmness she was used to hearing over the phone. "I was sitting in the car down there for nearly fifteen minutes, my hand on the keys, and I almost turned around." He took two more steps, closing the distance between them, then stopped, as if he didn't know what to do next—shake hands, or just stand there, or say something else to fill the confusion rising between them for the first time without a wave to shield them.

"I'm Pham Nhat Minh," he said, his voice comically serious, as if he were introducing himself to a complete stranger, even though they both knew exactly the opposite. "I think, this is the first time I've introduced myself to you without an emergency situation."

Vy burst out laughing, laughter mixed with tears, the tense feeling in her chest suddenly eased partly thanks to those words. "Lam Tuyet Vy," she replied, holding out her hand, and when he took it, his hand was warm, slightly calloused, and trembled just as lightly as her hand, that brief grasp carrying a weight that words could not describe. "Though I think, after seven months, maybe we don't need to reintroduce ourselves."

"Maybe there's no need," he said, "but I still want to say it myself, at least once, standing in front of you."

They stood there for a while, not knowing whether to sit down or continue standing, until Vy, with a cute awkwardness, pointed towards the nearby flat rock where she had been sitting and waiting since early morning. "Can we sit down? I brought a cake, Ms. Xuan put it in my bag last night, she said to have something to invite you for breakfast."

Nhat Minh smiled softly, a light but warm laugh, sitting down next to her, keeping a distance that was just polite enough but not too strange. "Miss Xuan," he repeated the name, his eyes carrying a mixture of shyness and emotion. "I remember. She's the owner of the porridge shop I often visit every night before starting my shift. I didn't expect..."

"She's my biological aunt," Vy said, opening the cake package and giving him one. "It was you who recognized my voice that night, right when you said my name over the loudspeaker. You stood dumbfounded next to the porridge, then came back and told me."

Nhat Minh held the cake in his hand, didn't eat it right away, just looked at it for a moment, then looked out to sea, his voice lowered, carrying a sincerity he had never expressed so clearly, even in the deepest calls between the two of them. "I've ordered porridge there many times, Vy, just because it was the only restaurant open on my way to work the night shift, and because it reminded me of something warm, even though I didn't know why at the time. Looking back now, perhaps a part of me has always felt that I'm closer to you than I thought, I just didn't dare to admit it."

They sat there, amidst the steady sound of waves crashing at the foot of the cliff, amidst the smell of sea salt and the morning sunlight warming their shoulders, starting to talk, slowly at first, still hesitant, still having to find a way to speak without any microphone to hide behind, without any invisible distance to hide the awkwardness of their gestures and eyes. But gradually, the familiar rhythm of seven months of chatting over the airwaves began to return, except now, every sentence was accompanied by a real expression, a real look, making everything more vivid than anything the two had ever had over a phone line.

"I just imagined," Vy said, turning the corner of the cake wrapper, "that when I met you, I wouldn't know what to say, I'd stand there like a statue, losing all ability to talk even though I've hosted the radio show for thousands of nights. But it turns out, sitting here with you, I feel... strangely familiar. As if we've been sitting next to each other like this for a long time."

"I think so too," Nhat Minh replied, turning to look at her. His eyes, for the first time since they met, no longer avoided them but looked straight at her, a long, sincere look. "I used to be afraid, very afraid, that when I stood in front of you, I would turn back into the clumsy, quiet person I am in real life, and would disappoint you because I could never be like the image you had imagined through your voice for seven months. But sitting here, looking at you, hearing you laugh like that, I realized... that fear never came from you. It only came from me, from the old wounds I carried, which never had anything to do with who you really are."

Vy was silent for a moment, touched by that honesty, then asked, her voice was gentle but full of sincere curiosity, a curiosity she had suppressed for seven months just because she didn't have the chance to ask directly. "Can you tell me about your job? About the nights when you call in from somewhere in the middle of your shift? I keep imagining it, but I never get it right."

Nhat Minh nodded and began to talk, his voice gradually relaxing as he talked about the things he was most familiar with - about the long nights in the water plant's duty room, about the steady sound of the pump running like background music he had listened to for so many years that he no longer paid attention, about the strange feeling of loneliness of a person staying awake while the whole city is sleeping, knowing that his silent work will be seen by no one, no one will thank him, unless something goes wrong. He talked about the first time he dialed the number to the station, one rainy night seven months ago, when he was just planning to listen to the program to relieve sleepiness, then suddenly heard a story Vy read from a listener's letter, a story about loss that made him, without knowing why, dial the number, the first time in his life he proactively shared something private with a complete stranger.

"I don't mean to say much," he said, his voice carrying a hint of confusion as he reminisced. "But she asked, she listened in a way that made me feel safe, and just like that, I said more than I'd ever said to anyone, even to... my ex-wife." He stopped, glanced at Vy, as if considering whether to continue this part or not, then decided to continue, because this was the morning of truth, there was no more room for hidden things. "I was married once, you know that right, that story must have reached your ears somehow."

"I know," Vy said softly, not wanting to reopen the old pain but also not wanting to pretend not to know. "I once met Bich Van, even though it was a silly mistake on my part when trying to find you."

Nhat Minh laughed softly, a sad laugh but no longer heavy. "She's a good person, it's just that the two of us are not compatible in the way a marriage should be. After the divorce, I withdrew a lot, believing that I wasn't good at making someone happy, so it was best to keep my distance, work the night shift, live alone, have little communication. Your program, you know, was the first thing in many years that made me feel like I could connect with another person without fear of disappointing them, because I had time to think before said, because you don't see me, you only hear me."

"And now that I see you," Vy said softly, "do you feel worse?"

Nhat Minh turned to look straight at her, this time there was no hesitation in his eyes. "No. On the contrary. I think, seeing you, sitting here, laughing, crying, eating cake with me in the middle of this morning, you are more real, closer, more beautiful than any image I ever had through your voice. Maybe I was afraid of the wrong thing, sister Vy. I was afraid that reality would shatter the beautiful thing between us, but it turns out, reality only makes it stronger, because now it is no longer just a voice in the dark more, but it's a real thing, in the middle of the day, there's sunshine, there's wind, there's even the taste of the cake Ms. Xuan made."

Vy laughed, raised her hand to wipe away the remaining tears, feeling a complete peace in her heart that she had never felt in the eighteen months since her father passed away. She told him about her father, about "Sleepless Waves", about the feeling of always being the shadow of a great man, about the journey of the past six weeks to prove that the show was worthy of continuing, and Nhat Minh listened to every word, sometimes asking questions, sometimes just nodding, his eyes never leaving her, as if trying to remember every expression on her face that during the past seven months he could only imagine.

By noon, when the sun was high, the two of them were still sitting there, the story had changed from serious things to trivial, funny details - Nhat Minh told about the time he almost ruined a batch of processed water because he fell asleep in the middle of his first shift at work, Vy told about the time she misread the name of a song on the air, causing Hai Duong to stop laughing for the next hour - they both laughed, the laughter sounded naturally and gently, as if they had known each other for a long time, no. It must have only been seven months of midnight calls.

"I have to go home and prepare for tonight's show," Vy said finally, although her voice was somewhat regretful, her eyes looking down at her watch. "But I don't want today to end here."

"Me too," Nhat Minh replied, standing up with her, lightly brushing the sand from his pants. "My shift tonight is off. If you don't mind, I want to stop by the station, sit somewhere quiet, listen to you host, this time not through the radio, but stand nearby and see with my own eyes what you do every night."

Vy looked at him, a smile slowly spreading on her lips, a feeling of happiness welling up in her chest. “I really want that,” she said. "Mr. Hai Duong will be very happy to finally meet the person you've been teasing me about these past few months."

They stood there a moment longer, at the foot of the quiet white lighthouse in the midday sun, no longer two voices separated by an invisible wave, but two real people, standing side by side, knowing that the road ahead, though still uncertain, now had a more solid start than any promise ever made over the phone. Before leaving, Nhat Minh looked back at the lamp one last time, then looked at Vy, his voice was soft but firm. "The lamp at the head of the sea, finally there's no need to wait in your imagination anymore, right?"

"No need anymore," Vy replied, taking his hand, "because now, we can stand and look at it together, in broad daylight, whenever we want."