Chapter 2 — Love Awakens After Leaving

The Back Door Of The Villa

The backyard of the Doan family mansion was hidden behind a row of low walls covered with vines, only a few hundred meters from the main house but seemed to belong to a completely different world. If the main area had a large marble hall, spiral staircase and expensive oil paintings hanging along the hallway, the back yard was just a row of four-level houses with old tile roofs, a small brick yard, and a bougainvillea trellis that had covered the entire porch for more than twenty years.

The small road leading from the side gate to the back yard was covered with white gravel, and on both sides were planted clusters of hibiscus flowers that had grown overgrown over many seasons without anyone pruning them carefully like the landscape garden in front. Passing by the row of other maids' houses, Tuyet Nhi nodded slightly to the old security guard who was sitting on the porch smoking, and to Ms. Sen, the cook, who was drying some wet towels on the line. They all responded with a familiar, friendly smile like family members. This was her world, a small but cozy world, completely separate from the crystal chandeliers and board meetings she had left less than half an hour ago.

Tuyet Nhi walked through the side gate, the pale yellow light from the light bulb hanging on the front porch shone down, enough for her to see her mother's shadow leaning over a large basin of water, her hands soaked in soapy water, carefully rubbing each white shirt collar.

"You're back already." Mrs. Vuu Thi Lanh looked up, her face covered in sweat even though it was night, her familiar gentle smile bloomed as soon as she saw her daughter. "Have you eaten yet?"

"I've had a full lunch, Mom. I'm not very hungry tonight." Tuyet Nhi put her bag down on the steps, quickly replaced her vest with a faded cotton shirt hanging behind the door, then sat down next to her mother, rolling up her sleeves. "Let me do it, Mom, take a break. You've worked hard all day."

"I work all day and am more tired than my mother." Mrs. Lanh pushed her daughter's hand away, but her eyes looked at her gently, as if every time she saw Tuyet Nhi sitting down by the washing basin, she felt both pity and a vague guilt that couldn't be named. "Okay, I'll wash these shirts for mom, so she can iron the suit in time for tomorrow morning."

Tuyet Nhi didn't ask further, just quietly dipped her hand into the warm water and picked up a white shirt that still smelled of faint perfume. She immediately recognized that it was the shirt Bach Vu wore at the board meeting this morning - the same button style, the same stitching with the initials "D.B.V" embroidered on the cuff that she had seen hundreds of times in the past three years, the only difference was that this time it was no longer smooth and neat, but wrinkled, soaked with the sweat of a long working day.

There was a quiet irony in this job that Tuyet Nhi had never told anyone, not even her mother. During the day, she was the person standing next to Bach Vu in important meetings, the person he trusted with confidential documents, and the only person allowed to enter his private office without knocking on the door first. But at night, she became the person sitting next to the water basin, rubbing every wrinkle in the clothes he had worn all day, meticulously as if she were taking care of something sacred that no one was allowed to know.

"You know," Mrs. Lanh spoke up to break the silence, her voice soft as if she were telling a story, "when Mr. Vu was little, every time he played with dirty clothes, my mother had to wash them separately, not daring to mix them with the adults' clothes, for fear of being scolded by the chairman. At that time, I was still very young, and I kept asking to sit next to my mother and play with water, getting all my clothes wet."

Tuyet Nhi smiled slightly, her hands still kept moving. "I only vaguely remember, Mom. It's been so long."

That's a little lie. In fact, she remembered very clearly, down to every detail - this brick yard, this water basin, and even the boy Doan Bach Vu who used to sneak out of the main house and run to the back yard to play with her, the two children sitting side by side molding mud into strange shapes, laughing and joking without distinguishing between who was the master and who was the housekeeper's daughter. But those memories had now become something only she kept, because the present Bach Vu - the cold, stern man who always led every meeting - seemed to have completely forgotten, or never connected the old girl with the assistant sitting next to him every day.

"Mom," Tuyet Nhi hesitated for a moment, then still asked, "do you think Mr. Vu still remembers anything about when he was a child?"

Mrs. Lanh stopped ironing and looked at her daughter for a long time, her eyes complex and unpredictable. "He went to study abroad when he was twelve years old, he was away from home for more than ten years, and he also experienced his boss's early death... He must have forgotten a lot. Besides," she sighed lightly, "sometimes it's good to forget. You and he have different identities now, bringing up the past will only bother you more."

Her mother's words were like a bucket of cold water poured into Tuyet Nhi's heart, even though she didn't mean it that way. She bowed her head and continued to rub her shirt without responding. She knew her mother was right. From a young age, her grandmother taught her to always remember the boundary between the homeowner and the maid, no matter how close the two children were in the past. "You are the housekeeper's daughter, Tuyet Nhi," she often reminded, "living in this mansion, the most important thing is not who you are close to, but that you know how to keep your position. Remembering the right position is the only way to live peacefully."

Over the years, Tuyet Nhi had tried to live exactly as her mother told her. She studied hard, passed the exam with a full scholarship to a prestigious university, graduated with honors, and then, using her own ability, was accepted as Bach Vu's special assistant - not thanks to family connections, because at that time she deliberately hid the fact that her mother was a housekeeper in his family's government, simply declaring in her profile that she had lived near that area for a while. She wanted to prove, at least to herself, that she was in that position because of her strength, not because of any past connections.

For that reason, during her three years as an assistant, Tuyet Nhi never once let any of her colleagues in the corporation know that her home address was actually located right on the grounds of the Doan family mansion. She always let the driver drop her off at an intersection a few hundred meters from the side gate, waited for the car to disappear before quietly walking home, and then the next morning went back to the same intersection to pick up the car to take her to work, like a small ritual repeated every day to keep the boundary between her two identities hidden. Bich Ngoc once asked her what area she lived in. She just smiled and said vaguely that it was near the suburbs, enough for the story to pass without anyone bothering to ask further.

But there were nights like tonight, when her hand touches the shirt that still had the warmth of the day Bach Vu lived, she could't stop herself from thinking about the huge gap between the two positions that fate had placed for them. One person was the general director of a corporation, the sole heir to a huge business. One person was the housekeeper's daughter, and every night she had to quietly return to the small room behind the back yard door.

"Mom," Tuyet Nhi said, her voice as light as the wind, "what if one day, I find I can't keep the right position anymore?"

Mrs. Lanh stopped and looked at her daughter with eyes that were both worried and as if she had guessed some of her hidden feelings. "What are you talking about?"

"It's nothing mom, I just asked aimlessly." Tuyet Nhi quickly smiled, waved her hand, trying to lighten the story. "You must be too stressed at work, thinking nonsense."

Mrs. Lanh looked at her daughter for a moment, then didn't ask any more questions, just gently placed her hand, wrinkled over the years, on her daughter's shoulder. "No matter what, I just hope you don't let your heart get entangled in things beyond your reach. Having lived in this mansion for more than twenty years, I understand clearly what families like this value most. I don't want you to be hurt by things beyond your control."

Tuyet Nhi did not answer, just nodded slightly, her teary eyes looked down at the soapy water that was gradually settling in the basin. She knew what her mother was worried about, even though she had never said it directly in words. Perhaps a mother always saw through her daughter more clearly than anyone, even the things her daughter tries to hide the most.

That night, after washing all the clothes and ironing each one carefully, Tuyet Nhi hung Bach Vu's suit on the rack, preparing it for the next morning as usual. She stood silently for a moment in front of the small mirror hanging on the wall of her room, looking at her reflection - no longer a sharp assistant in a business suit, but a girl wearing a simple cotton shirt, her face covered in sweat, her eyes carrying an unnamed sadness.

Outside, in the main building, the light in Bach Vu's private office was still on. Perhaps he was still awake reviewing documents for tomorrow. Tuyet Nhi stood by her room's window, looking at that light for a long time, then sighed softly, pulled the curtains closed, leaving behind a silent darkness, where her secret emotions could only exist in the darkness, never allowed to step into the light.