Chapter 13 — Medicinal Garden After Hospital

After a night of chatting with her father, Quyen continued her journey through her mother's old notebooks, but this time, she no longer read with the mindset of someone looking for a cure, but of a child trying to understand more fully the last years of her mother's life. She rearranged the notebooks in chronological order, starting with the oldest ones, then gradually moving to the pages closest to the day her mother passed away, where she was still shy and had not had the courage to read carefully for more than a year.

One weekend evening, when the table lamp's light fell on the yellowed page, Quyen opened the notebook recording her mother's last year. The first pages were still familiar notes about the medicine, the dosage, and how to prepare each type of plant, but as time went on, Mrs. Sen's handwriting began to shake a bit, no longer as neat as before. Quyen realized that it was around the time that a winter flu epidemic broke out in the town, causing the number of patients, especially young children and the elderly, to skyrocket in just a few weeks.

"Three days in a row without a full night's rest, but seeing the children's fevers come down and their breathing return, all the fatigue in their bodies seemed to disappear," a note said. But just a few pages later, Quyen came across another passage that made her heart ache. "Lately, I often feel pain in the right side of my abdomen, sometimes it lasts for the whole day, but it's probably just because I've been working too hard. Let's get over this epidemic and figure it out later."

Quyen was speechless, her hands shaking as she turned the next pages. She found many more similar passages, scattered over the course of several months - dull pains recorded briefly and nonchalantly by her mother, always accompanied by a reason to delay going to the doctor: sometimes because the epidemic had not passed yet, sometimes because there was a difficult case that needed close monitoring, sometimes simply because "it's probably nothing serious, a few days of rest will help." Reading this, Quyen could not hold back her tears. The tears silently fell onto the old page, mixing with the ink that had faded over the years.

She remembers, during that time, she was busy with the final exams at pharmacy school, rarely came home, and didn't pay much attention to the times her mother casually said that "I'm a bit tired lately." If only she had asked a little more carefully that day, if only she had recognized the abnormality in her mother's voice on the phone, perhaps things would have been different. That thought made her chest tighten, and the familiar feeling of guilt arose again, heavier than ever.

Among the pages recording that dull pain, Quyen also found a diary entry about Mr. Tang's little boy, who was only two years old at the time, and had a high fever for three consecutive days without stopping due to complications from post-influenza pneumonia. "Tonight, I had to stay on duty with my family until dawn, my arms and legs were tired, but seeing the baby's fever subside, his eyes lit up and wanted to be fed, all the pain in his body naturally disappeared," Ms. Sen wrote, her handwriting trembling but still full of professional joy. Quyen realized that during those sleepless nights saving people, the dull pain in her mother's body was silently forgotten and pushed aside, not because she did not know how to appreciate her own health, but because for her, the lives of others were always put first, so naturally that she never considered it a sacrifice.

The next morning, when she met Bao Nam at the pharmacy counter, Quyen could not hide her tiredness, her eyes were still dark from staying up late reading books. Realizing something was wrong, Bao Nam put aside his work and pulled out a chair to sit next to her during lunch break. "What's wrong with you looking so unwell?" he asked, his voice filled with worry.

Quyen recounted what she had just read, her voice trembling and broken with emotion. After listening, Bao Nam pondered for a moment, then gently held her hand. “I understand how you feel right now,” he said, his voice slow but steady. "But as a doctor, I want you to hear me say something, based on my expertise, not just to comfort you."

"These symptoms of dull pain in the right abdomen, lasting silently for many months, are most likely related to the liver or gallbladder," he explained, his voice calm and objective. "If it is truly a disease that progresses silently, then even if it had been detected a month or two earlier, it would not necessarily have changed the final outcome, especially with the medical conditions of a mountainous district like Yen Son at that time. What I want you to understand is that this is not your fault, nor is it necessarily your mother's fault. That is a harsh truth that medicine is sometimes helpless against."

That explanation, although it could not completely erase the torment in Quyen's heart, partly helped her see the situation from a calmer, more objective perspective. She realized that, perhaps, the burden of guilt that she had placed on her shoulders over the past year largely came from love and regret, rather than from an actual mistake that she could fix.

"Thank you," Quyen said, her voice much lighter. "I don't know why, but when I heard you analyze like that, I felt like someone had just removed a rock that had been weighing me down for so long."

That afternoon, to help Quyen lighten her mood, Bao Nam invited her to go to Mr. Loc's side garden to take care of the newly planted tree beds. This was not the first time he went to the garden, but it was the first time he proactively rolled up his sleeves and joined Mr. Loc and Quyen in digging the soil, watering, and pulling weeds around the seedlings that had just taken root.

"What is this tree called?" Bao Nam asked, his hand carefully lifting a branch of green leaves, somewhat clumsily like a person getting acquainted with farming work for the first time.

"This is honeysuckle, which has very good heat-clearing and detoxifying effects," Mr. Loc replied, his eyes shining with satisfaction when he saw the young doctor showing more and more interest in the knowledge he had accumulated all his life. "Look, you have to water just enough to moisten the roots, don't water too much, because the roots of this tree can easily get waterlogged."

Bao Nam followed attentively, occasionally asking a few more questions about the uses and preparation methods of each different type of plant. There was a time when he accidentally uprooted a seedling that Mr. Loc had planted specifically for propagation, causing the old man to laugh and wave his hand. "Doctors are good at treating people, but treating plants requires a lot of learning," Mr. Loc teased, his voice bright and full of satisfaction. Bao Nam blushed, scratched his head to explain, and Quyen laughed, clear laughter rang out in the middle of the garden, a sound that she felt like it had been a long time since she had let herself feel so comfortably. Quyen stood looking at that scene and couldn't help but smile at the great change in the doctor who was once skeptical of traditional medicine. She realized that this garden, in a quiet but persistent way, was gradually healing not only the wounds in her heart, but also the prejudices and old wounds in Bao Nam's heart.

When the afternoon sunlight began to turn yellow, all three of them sat on the porch of the warehouse, sipping a cup of artichoke tea that Mr. Loc brewed from the plants grown in the garden. "There were days when I thought, this garden would perish along with Mrs. Sen," Mr. Loc said, his voice low and full of emotion. "But looking at the two of us taking care of each tree together like this, I see that perhaps, everything good in the world has its own way of reviving, as long as there is someone patient enough to stay."

Quyen smiled slightly, looked at Bao Nam, saw that he was also looking at her, his eyes were unusually warm in the afternoon sun. The two didn't say anything more, just let that moment of peace naturally spread among the gentle fragrance of the beds of medicinal plants reaching out to welcome the sunlight.

However, that peace did not last long. That same evening, when Quyen just got home, she received a call from Nhung, her friend's voice was full of worry. "Quyen, this afternoon I saw Mr. Truong Gia Bach personally come to the hospital, go straight to Mr. Hung's office, and stay to talk privately for nearly two hours," Nhung said. "When I left, I saw that Mr. Hung's face looked very heavy, not like usual."

That news made Quyen worried. She understood that once Truong Gia Bach appeared in person, instead of just sending a proposal via text like before, he was definitely preparing for a more drastic step. She called Bao Nam and Mr. Loc to report the news that night. All three agreed that they needed to be more careful in the coming days, and at the same time speed up the process of completing the official assessment from the university, before Kim Thai's side could create other unfavorable variables.

That night, lying in bed, Quyen looked out the small window, where she could see a glimpse of the garden under the faint moonlight. She thought to herself, the journey ahead will certainly have many challenges, but at least, she no longer has to face it alone. By her side now there is Bao Nam, Mr. Loc, her father, and the silent but persistent love of her deceased mother, who continues to guide her every step of the way forward.