Chapter 15 — Summer After the Rain

The new rumor said that Linh made up stories to raise theater prices, spreading quickly on social networks at a speed that caused Hau to constantly check her phone. One post stated that she wanted to force Bo Nam Company to pay more money, along with malicious comments that Linh tried not to read all of. Hau intended to respond with a ten-minute video, the script was already written with eloquent dialogue, but Linh forbade using the word "scandal".

“If people only hear noise, they will ignore the facts,” she said, her voice so determined that Hau had to put the script in a drawer.

They posted scanned copies of documents with private information hidden, each page carefully processed under Mai's supervision. The lawyer clearly explains which part is evidence and which part is narrative, with clear captions below each image. The post did not spread quickly, but readers stayed longer, the average reading time that Hau followed tripled compared to previous posts. A university teacher contacted her, offering to help verify the dike's history, enclosing a long, professional letter that Linh had to read three times to fully understand.

Minh repairs rented projectors to make money, carrying a heavy toolbox on his shoulder all day. He came back with an old blender, because the customer didn't pay but gave him things in exchange for work. Hau said they could open a smoothie stand at the theater, his eyes lit up with a new business idea. Mrs. Nam asked who would grind if Minh was repairing the machine. Aunt Tam said to let Hau grind, the customers would leave on their own, a joke that made the whole group laugh in the middle of a hot afternoon.

Linh received a letter from her mother. The familiar handwritten envelope made her heart beat faster. Mom asked to return to An Binh, but was afraid of meeting you. Linh replied that she could come home if she wanted, no need to promise to explain everything at once. She sent the theater address, her hands shaking as she pressed the send button.

Minh asked her if she wanted him to avoid her when his mother came. Linh said he should stay, because she needed someone who knew when she was about to throw the glass, a half-joke, half-serious statement that made them both laugh to relieve the rising tension.

That night, they discovered a car parked opposite the theater, the headlights were off but the engine was still running quietly. People in the car took pictures of the projection room through the window lowered a small slit. Minh was about to ask, his fists were clenched, but Linh called the ward police first. The car left before they arrived, its tires screeching on the asphalt. Mrs. Nam wrote down the license plate number in the book with trembling nervous handwriting, then added "the driver seems bald" even though no one needed that detail, making the whole group laugh amidst their anxiety.

Linh knows saving the theater will be more difficult. She also knew that for the first time, she was not doing it alone. She placed ticket number 13 in the document box, next to her mother's letter, her hand gently caressing the edge of the box as if conveying something unspeakable.

Linh's mother returned on a clear afternoon with gentle sunlight spreading across the riverside road. She stood outside the theater gate with a small suitcase with frayed corners, her hair was more gray than in her daughter's memories, and her figure was thinner than Linh imagined. No one knew how to greet, the entire theater lobby suddenly became suffocatingly silent. Hau was about to say "welcome witness", but Mai pulled him behind the counter before the words could escape his mouth. Mrs. Nam brought water, Aunt Tam brought towels, and Minh quietly repaired the door hinge that didn't need to be repaired, just to have something to do for his hands that didn't know where to put them.

Linh stepped forward, her feet felt as heavy as stones. Mother and daughter looked at each other for a long time, the distance of a few feet seemed like an ocean.

“You're skinny,” Mom said.

“Mom still starts with weight.”

“I don't know what else to start with.”

Linh wanted to ask why her mother didn't come home sooner, but the question stuck in her throat and she couldn't get it out. She reached out to receive the suitcase. Mom didn't let go right away, as if if she let go, she would really be back, and that would be scarier than having to face her daughter after eighteen years.

In the screening room, Linh's mother sat in chair number 13, her hand resting on the chair's armrest as if greeting an old friend. She said she met Phuc on the night of the flood, when he was holding the key to the material warehouse, looking panicked but still trying to stay calm. He said if the side gate was opened, the company would lose the entire shipment and would sue the person responsible. Linh's father replied that goods can be bought back, but people cannot, a statement so decisive that her mother still remembered his tone after all those years. After the flood, Phuc went to Linh's father and confessed. He said that if Linh's father signed, Linh would receive a scholarship and Phuc's family would not be prosecuted; if he refused, he would be held responsible.

“Your father didn't sign for money,” Mom said, her voice shaking. "He signed because he thought they would target me. But he also hid the fact that he kept the original from my mother. Mother was angry and scared, then took me away."

“Mom can tell you.”

"I know. That's what I regret the most."

Linh sat down next to her, her hands on her thighs, not knowing what to do with them. She didn't hug her mother right away. The two of them let the space between them contain all the nameless years, a heavy but necessary space. Then her mother took an old hairpin from her pocket and put it in her hand. It was a clip in a metal box, shaped like a butterfly that had faded with time.

"My dad kept it because he said he would never leave the theater. He was afraid he would forget."

Linh burst into tears, tears overflowing uncontrollably. Mom reached out her hand, then stopped, as if she wasn't sure she had the right to touch her daughter after all these years of separation. She leaned on her shoulder first, proactively breaking that distance. The awkward hug couldn't erase the past, but it was enough for the two of them to know they could still sit next to each other, starting over from a small but real point.

In the lobby, Minh whispered to Hau that if anyone dropped the projector today, he would force that person to write a review. Hau asked if it was necessary to write in ink. Minh Bao wrote with tears, an intentional joke to break the heavy atmosphere covering the theater lobby.

Linh heard it, both crying and laughing, laughter and tears mixed together, making it hard to distinguish. Her mother looked out, smiling at Minh for the first time as if looking at someone who helped her daughter find her way home. Her eyes contained a gratitude that didn't need to be expressed in words.

On the first day her mother stayed, Linh took her around the theater, their steps slowly going through each familiar corner. She pointed to the projection room, file warehouse and ticket counter. Mother stopped in front of the old hat, touching the red stitching with trembling fingers.

“My dad used to say this hat made him look powerful,” she said.

“Does he have power?”

“Yes. He knows who needs an extra ticket, who needs a seat, and who needs to be heard.”

Linh wrote that sentence in her heart, no need for paper and pen. Mom said not everything her father did was right, but she shouldn't let the wrong things swallow up the good things. They opened the theater door together, the morning sunlight poured in through the glass window. The first guest was a mother who brought her young child to watch a cartoon. Linh watched her mother sell two tickets, her hands still a bit clumsy with the new system, seeing another family starting their story, just like her family was trying to start over.

In the evening, her mother asked Linh if she still had the first ticket she bought in Ha Vang. Linh looked in the wooden box and found the faded ticket and her father's pen writing the seat number, in a familiar slanted handwriting. Mother and daughter sat in row 13, no movie playing, only listening to the sound of the ceiling fan spinning steadily in the dark. Mom said sometimes coming back doesn't require a complete explanation; as long as the person next to her doesn't leave mid-sentence, and Linh, for the first time in many years, finds herself believing in that.

Before going to bed, Linh's mother asked more about Minh. Her voice tried to sound natural, but her eyes sparkled with curiosity like only mothers. Linh briefly told about his repair work, about his yellow raincoat, and about the times he dropped screws into the drain. After listening, Mom was silent for a while and then said your father must like him, because he always likes people who know how to fix things more than people who just know how to talk. Linh wanted to argue that Minh also talked a lot, often meaningless jokes, but she felt warm at that comment.

Late at night, when her mother was sleeping in the upstairs room, Linh stood alone in the hallway, looking through the crack in the door at her mother's figure curled up under a thin blanket. That scene was both strange and familiar, like a fragment of a memory that had been cut apart and then reassembled without completely matching. She didn't know what the coming days would bring, whether her mother would stay long or leave again like before, but at least tonight, under the same roof, they both began to learn how to call each other by familiar names again.