Chapter 42 — Summer After the Rain

After the storm, Linh and her mother went to the dike gate, the place that witnessed the family's fateful moments eighteen years ago. Where her father once stood, there is only a green lawn and a brand new warning sign that the government just put up after a recent inspection. Mother recounted, her voice slow, that he called each family by name that night, his voice hoarse from shouting loudly amid the howling rain, afraid that someone would be left behind.

Linh placed the worn ticket number 13 at the foot of the signpost, carefully as if placing down a promise. She did not want to erect any formal memorial stone. She just wants every year, on this day, people will show a movie together in theaters, and then check the entire dyke system, turning pain into a practical prevention habit.

The mother apologized to her daughter for letting her harbor her hatred for her father for so many years without anyone explaining it clearly. Linh said she was also sorry for making her mother the place to vent all her anger. The two hugged each other in the middle of the lawn, not completely resolving all the lost years, but at least they were starting to have a truly normal day together.

After the storm, Minh seemed to avoid Linh all that morning. He overcorrected everything in sight, even replacing a screw that was still in good condition. Linh asked what was happening to him. He just said it was nothing, then clumsily dropped the wrench he was holding in his hand.

It was almost noon when he appeared with two ice creams in his hand. One tree had melted almost completely into water, the other tree had its wrapping paper blown away by the wind without realizing it. Linh said his love sounded so cheap. Minh replied that ice cream was not love, it was just that he was saving money for a ring.

Linh choked on her saliva because of surprise. Minh blushed and quickly said he was just joking. She told her not to make jokes like that next time, because they weren't funny to her at all.

“So what if I'm not joking?” Minh asked, his voice suddenly serious.

“Then say it clearly.”

Minh sat down on the doorstep, his hands clasped together. He said he didn't want to propose to her in the middle of a pile of mud after the storm, nor did he want to take advantage of the common story about the theater to force her to stay. He just wanted her to know that he really thought of a future with her in it, but that future must be a voluntary choice of both of them, not his own arrangement.

Linh looked at the ice cream slowly melting in her hand. She said she wasn't ready to name every emotion right now, but she also didn't want him to keep pretending that what he was feeling was merely a harmless joke.

Minh nodded. The two sat and ate the remaining ice cream in silence, neither of them could eat much because most of it had already melted. Hau happened to pass by and asked if it was necessary to record this as a food incident. Mrs. Nam told him to go clean the floor so he could be free from work.

That evening, Linh sat down to write in her private notebook: "There are words that need to be spoken slowly, not because they are weak, but because they deserve to be heard to the fullest."

After the brief story about the ring that day, it took Minh three days in a row just to find a normal enough time to continue speaking. But in the theater, there is rarely a truly normal moment: sometimes someone calls urgently, sometimes the machine suddenly breaks down, sometimes Hau frantically needs someone to rescue a cat stuck at high altitude. Finally, he chose a quiet Monday morning, when the theater lobby was still empty and the early morning sunlight shone through the glass windows.

He didn't bring flowers. He placed a small box containing two screws on the ticket counter, saying one was for fixing the window, and the other was for the future. Linh asked where the future will go wrong. Minh replied that he didn't know for sure, so he should keep one ready in case he needed it.

Linh laughed, then told him that she wanted to enroll in a community space management course in the city this fall. She would go three days a week and return on regular weekends. Minh said he would help her arrange a specific schedule, her mother could temporarily manage the ticket counter, and Hau needed to learn how to not make mistakes in the books anymore.

“Aren't you going to ask me if I'm staying or not?” she asked, a little surprised by his calm response.

“I was asking how you wanted to go.”

Linh felt her throat choke with emotion. She once thought that returning to An Binh meant having to choose a side, between Ha Vang theater and her own life. Minh, with that simple question, helped her see another path that could connect both seemingly opposing things together.

They finished eating the remaining ice cream from the previous day, this time carefully storing it in a cup so it wouldn't leak onto their hands like last time. Hau passed by again and curiously asked if the two of them were having a meeting to discuss something important. Linh confirmed that's right. Hau immediately asked for an official record. Minh gave him a pure white piece of paper with nothing written on it.

On the way back to the theater, Linh asked Minh why he kept avoiding the story about the ring all these days. He said that he had witnessed his mother being forced to stay in an unhappy marriage because of a promise she accidentally made in front of all her relatives. From then on, he was always afraid that every confession, no matter how sincere, could accidentally turn into a trap if the listener had no way out.

Linh told her that she didn't need him to promise forever in just one hasty night. She just hoped he wouldn't turn his kindness into an emotional debt that she had to pay. Minh nodded and said he would practice asking proactively instead of guessing on his own. She teased that that is inherently the most basic skill of a mechanic. He replied that machines don't know how to get angry, and humans are much more complicated than that.

They passed by a bridge that had recently been repaired. Under the river, the reflected light stretched into a shimmering streak of light. Linh said she had officially registered for the course, and Minh said he would take on more repair work at a nearby school to have more money to pay for the theater's machinery. Two separate plans of two people, but heading towards the same place. Before entering the theater, he gave her a small piece of paper with only three questions: "Do you want it? Do you need more time? What if you're not ready?" Linh finished reading, folded it carefully and put it in her wallet. She said it was the kindest contract she had ever received in her life.

Before leaving the dike gate that afternoon, Linh's mother lingered a while longer, sitting on the grass where her father once stood. She added another detail that Linh had never heard: that night, before the water rose to its highest level, her father took off his coat and put it on the shoulders of an old man shivering from the cold, then stood there for many hours wearing only a thin shirt in the pouring rain. She said at the time she was angry at him for that recklessness, but now looking back, she understood that that was his true nature: always putting the warmth of others before his own safety.

Linh sat quietly listening, her hand twirling a weed, her heart filled with an emotion that was hard to name. She asked her mother if she ever regretted loving someone like that, someone who was willing to sacrifice herself to the point of making her family suffer unjustly for eighteen years. Mom looked out at the river flowing gently under the setting sun. Her voice lowered as if she was searching for a memory that had been hidden for too long. She said that she had never regretted loving him. She only regretted not having the courage to face the consequences with him from the beginning, instead of choosing to take her daughter away from everything. Linh took her mother's hand, and they both sat silently watching the sunset fall on the river, without any further explanation needed. The afternoon wind blew gently across the grass, carrying the familiar smell of mud that Linh had smelled since the first day she returned to this town. Now it no longer made her feel as heavy as before, but only left with a strange feeling of peace.