Chapter 10 — The Alley Is No Longer On The Map

Uncle Hai Moc's cough lasted into the third month and then became completely severe. One morning, he coughed so hard that he could not stand and had to hold on to the workbench, and when Khanh ran to help, he saw on his father's palm a small streak of blood mixed with phlegm.

"Dad, let's go see a doctor. Don't hesitate any longer." Khanh said, his voice shaking with panic, an emotion he rarely showed in front of his father.

This time, Uncle Hai Moc couldn't argue anymore. Father and son went to the city hospital and waited in line all morning for X-rays and blood tests. The result was not the worst that Khanh feared on the road — not cancer — but the doctor diagnosed Mr. Hai Moc with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the result of decades of inhaling dust, cigarette smoke and welding fumes in a car repair shop without a good ventilation system. The disease cannot be completely cured, it can only be controlled with medication and must be absolutely kept away from dust and heavy work.

Khanh sat on a hard plastic chair in the hospital hallway, listening to the doctor read the results, his ears ringing, only catching a few discrete phrases — "irreversible damage", "needs periodic monitoring", "avoid polluted environments". He looked at his father sitting next to him, his originally sturdy figure seemed to shrink a bit on the chair, his hands clasped together on his lap, his eyes looking far away at the window where the sun was rising.

"Does that mean dad can't do heavy work anymore?" Khanh asked the doctor, his voice choked.

"It's okay to do light work, but jobs like car repair, welding, and breathing in metal dust all day are no longer recommended. If you continue, the disease will progress much faster." The doctor explained, his expression serious.

On the way home, Uncle Hai Moc was silent the whole way, only when he was near the alley did he speak, his voice hoarse.

"Don't tell your mother it's so serious. Just say it softly, otherwise she'll worry."

"Dad—"

"Dad said." Uncle Hai Moc interrupted, his voice determined even though his body was exhausted. "Can I hide it for the rest of my life? I just don't want anyone to see me become weak in a day or two. Slowly and slowly."

News of Uncle Hai Moc's illness spread quickly throughout Gieng Chung alley that afternoon. Mrs. Nam Xoi brought a pot of snakehead fish porridge and gave many instructions about abstinence. Uncle Bay stopped by, stood silently looking at the car repair shop for a long time before speaking, his voice was much lower than his usual casual look.

"This job slowly exhausts people, no one notices until they get sick. I also have chronic bronchitis since I was a motorbike taxi driver on the street, always inhaling vehicle fumes. Now when the wind changes, I'm coughing and choking."

When Mo heard the news, he immediately ran over and offered to skip school in the afternoon to help Khanh look after the shop during the days when Uncle Hai Moc had to stay in the hospital for further observation.

"You take care of your father, let me take care of the shop, I'll take note of the customers when they come, wait for you to come home and deal with it." Fat said, his voice was firm and rare in his friend who was only used to joking around. "Brothers, if you don't help now, then when will you help?"

Mo's presence, although it could not completely replace the overwhelming anxiety, also helped Khanh have a little more time to run back and forth between the hospital and the car repair shop during those first panic-filled days.

That night, Khanh sat alone in the shop, looking at his father who was falling asleep due to the mild sedative the doctor prescribed. He took out his phone, intending to call Vy. She was the only person outside of his family with whom he really wanted to share this worry, the person who had sat next to him through the difficult years, the person who understood the meaning of this auto repair shop to his family more than anyone else.

But the call rang for a long time, no one picked up. He tried again a second time, a third time, still silent. He texted: "Vy, my dad is sick, need to talk to you for a bit?"

*

On the other side of the globe, at that exact moment, Vy was sitting in the middle of a large conference room, preparing to enter the most important final project defense of the school year - the presentation that determines the semester's score and the opportunity to be accepted into a prestigious internship program at a leading planning consulting company. She kept her phone in silent mode in her bag, under her seat, completely unaware of the constant calls and messages coming from the other side of the world.

The presentation lasted nearly three hours, followed by a small party to celebrate the end of the stressful semester with a group of classmates, which lasted until late at night. It wasn't until she got back to the dorm, nearly 1 a.m. Sydney time, that Vy took out her phone and saw five missed calls and three text messages from Khanh.

She read the message, her heart sank, and hurriedly called back, but at that time in Vietnam it was almost ten o'clock the next evening - Khanh did not answer the phone, perhaps busy taking care of her father or sleeping due to exhaustion after a long day at the hospital. She texted, her hurried tone clearly evident in each short sentence: "I just saw the message. What's wrong? I was so busy with exams that I didn't pay attention to my phone. I'm sorry. Are you okay? Please text me back."

That message, although sincere, still carried the sentence "I'm so busy taking exams" that later, when looking back, Vy blamed herself for putting it right at the beginning of the sentence, as an apology to prioritize her own busyness before asking about the health of the person who personally drove her to the scholarship interview.

*

The next morning, when Khanh woke up and saw Vy's message, he read it over and over again, a complicated feeling rising in his heart - both relief because she finally knew about it, and a dull disappointment that he couldn't bear to name. He looked at his father sitting up and eating porridge, his face much paler than it had been a few months ago, then looked back at the short message on the screen, and a decision suddenly formed in his mind.

He typed back, briefly: "My dad has lung disease, not too serious, he's taking medication. Just worry about studying, don't worry about my dad, I'll tell you later."

That's not entirely true. Uncle Hai Moc's illness was not as mild as Khanh described, but he chose to understate it, partly because he did not want Vy to be distracted during an important time, partly - although he did not admit it to himself - because a little pride was creeping into his heart, feeling that if she was not free enough to answer the phone when he needed it most, then he did not need to pour out his heart to her.

Vy read the message and felt relieved because she thought the situation wasn't serious, and because she was preparing for the upcoming internship, she didn't ask any more questions, just texted back a short sentence "That's good, remember to take care of your health, I'm too busy to call much, just text me if there's anything" and then returned to the pending work.

Both, in different ways, unintentionally contributed to building a thin wall between them — not because one intentionally hurt the other, but because each person was struggling to cope with their own pressure, and in that struggle, they let their most sincere words be replaced by short, polite, safe sentences.

*

In the following months, the frequency of contact between the two gradually decreased to the point of only a few birthday messages and a few short greetings during Tet. There was no argument, no official farewell to that friendship - there was only a silence that grew over time, like a small crack in the wall that no one bothered to fill, then one day looking back, the crack had become a gap that could not be mended with a few empty words.

The tin box still lies under the tamarind tree, between two propeller-shaped roots, waiting to be dug up one day as promised. But that day, at the end of Vy's second year in Sydney, seemed to be receding, fading in both of their memories, buried under the dust of time and the seemingly legitimate busyness of youth trying to prove themselves to the world.

One evening, while cleaning her room for Tet, Mrs. Nhien found a draft version of the map of Gieng Chung alley that Vy had left in her old desk drawer before leaving, the scribbles with funny names were still clearly visible. She sat quietly looking at the piece of paper for a long time, then carefully put it in a separate box, telling herself that she would give it to her daughter the next time she visited home - although she was not sure when that visit would be, when her daughter's phone calls became less and less frequent, and the voice on the phone became more and more strange compared to the little daughter she had sent off to the airport years ago.