Chapter 17 — The Hand That Carves Sin

A week passed before I received a package. It had been sent from within this very city, bearing no sender's name and only a vague return address. I hesitated for a long time before finally opening it. Inside lay a book—the same one he had been holding in the bookstore that day. It was a collection of poems titled *Stray Birds* by Tagore. The book was aged, its pages yellowed and brittle with time. As I opened the cover, a photograph slipped out. It was a picture of me and An An. It had been taken just a few days prior, when I had taken An An to the park and asked a passerby to capture the moment. In the photo, both my daughter and I were beaming with genuine joy. I had no idea how or when he had managed to obtain it. My hands began to tremble. On the back of the photo, a single line was scrawled. It was Tran Da’s handwriting, produced with his left hand, as crooked and erratic as it had always been.

"I am sorry. I just... wanted to see the two of you one last time."

I tossed the book and the photograph into the trash, then immediately called the police. I informed them that I was being harassed and stalked by an ex-husband with a history of violence. I provided all the evidence I had collected, including the signed confession letter and the audio recording in which Director Luu admitted to hiring a reporter to slander me. The police took the matter very seriously. They opened an investigation immediately, using the vague address on the package to track down Tran Da’s whereabouts. I had expected it to be a difficult task, but to my surprise, the police found him the very next day. He had made no attempt to hide. He was renting a room in an urban village not far from our home—a cramped, dark, and damp space measuring little more than ten square meters. When the officers arrived, he was drinking. The room was littered with empty bottles. Among them, the police found a framed picture sitting on his headboard: the same photo of me and An An, which he had downloaded from my personal social media page and printed out. He offered no resistance and made no excuses, following the officers with a chilling, vacant calm. Because of my formal complaint and the clear evidence of his harassment, he was held in administrative detention for fifteen days.

Hearing these details from the police left me feeling a turbulent mix of emotions. I did not know if my decision to involve the authorities was truly right or wrong. I had acted purely on the instinct to protect myself and An An. I lived in constant fear that he was a ticking time bomb, though I never knew when or how he might explode back into our lives. Those fifteen days passed quickly. Tran Da was released, yet he never came looking for me again. I received nothing further from him. It was as if he had evaporated into thin air, disappearing entirely from my world. Gradually, the memory faded, and my life returned to its former quiet rhythm. My career flourished, and An An continued to grow day by day.

Two years slipped by in the blink of an eye. An An was now eight, a third grader doing exceptionally well in school. She was talented, winning municipal awards for her paintings and passing her Grade Eight piano examination. My rehabilitation center had become the most renowned facility in the city, if not the entire province. I bought a new house and a new car. On the surface, my life appeared flawless. Yet, I never allowed myself to touch the realm of romance again. I was afraid—terrified of being wounded once more. Sometimes, in the deep silence of the night, a sense of loneliness would wash over me. I would think of the hand I had once painstakingly saved, only to have it discarded by the very man it belonged to. I would wonder where he was now and how he was living. But such thoughts were fleeting. I refused to allow myself to waste any more emotion on him.

That was until the day I received a phone call from Old Truong. His voice sounded heavy, weighed down by something grim.

"To Hoan," he said. "Tran Da... is gone."

"Gone? Gone where?" For a moment, I did not understand.

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

"He is dead," Old Truong said.

A dull buzzing sound filled my ears. Dead? How could that be?

"How?" My voice wavered.

"Late-stage liver cancer," Old Truong replied. "He had been suffering from severe alcoholism. He discovered it last year, but he didn't tell anyone, nor did he seek treatment. A few days ago, the local village officials found him in an abandoned stone quarry. By the time they reached him, it was already too late to save him."

A stone quarry... The image materialized before my eyes. A solitary, broken man lying on cold stone, quietly waiting for his end in total isolation.

"He left a letter for you," Old Truong added. "And something else, too. I will send them to you in a few days."

After hanging up, I sat on the sofa for a long time, completely motionless. Tran Da was dead. The man I had once loved and later hated, the man who had destroyed me and whom I had subsequently judged, had simply vanished from this world. I felt neither profound sorrow nor joy, only an overwhelming sense of emptiness. It was as if a long, agonizing story had finally reached its conclusion—a sudden, rushed period at the end of a sentence I had never anticipated.

A few days later, I received the package from Old Truong. Inside was a small wooden box and a letter. I opened the envelope; the paper was aged and stained with what looked like dried water marks. The words were written in his left hand.

"To Hoan:

When you read this letter, I will likely no longer be in this world. Please forgive me for using this final gesture to disturb you one last time."