Chapter 5 — The Language of Hands

The fourth lesson ended with a game that Gia Bach called "non-verbal storytelling" — each member drew a random topic, then had three minutes to tell a short story entirely using signs, no mouth, no writing, only hands and facial expressions to convey.

Thao Nguyen came up with the topic "a bad day", and when she stood in front of the group, she suddenly realized she didn't know enough vocabulary to tell a complete story. She had to use what she had - the signs "wake up late", "run", "forget", "sad" - combined with exaggerated gestures, pretending to look at the clock in panic, pretending to run quickly, making the whole group laugh before she could signal the end of the story.

"Not bad," Gia Bach commented as she sat down, her face still red from embarrassment. "You lack vocabulary, but you know how to make up for it with expressions and gestures. That's the communication instinct that many people who learn to sign take a long time to acquire."

"Really?" Thao Nguyen asked, unable to hide her surprise mixed with joy.

"Really," he nodded. "Sign language is not just about correct vocabulary. It is also the ability to use the whole body to tell stories, so that viewers can visualize the context even if they don't fully understand each individual sign. You have that ability, just need to add more vocabulary and you'll be fine."

That compliment made Thao Nguyen happy all afternoon, a gentle but steady joy, different from the feeling of discouragement in the previous class.

After the game ended, Gia Bach gathered the whole class and announced something new. "Next week, our club will have its first exchange session with a group in the Deaf community in the area near our school. This is not a lesson, but an opportunity for everyone to try applying what they have learned in a real conversation, with real native speakers."

The whole class was buzzing, both excited and worried. Thao Nguyen felt her heart beat faster — she was both looking forward and scared at the thought of having to communicate with strangers entirely using signs, with no one to rely on if she forgot the words.

"Before that session," Gia Bach added, his eyes scanning the class and then stopping at Thao Nguyen a little longer than usual, "I want everyone to try a little exercise at home. Choose something you've never said to your Deaf relatives — it doesn't need to be complicated, just be sincere — and try to express it completely in symbols, even if you have to prepare in advance, look it up in the dictionary first. Don't let it turn into an ordinary question and answer, let it be one thing. You really want to share."

On the way home, that sentence kept echoing in Thao Nguyen's head. She couldn't think of what she should share with Binh An - something sincere, not just a casual question like "have you eaten yet" or "how was your day?"

Finally, she thought of an old memory - when Binh An was in third grade, he drew a picture for her for her birthday, a picture of two sisters holding hands in front of a small house. At that time, Thao Nguyen only said "thank you" lightly and put the picture in a drawer, without realizing it at the time. It was probably one of Binh An's first attempts to tell her how much he loved her, even though he couldn't say it in words.

Tonight, she decided, she would tell her about that painting — that she still had it, that she understood its meaning late but never forgot it.

When she got home, she spent nearly an hour in her room, looking up the dictionary, watching the instructional video, rehearsing each sentence and each necessary phrase: "remember", "picture", "still keep", "touched", "sorry I didn't say much that day". There were words she wasn't sure about, so she had to temporarily combine them with a few simpler symbols, but she was determined not to let that lack stop her from trying.

When she went downstairs, she saw Binh An sitting at the dining table, holding a pencil and sketching something in a new notebook. She sat down opposite him, took a deep breath, waiting for him to look up at her.

"I want to tell you something," she gestured, trying to keep her pace slow but steady, her facial expression more serious than usual.

Binh An put down his pen and looked at her intently, seeming to realize that this was not a simple question as usual.

"When I was in third grade," Thao Nguyen continued, moving her hands slowly but trying to maintain the correct grammatical order, "I drew a picture for you. The two of us held hands and stood in front of our house."

Binh An was slightly startled, his eyes shining with surprise - perhaps he didn't expect her to still remember that detail after all these years.

"I still have it," she continued, pointing to her chest to emphasize the meaning of "keep it in your heart" in addition to the literal meaning of "keep that thing". "Back then I just said thank you, nothing more. I'm sorry."

She stopped for a moment, looked for the next symbol, then slowly signed each word: "Now I understand, that picture... you wanted to say I love you very much, right?"

Binh An was silent for a long time, his eyes gradually turning red, causing Thao Nguyen to panic, thinking he had said something wrong and made her sad. But then Binh An nodded, slowly, raised his hand to his chest and pointed at her sister - a simple sign that Thao Nguyen had learned from the early days: "I love you."

Tears suddenly welled up in Thao Nguyen's eyes. She couldn't help but let them fall without bothering to wipe them away. She signed back, her hands shaking but firmly: "I love you too. I'm sorry it took me so long to learn how to talk to you."

Binh An stood up, walked around the table, and hugged her sister unexpectedly - a rare hug that Thao Nguyen couldn't remember the last time the two sisters hugged each other like that. He let go, quickly wiped his eyes, then signaled, this time with a mischievous smile through his tears: "You're a slow learner, but... fun."

Thao Nguyen laughed between tears and lightly punched her shoulder. "I know, I know," she signed, then added verbally just to be sure, "I'll learn faster, wait for me."

Binh An nodded, sat back in the chair, but this time pulled the chair a little closer to her, opened the sketchbook, pointed to a new picture - a picture of a pair of hands holding each other, the drawing was still young but filled with emotion. "Draw it for you," he gestured, "this time you don't have to wait ten years to understand."

That joke made them both laugh, a crisp laugh that rarely rang out in the house since Binh An was a child. Thao Nguyen's mother passed by, stopped to look at the two sisters laughing and joking with each other completely using symbols, without any translation, her eyes were also filled with tears, although she tried to hide them with a smile.

Dinner that night took place in a completely different atmosphere than usual. Her mother, still moved by the scene she witnessed that afternoon, kept looking at the two sisters, occasionally raising her hand to the corner of her eye even though she was still smiling. Her father, when listening to her mother tell the story of the old painting, was also silent for a moment, then turned to Thao Nguyen, his voice deep with emotion. "I didn't know you still had that painting," he said. "Back then, when I saw you put it in a drawer, I thought you had forgotten it."

"I won't forget," Thao Nguyen replied, bowing her head a bit embarrassed. "I just never said it."

"That's good, it's good that you can say it out loud," her father nodded, then turned and signaled the whole story to Binh An, even though he already knew, just to make the family atmosphere more complete when everyone understood what was going on in each other's hearts. Binh An smiled, nodded, and occasionally added a few symbols to add details that her parents did not know, making the story more lively.

After the meal, when Thao Nguyen was helping her mother set the table, her mother gently held her hand and whispered: "Thank you, mother. I know it's not easy for you to do this." Thao Nguyen just smiled, couldn't say much because her throat suddenly felt tight. She just nodded and gently squeezed her mother's hand as a wordless response.

That night, after everything had calmed down, Thao Nguyen sat in her room, looking at the picture of two hands holding each other that Binh An had just drawn as a gift, her heart filled with a feeling she had never felt during her journey learning symbols. It is no longer a feeling of guilt, of trying hard to make up for old mistakes. It is pure joy — the joy of truly being understood, and truly understanding the person you love.

She opened the message and quickly typed to Hai Yen: "I just had my first conversation with Binh An completely using symbols, no need to write words on paper. I'm already crying."

"See, I told you so," Hai Yen texted back immediately, along with a series of celebratory emojis. "I'm really happy for you. Try your best, the road is still long."

Thao Nguyen typed out the last message before turning off the phone: "Yes, it's still long, but for the first time I feel excited, not scared, when thinking about it." She put down the phone, looked out the window, where the streetlight cast a pale yellow halo into the room, and smiled to herself, filled with determination for the upcoming classes, for the exchange with the Deaf community next week, and for all that lay ahead on the journey she had just truly begun.