Chapter 11 — The Light Keeper at the Sea Gate

Three weeks later, Hoai An's job transfer application was officially approved. She became the person in charge of the pilot monitoring project at Cua Vong, with the task of monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the model combining humans and sensors over the next six months. That means she will continue to stay in Ha Trieu, at least for the next half a year.

"I can't believe it, everything went so smoothly," Hoai An told Khoi, when she received the official decision via email. "Mr. Nghia even praised my comprehensive approach in the report."

"I never doubted your abilities," Khoi replied, hugging her from behind as she sat and reread the decision on her laptop. "From now on, we will have more time to build good things for this place together."

Hoai An's new job requires her to set up a detailed monitoring and evaluation system, including reviewing all operating and maintenance records of the station over the past many years to build a database for future comparison and evaluation. This is a job that requires meticulousness and patience, but also gives her the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the lighthouse's operating history.

“I need to look through all the maintenance records up to now,” she told Khoi one morning, as they rearranged the archive of old documents in a small room on the station's ground floor, filled with stacks of files and books that had accumulated over decades.

“This is probably the hardest place to find information,” Khoi said, looking around the dusty room hesitantly. "My father stored everything in his own way, not entirely systematic."

They spent the whole week organizing and re-classifying all records, from daily notebooks, to periodic maintenance reports, to repair requests sent to superiors over the years. This was a tedious but necessary job, and Hoai An realized that each document had its own story about the station's operating history.

"This is the file from the year I first took over the station," Khoi said, handing her a thick stack of files, his voice a bit nostalgic. "My father left behind a lot of detailed notes, almost like an unofficial handbook on how to operate this station."

Hoai An flipped through each page, impressed by the meticulousness and care of Khoi's deceased father. She noticed that even the smallest details about the weather and the condition of equipment were systematically recorded, reflecting the dedication of someone who really took the job he was doing seriously.

"Your father must be a very careful man," she commented, continuing to flip through the pages of the document.

"That's right," Khoi replied, smiling slightly with pride. "He always said that negligence in this work could cost other people's lives. He never let any technical problem go unreported."

That sentence made Hoai An pause for a moment, a thought flashed through her mind, but she quickly dismissed it and continued her work of classifying documents. They worked hard all morning, gradually bringing the messy storage room into a neater, more systematic place.

At noon, when they took a break to eat, Hoai An brought a stack of old files to continue reviewing while resting. Her meticulous work habits were ingrained in her personality. While flipping through, she stopped at a file dated about three years ago, right before Khiem's accident.

A single document, slightly yellowed, caught her attention — an urgent maintenance request form, with a familiar signature that she immediately recognized as Khoi's father. She skimmed through the contents, and an uneasy feeling began to creep into her heart as she realized, this might not be just an ordinary archive document.

She intended to ask Khoi about this document right away, but when she looked up and saw him happily chatting on the phone with Mr. Nam Vong about the plan to repair the village's common roof, she decided to keep the question and research more carefully herself before saying anything that could reopen old hurts if her hunch was correct.

She quietly put the application in her own document bag and continued to eat lunch as if nothing happened, even though her mind still kept thinking about what she had just read. That emergency maintenance request mentioned an unusual problem in the wiring system of the old backup generator, which Father Khoi sent to the superior management unit. But what bothered her most was the date on the document — it was created long before Khoi's father passed away, meaning the problem had been discovered long before that.

In the afternoon, when Khoi was busy with daily maintenance work on the tower, Hoai An took the opportunity to return to the archive room and silently search for other related documents. She worked carefully, trying not to reveal the curiosity that was driving her, both out of respect for Khoi's family's private space and out of fear of what she might discover.

During the two hours, she found a few more related documents, but most were incomplete copies, lacking official feedback from superiors. This made her even more curious — was the repair request processed in a timely manner, and if not, why?

"What did you find interesting in the old files?" Khoi asked, suddenly appearing at the door of the storage room, startling Hoai An.

"Just trying to complete historical data," she replied, trying to keep her voice normal, quickly folding up the open documents on the table. "There's still quite a bit of work to be done to build a full baseline."

Khoi nodded, showing no doubts, just smiling. "Don't work too hard. We still have plenty of time."

After he left, Hoai An sat quietly for a moment, a feeling of guilt gently creeping into her heart for not being completely honest with him. But she also knew, if her hunch was right, this could be an important truth that Khoi deserved to know, even though it might reopen old pain. She decided that she needed to be completely sure before saying anything to him, to avoid causing unnecessary hurt if her guesses were wrong.

That evening, when Khoi went up to the tower to carry out his shift, Hoai An sat alone in the room, opened his laptop, and began composing an email to the central records storage department of the Maritime Administration, requesting to provide complete records of processing maintenance requests from Cua Vong station over the previous five years, citing that this was a necessary part of building a database for the monitoring project. She pressed send, feeling nervous mixed with a vague anxiety about what she might be about to discover.

She closed her laptop, stepped out onto the porch, looked up at the top of the tower where the lighthouse light was still steadily scanning the night sky, and the figure of Khoi loomed in the light booth, doing her familiar job conscientiously, unaware of the doubts that were gradually forming in her mind.

She remembered the story Khoi once told, about the fateful night of the storm, and how he blamed himself for two years for not reacting quickly enough to start the backup generator in time. If the application she had just found was truly related to that incident, if the technical problem had been discovered before but not handled promptly, then the burden of self-blame that Khoi had been carrying on her shoulders all this time could have been completely untrue.

That thought both gave her a glimmer of hope — that perhaps she could find a way to free Khoi from that persistent obsession — and made her deeply worried about how to convey this truth, if it really existed, without causing him more pain. Knowing that his brother's death could have been prevented if the administrative system had been more efficient can bring a completely different pain, no less severe than the self-blame he has carried for the past two years.

She stood there for a long time, feeling the cool night sea breeze on her face, trying to organize the chaotic thoughts in her head. Whatever the final result, she knows she needs to find the complete truth first, then she can decide how to share it with Khoi in the most appropriate and humane way, so as not to turn an important truth into a new wound for the person she loves.