Chapter 5 — The Password Without Me

Upon stepping out of the office building, the rain had ceased, leaving a patch of delicate azure at the edge of the sky. Returning to the apartment for the evening, my phone displayed thirty-seven unread messages and twelve missed calls. I switched the device to silent mode, tossed it into a drawer, and stepped into the shower. As the scalding water beat down upon me, I released a long, profound breath.

On the sixth day, my elder sister sent me a private message:

"I have already asked your homeroom teacher."

That was the entirety of the sentence. There was no follow-up. Yet I knew she understood. Two hours later, the family group chat erupted. Messages from my mother arrived in rapid succession, each separated by less than a minute.

"You said you went to Norway? To study abroad?"

"Since when has this been in the works?"

"What is this about a government scholarship? Who helped you arrange this?"

"You left the country without uttering a single word to us??"

My father inquired:

"Does a state-funded study abroad program not require applications a year in advance?"

My sister chimed in within the group:

"The homeroom teacher stated that she began preparations back in the twelfth grade. The school selection, the interviews, and the publication of the shortlisted candidates all took place successfully. None of us knew a thing."

A prolonged silence fell over the group chat. Then my younger brother posted a single remark:

"So why couldn't her domestic college applications be submitted? Wasn't it claimed that the Wi-Fi connection dropped, causing the submission to fail?"

No one responded. But I knew they were all dwelling upon the exact same thought. That very evening, my mother changed the Wi-Fi password and announced in the group that the new credential was taped to the refrigerator. I remained inside my bedroom with the door shut, oblivious to the notification. The confirmation submission portal required a stable Wi-Fi environment, and my browser page simply spun endlessly. By the time I realized what had happened and rushed out to the living room in search of the password, it was already the dead of night, and the confirmation window had long since closed. I had never mentioned this incident to anyone. Not even once. That night, my mother uttered nothing further. On the seventh day, she dispatched an exceptionally lengthy text. It was not a voice message, but painstakingly typed out character by character. I knew her typing speed was agonizingly slow, as she used the handwriting keyboard; she must have spent over half an hour composing that single passage.

"Today I have spent the entire day pondering, recalling everything you said to me back in the twelfth grade. I scrolled back through our chat history and discovered that throughout that entire year, the words you spoke to me totaled less than twenty sentences. Half of those were 'yes' and 'I know.' I do not know when you transformed into this person, nor do I know from which incident it all began. I cannot recall. I truly cannot recall."

I read it twice. Then I laid the phone aside. Outside the window, the rain began to fall once more. I sat before my study desk, where the textbook for tomorrow morning's very first lecture lay open, unread. The instant coffee had grown cold. I picked up the mug and took a sip. It was bitter, with a lingering astringency. She could not recall. I knew. Soon, I would cease remembering as well. Yet I had spent eighteen years memorizing moments to which she had never paid the slightest heed. Now, I chose to remember no longer. I left those remnants behind in that room with the cracked ceiling, alongside the dishes soaking in the kitchen sink that no one would ever wash. The night in Bergen was profoundly tranquil. The patter of the rain was the sole sound—steady, maintaining a single pitch, much like white noise. Sitting alone, I felt no trace of loneliness. This was my seventh day in this place. I had not shed a single tear.

My sister's long message arrived at three o'clock in the afternoon, Bergen time. I had just returned to the dormitory from the library, my backpack still slung over my shoulder, when the phone began to vibrate continuously. It was not a voice note, but text, arriving in seven or eight successive parts. There were no emojis in between, nor any introductory "are you there," but a direct commencement of her tale.

"The day before yesterday, Mother rummaged through your room."

"She was searching for your high school document folder, claiming she needed to supplement some paperwork. Then she discovered that particular file."

I stood motionless by the doorway. I knew precisely which folder she meant. The transparent portfolio, its outermost page bearing the certificate for the city-wide grand prize, with the roster of documents tucked neatly behind it. I had used a black marker to cross out every single item, the intersecting horizontal and vertical lines completely obliterating the printed text.

"She gazed at it for a very long time. Then she wept. She did not wail aloud; she simply sat on the edge of your bed, clutching that piece of paper, tears continuously streaming down her face."

"Father stood outside the doorway for about ten minutes without stepping inside. Then he went out to the balcony and smoked half a pack of cigarettes."

I seated myself on the edge of the bed and continued reading.

"That evening, Little Brother discovered that the dishes had piled up unwashed for over a week. He washed them himself. He said nothing, and upon finishing, he returned to his room."

I tried to picture my younger brother standing before the sink. Standing one meter eighty-three centimeters tall, he usually tossed even his own athletic wear into the washing machine and gave it no further thought. Perhaps he had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, using those hands accustomed to throwing basketballs to scrub away the grease at the bottoms of the bowls. That mental image squeezed my throat tightly. Yet I did not cry. My sister's final segment arrived four minutes later. She had typed and erased, deleted and retyped.

"Duy Do, there is something I have never told you. Back in the eleventh grade, when you asked me to put in a good word with Mother so you could stay at school over the weekend to conduct experiments, I agreed, but I never spoke to her. Afterward, you were severely scolded, and I sat right beside you in silence. At the time, I felt it was a trivial matter. Looking back now, it was not."

"I am sorry."

I stared fixedly at those two words for a long time. I remembered that day. Mother had flung my experimental report to the floor, accusing me of being "obsessed with play and incapable of remembering how to return home."