Chapter 16 — The Watch Repair Shop That Doesn't Sell Time

The coastal village appears behind the sandbanks, where each house has a different mechanical sound. People showed them a small factory at the end of the road, the nameplate "Hòa Binh" had faded from the sun and sea wind over the years, the writing was so blurred that one had to look closely to read it. An old man cleaning the watch glass looked at Minh, then looked at the pocket watch in his hand.

The salty sea breeze blows, blowing fine sand across the clay road surface. Their car stopped in front of a row of low houses with mossy tiled roofs, and the sound of waves crashing against the shore echoed regularly like another natural timer, without the need for any gears or mainsprings. Lan got out of the car, her legs shaking a bit because of both the long journey and the unnameable nervousness.

“Who are you looking for?”

“Someone who used to go by the name H.”

The old man did not invite him in. “Here many people use letters.”

His voice was wary, his eyes narrowed as he looked at each person in the group as if weighing their level of danger. Lan realized that this was the reflex of someone who was used to protecting secrets that were not her own.

Lan gave a copy of the medical station's book. He read, his face changed. “You guys are late.”

Those two words fell like a rock. Lan felt her legs buckle even though she was still standing, her heart pounding, waiting for the worst.

“Where did he go?”

"Hòa stayed here for three years. He repaired watches, taught children the trade, didn't talk about the past. Then he became seriously ill and was taken to the mainland by a woman."

“Is he alive?”

"I don't know. The woman left a mailbox, saying that when someone asked the right question, she would deliver it."

The old man took a wooden box from the shelf. On the lid is engraved 16:42. Inside was a pocket watch with the minute hand missing, along with a letter written with Lan's name. The handwriting is more shaky than the letter in the niche, but it's the same.

Lan held the wooden box with both hands, her fingers lightly brushing the number engraved on the lid, feeling its weight heavier than anything she had ever carried on this journey. Tùng stood behind her, one hand gently placed on her shoulder like an invisible fulcrum. Minh took a step back, letting this space belong entirely to the mother and child.

Lan opened the letter in the silence of Minh and Tùng. "Daughter, if you read it, it means you've heard too many stories. I don't want you to look for me like you're looking for a lost item. I've lived in places where people needed their watches repaired, and each place left behind a part of me. I was afraid to return because I didn't know how to say I chose someone else when your mother chose to protect you. I don't deserve forgiveness, but you don't need to hold on to anger to prove my love."

Lan stopped in the middle of the letter. The last part has only one sentence: “Let the clock keep to your time.”

She read that sentence three times, each time the silent voice in her head trembled a little more, as if each word was engraved into her memory to never fade away. Not tears, but a strange feeling of relief was creeping into her chest, like a door that had been locked tightly for fifteen years finally opened, even if only a small crack.

The old man said Hòa sent this box four years ago, and then didn't come back. The woman who brought him to the mainland was named Hạ. She only took care of him through an illness, then left as he wished.

Tùng asked why Hạ didn't say anything. The old man replied: "Because Hòa is afraid that his family will come to him just to bring him back."

Lan looks out to sea. She wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. An explanation doesn't make away the years of absence, but it does give the pain a shape that can be put down.

She stood silently on the factory steps, watching the waves crash against the shore, melt into white foam and then recede, leaving a wet streak on the sand before the next wave came again. Perhaps her pain worked the same way — not disappearing completely, just recurring with less intensity over time, until it became a familiar part of the sandy shore, no longer causing panic every time it struck.

Minh asked the old man if he knew which of Hòa's watches the workshop was repairing. He pointed to a shelf with dozens of them, each with a person's name on it. Hòa repaired the fisherman for free, then received the stories in return. He doesn't sell time; he sells patience.

Minh walked closer to the clock shelf, his fingers gliding over each name written in ink that had faded over the years. He recognized in that neat, orderly arrangement the silhouette of Mr. Sáu himself - two men who had never met but had chosen the same way to atone for their mistakes in life: bending down to fix small things for others.

Lan suggested copying the guest book to put in the file. The old man agreed on the condition that the names of the survivors not be published. They sat all afternoon, examining each page. Hòa left behind a small network, not enough to save the world but enough to help many people not lose their documents, names and opportunities.

As the afternoon gradually faded, the old man brewed a pot of strong tea and invited the group to sit on the porch of the workshop overlooking the sea. He told more small stories about Hòa: how he always got up the earliest in the village, how he refused to accept wages from poor families, how he sometimes sat for hours looking at the sea without saying a word. “There were evenings,” the old man said, his voice low, “I saw him sitting there, holding a small photo in his hand, looking at it for a long time and then putting it away without showing it to anyone.”

Lan did not ask further what the photo was. She had enough to guess for herself, and there were answers she wanted to keep to herself, without needing confirmation from others.

On the way home, Tùng asked Lan if she felt disappointed. “Yes,” she said. “But disappointment doesn't mean the letter isn't real.”

Minh drove across the bridge. He asked if he should find out more about Hòa's address. Lan looked at the pocket watch that had no minute hand. "No. If you wanted to meet, you left an address. You left a message, and that's what you can do."

Minh understands. People often think that love means finding the end, but sometimes love means not pulling others back into your life just because you need an ending.

Mrs. Hạnh read the letter over the phone, Lan's voice read each word slowly through the speaker so her mother could hear clearly. She doesn't remember the whole thing, but remembers the word "worthy". “He always thought he wasn't worthy,” she said. “I don't know how to make him believe.”

Lan replied: "Mom, you don't need to do it," She paused for a moment, then added, her voice light but firm: "There are beliefs that people have to learn for themselves, no one can give them, no matter how much they love them." Mrs. Hạnh was silent on the other end of the phone for a long time, then sighed, a sigh that was no longer as heavy as before. “You're right,” she whispered. “I've been trying to do that for fifteen years, both for him and for myself.”

That night, when the whole group returned to the small motel in the coastal town to wait for their departure the next morning, Minh took out his pocket watch. The second hand still ran seven seconds slow. He opened the lid and heard nothing but the sound of gears. Memory had returned the necessary part, the rest was present life.

He sat for a long time in the back room, the light from the table lamp falling on his hands that were used to repairing small things. For the first time in twelve years, he felt that the watch in his hand was no longer a burden to carry, but simply an object that had fulfilled its duty.

Tùng sent additional documents to the investigator the next morning, before the group left for town. The case will continue regardless of Hòa's appearance. Hạ, Nam and other witnesses are protected. Their story no longer stands behind the name of a missing man.

In the car on the way home, Tùng typed the last lines of the report on the tablet, occasionally reading a paragraph out loud to ask Lan's opinion. There was something about this meticulous, orderly work that made him feel more grounded, as if he were building a sturdy bridge across the abyss of the past chaotic years.

Lan wrote in the notebook, her handwriting slower and more certain than any line she had written before: "I can't find my father. I found the right to stop looking."

She closed the notebook and placed it next to the pocket watch without a minute hand on the bedside table. Outside the window, moonlight shines down the familiar slope, silver light spreads across the tiled roofs of the sleeping houses. For the first time in months, Lan fell asleep with no questions hanging unanswered, only a gentle peace spreading throughout her tired body.