Chapter 16 — When the Spider Plant Turned Black

Tucked behind the washing machine rested a black plastic bag, its mouth unfastened, revealing half of a yellowed stack of papers. The moment I reached out my hand, my mother-in-law suddenly lunged forward from the sofa.

“Don’t touch that!”

She had lunged with such reckless momentum that one of her slippers slipped off entirely. Her whole body crashed heavily against the balcony doorframe, her shoulder letting out a dull thud, yet her hand desperately groped toward the gap behind the appliance. My mother instantly grabbed her tightly by the arm.

“What are you panicking for? Is there something shady in there that you’re too terrified for anyone to see?”

Under the harsh white light, my mother-in-law’s face had turned an eerie, ghastly pale. Her lips trembled violently, but her eyes remained locked onto the black plastic bag.

“Those are just my old things! What right do you people have to go through my private belongings?”

The neighbor stood just outside the doorway, holding her phone up with a steady, unyielding grip.

“I’m recording every single second of this, so nobody better try anything physical.”

Tran Nghien stepped forward, lowering his voice to a bare whisper.

“Ha Vu, please, don’t make things any more unsightly than they already are.”

I looked straight at him.

“My folder of important documents has vanished, and suddenly a mysterious black bag shows up in our own home, and you expect me just to ignore it?”

He moved to block the balcony entrance entirely.

“For all we know, Mother was just clearing out old clutter and stashed it in there.”

I retorted instantly, “Then why on earth did she throw herself forward like a maniac to snatch it back?”

At that, my mother-in-law burst into loud, theatrical wails.

“I was just terrified you people would frame me all over again! Now, no matter what I do, it’s always wrong!”

I didn’t even spare her a glance. Crouching down, I switched on the flashlight on my phone and beamed the bright ray behind the washing machine. The black bag was wedged deep into the corner, its surface smeared with damp mud, looking as though it had just been dragged across the floor from the flowerpots. As I reached out and my fingertips brushed the plastic, Tran Nghien suddenly clamped his hand around my wrist in a vice grip. The pressure was intense enough to send a sharp stab of pain through my joints, causing me to frown deeply. My mother’s expression darkened instantly.

“Let go of her right now!”

Tran Nghien stared at me, his eyes filled with a heavy exhaustion and a simmering, irritable frustration.

“Ha Vu, can’t you leave me even a single shred of dignity and a way out?”

“A way out?”

I tried to wrench my arm free, but his grip held firm.

“You people stole my things, went to great lengths to hide the evidence, and now you have the nerve to ask me for a way out?”

The neighbor outside shouted loudly, “Hey sweetie, do you need me to call the police? I can dial the number right now.”

At her words, Tran Nghien’s grip loosened. I pulled the bag out. The harsh, grating sound of plastic friction against the tiled floor echoed sharply in the silent balcony space. The bag felt quite heavy; inside, it clearly contained paper, yet there also seemed to be some hard, rigid objects. My mother shoved my mother-in-law back toward the living room.

“Just sit down and stay put, stop putting on a pathetic falling act.”

My mother-in-law glared at us, teeth clenched, tears streaming down her face, though there was not a single trace of genuine vulnerability in her hardened gaze. I pulled open the neck of the bag. At the very top lay a stack of yellowed papers, their edges curled and warped, exuding a heavy, stale odor of dampness mixed with a bitter, fishy stench. As I pulled out the very first sheet, my fingers suddenly froze. Printed across the page in large, bold letters was a title: *Consent Form for Voluntary Pre-pregnancy Nursing Care.* And right there on the signature line was my own name. The handwriting looked an exact match for mine. Yet I remembered with absolute clarity that I had never laid eyes on this paper in my life. My mother snatched it away to inspect it, her face turning as dark as a thunderstorm.

“Is this the wretched document they kept going on about?”

Standing close by, Tran Nghien was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling in erratic rhythms.

“I had nothing to do with this paper. I didn’t know it existed.”

I lifted my head to look him dead in the eye.

“Once again, you claim you knew nothing.”

A rush of dark red flooded his face.

“I swear I have genuinely never seen this thing before.”

Suddenly, my mother-in-law’s voice cut through the air.

“She signed it of her own free will.”

Standing by the living room threshold, her voice was raspy and strained.

“On the third day after the wedding, I handed it to her. She complained that it was too much of a bother, told me to sort it out myself, and signed her name right then and there.”

My mother let out a bitter, furious laugh.

“You used family doctor records to trick my daughter into signing a blank sheet of paper, and you have the audacity to call it voluntary?”

Losing control, my mother-in-law snapped back, “Who tricked her? She is a grown adult! If she signs her name without reading what’s on the page, who else is she supposed to blame?”

The moment those words slipped past her lips, every sound in the living room vanished completely. Even Tran Nghien whipped his head around to stare at his mother in utter shock. Realizing too late that she had let slip a fatal admission, my mother-in-law slapped both hands over her mouth. But it was already far too late. Outside the door, the neighbor muttered under her breath, “Well, would you look at that, she just went ahead and confessed herself.”