Chapter 13 — Where Old Elephants Rest

After the storm, life in the camp gradually returned to stability, although traces of destruction were still everywhere - patchy walls, a few broken tree stumps that had not yet been cleared. Ha Lam spent her rare free evenings continuing to rummage through the wooden box containing her father's old notebooks, this time with a clearer determination — she wanted to understand the whole story, not just the fragmentary fragments she had heard from Bay Kinh or Ama Not.

The second notebook, the leather cover has mostly peeled off, records the years after Mr. Thach officially "adopted" Sao Mai. The first pages are filled with the joy and passion of a young man learning to tame elephants for the first time, but later on, the tone becomes more quiet, sometimes mixed with lines of tormented self-questioning.

"August 3rd," one paragraph reads, "old man Ama Rin came to reclaim Sao Mai today, saying the harvest had improved and the old family was able to raise it. I didn't know what to do. I loved it like a child, afraid that if I returned it, maybe next year there would be another crop failure and the old family would have to sell it to the logging team in the district, where I had witnessed elephants being beaten so cruelly that they couldn't recognize their original gentle nature. I lied to the old man, saying that I needed more time. time to complete the legal custody paperwork. I know it was wrong of me to keep it longer than necessary, but I couldn't find any other way to protect it."

Ha Lam read and reread that passage many times, feeling his father's inner struggle through every word. He was not a heartless usurper like she had feared, but he was not completely innocent either — he had taken advantage of Ama Rin's family's trust, had deliberately delayed, even with the original motive of protecting the elephant.

The following pages tell the story of how he gradually persuaded several other families in the village, who were in similar difficulties, to entrust old, weak or injured elephants to his care — including the origin of Mun and another elephant who passed away before Ha Lam was born. Each time, he recorded it with a sincere gratitude mixed with guilt about never formalizing ownership rights fairly with those families.

Near midnight, while flipping through the last pages of the notebook, Ha Lam found a neatly folded letter sandwiched between two pages, the handwriting was completely different - softer, more precise. That is the handwriting of her mother, Mrs. H'Loan.

"Brother Thach," the letter said, "I know you are tormented by the elephants, because of what you haven't told your trafficker. I don't blame you, because I know you do it because you truly love them. But I hope that one day, when your daughter is old enough, you will tell her the full truth, don't let her have to live in a half-hearted story like I once had to live. An elephant can forgive the person who takes care of her with all her heart, but humans, to forgive, we need to understand the source first."

Reading this, Ha Lam's tears could no longer be held back and rolled down her cheeks. This was the first time, fifteen years after her mother's death, that she was able to read the words written by her mother herself, to hear her mother's voice echoing through each word, gentle but also full of determination. She understood that this was what her father had always wanted to tell her, but never had the courage, perhaps because he was afraid of facing his own mistakes, afraid of collapsing the image of a perfect father that she had always respected.

She brought the letter to her father the next morning, placing it on the table in front of him without saying anything. Mr. Thach looked at the familiar handwriting, his hands trembled, his eyes filled with tears.

"Where did you find it?" he asked, his voice hoarse with emotion.

"In dad's old notebook, where the medicine is stored," Ha Lam replied, sitting down opposite him. "Dad, I have read everything you wrote about Morning Star, about the other elephants, about old Ama Rin. I also met old Ama Not, heard him tell everything. I'm not angry with you, but I need you to tell me, in your own words, not through old pages or other people's stories."

Mr. Thach sat quietly for a long time, his hand caressing the letter from his deceased wife, as if searching for courage from those very words. Finally, he began to speak, his voice slow, sometimes choked with emotion, recounting in more detail what was written in the book — about the fear of witnessing other elephants being treated cruelly, about the torment of each delay in returning elephants to their families, about the love he had for each elephant that grew into an obsession that sometimes made him put their welfare above fairness to the people who trusted them to him.

"I know I was wrong," he said, his voice shaking. "Dad used love as an excuse to keep things that did not completely belong to him. He thought that as long as he took good care of them, the original mistake would be compensated for. But he forgot that people not only need to see the elephant live well, they also need to be respected, recognized, and have a voice in their own elephant's story."

Ha Lam held his father's hand, feeling speechless for a moment. "So what should we do now, dad?"

"You have to do what I haven't had the courage to do for the past thirty years," Mr. Thach said, his eyes tired but full of determination. "Fix what can be fixed, openly and honestly, even at the cost of losing part of what dad has built. That is the way to truly respect both the elephants and the people who have trusted them to their families."

"So where do we start, dad?" Ha Lam asked, her voice was both determined and somewhat confused before an unprecedented journey.

Mr. Thach thought for a moment, then spoke, his voice much steadier than when the story began. "First of all, I want to personally go to old Ama Not, not through you, but to apologize myself, properly and clearly. After that, we need to sit down with the lawyer and find a way to officially recognize the contributions of the families who have sent elephants, even if it's late, it's better than never doing it. It could be a part of the rights in the camp, it could be an official role in management, I haven't thought it all out yet, but I want it to be substantive, not just a request. Just a mistake."

That afternoon, Ha Lam found Tuan Khoi who was repairing the western fence and told the whole story that morning. He stopped and listened attentively. His face did not show surprise like she feared, but on the contrary, it shone with deep respect.

"I think this is the bravest thing I've ever seen someone do," he said, his voice sincere. "Not everyone is brave enough to dig deep into a truth that can shake their family's honor, let alone proactively find a way to correct it while struggling with so many other pressures."

"I'm scared," Ha Lam admitted, her voice quiet. "I'm afraid that if everything becomes public, Hoang Kim will take advantage of it to prove that the camp has no legal ownership, and will use that to destroy us faster."

Tuan Khoi held her hand, his eyes steady. "Maybe they will try to do that. But I believe, a truth told with the will to correct a mistake is always stronger than a secret dug up by others to defame. If you proactively come out and reconcile first, you will take control of the story, instead of letting Hoang Kim turn it into a weapon against you."

Those words gave Ha Lam the necessary strength to face the journey ahead - a journey that requires not only strategic wisdom, but also honesty and courage to look straight at the imperfect parts of the legacy she is inheriting. She leaned her head on his shoulder for a long time, listening to her heartbeat gradually slow down, letting the stability from the person next to her soothe some of the anxiety still swirling in her heart, before they both stood up and returned to the unfinished work of repairing the fence under the fading afternoon sunlight behind the mountains.

Those words, although carrying the pain of a late truth, also opened a new, clearer direction for Ha Lam in her journey to both protect the camp from Hoang Kim and mend the relationship with Chu Rinh village - two seemingly separate wars, now, she realized, were actually more closely linked than she had thought.