My heart is at peace, yet why so sad? Startled, I find myself singing, though I know not since when. Startled, I hear a strained voice just as I am drifting into a summer midday nap. It asks: “Mother, will Father come home to the village with us this Spring?”
…
She looks at him—his eyes are jet-black and profound, untouched by the dust of the world. Beneath those long, curled lashes, he looks so much like… He is focused on his notebook, sketching out letters. Naïve. In about a year—exactly nine months and twelve days—he will enter first grade. A dream. After one failed attempt to enroll because he was underage, his tears fell long and bitter for his love of the letters A and B; since then, he kept saying "Tomorrow I will be big" all the way home. Rugged. Every evening after dinner, she and he chant the letters together. His babbling and cooing help her forget the hardships of the day. Body and soul. Looking at him, she feels herself coming back to life—from a time when she thought the world was hell.
Once. One hand on the bicycle seat, the other teasing the flap of her tunic, she sat behind him on a path carpeted with yellow leaves. She felt the sun pouring warm drops over her cheeks. Brimming. He spoke. He had nothing but a love. Fervent and intoxicated. She thought that was enough. The wind whistled past, swirling yellow leaves into the void. Out of breath. Her heart swayed. The girl sitting in the lecture hall, carrying worries from a distant home, crossing thousands of miles to a foreign land to find a way to live. Different. A rural village where poverty clung tight, impossible to uproot to make life grand. Carrying her education, carrying the hopes entrusted by five souls at home. Listening to him, those five souls remained as images. Unfaded.
A moment. Accepting his proposal. The night lights warmed a corner of her soul, bidding farewell to the chill of a winter night. The wind leaned, the afternoon was drunk. The wind swayed a thousand trees. The wind lifted the cloud-boat. The wind sang a lingering sorrow. Friends heard she was getting married. Not surprised, but secretly happy for a woman’s fate. Eventful. From the North, struggling in the heart of Saigon with a private love. Hidden. In the lecture hall, her silhouette was sparse due to the interlacing of part-time jobs. A lingering doubt. Having a husband, is there nothing left to long for? Innocent. Feeling the debt of her education, the hopes entrusted by those five souls. When she accepted his proposal, those five souls were still vivid memories. Unblurred.
If life must betray, please do not betray the one with a heart. Whispering. She entered the wedding car on a night when the wind came to play with the cold river. Fragile. Her bare shoulders were teased by the wind, rising and falling like the tide. There were loud voices, there were soft voices amidst the laughter of those wishing for a hundred years of happiness. Crossing the river without a ferry, yet why did the bridge connecting the rhythms of love feel so shaky, so unstable?
A solitary state. She sat in a small corner of the porch, watching the wall grow mossy from the flowing water. Salty. Life entered a new chapter. Finding a stable job for a new life with unceasing happiness. Because she still remembered. He spoke. He had nothing, only a love. Fervent and intoxicated. She once thought that was enough. The winged words flew away; only the heavy heart remained during the times of back-and-forth arguments. Stinging. She no longer recognized him, nor did she recognize herself. Where did the words she studied go? Only a few phrases, a few words from life entered her speech—words never learned in school. Never. Where did the wind of love vanish, the voice of love that whispered with the first wonder of a lifetime’s passion? Choked to death. Sitting in a corner of the house, looking through the window, she saw the distant outskirts not as far as the morning sounds rushing by. Hurried. Seeing the village from a thousand miles away move to this very spot. A deserted road, tottering roofs, seeing poverty take root, seeing human affection drift away with the bobbing water. The lover’s red thread of fate slipped and vanished; what washed up on the shore of her heart was but a drop of blood formed by the wind of that day. Distant.
Hearing a voice, she knew not if it was sincere or false. She had to protect it—the drop of blood already formed. A voice, a word of love. Even if it was lost. It was still hers. A mistake. Leaving. In a moment when the sun tore through the clouds, she cried profusely for her heart, cried for pity, cried for the suffocation, cried until she was overcome with grief. For the love lost, leaving only a heart-wrenching voice and the bruises that remained. The drop of blood became a son. Infant. He lay still in her lap, not seeing the sun’s tears flooding the vast wilderness. Leaving. Carrying her child back to the corner of the house, poverty still clinging to the roots, to live another life. Having nothing, only a love. Fervent and bitter. Once. Twice. Thrice… many times. She no longer remembered the lover much after the call of "husband." She was left with him. The sole crystallization of the love of that day. The remaining bond between her and this life. Aside from friends during weary coffee chats with sought-after jokes to ease life’s labor and bitterness. Returning home. Lying alone under a stark white light, ghost-like, pushing her into a lonely and cold corner of her heart. Every time. A silhouette returning to find the call of "Father, son." Hidden. From a lonely yellow light, casting a shadow on a mossy wall that had turned green. Waiting.
The first steps, the first calls of life. Carrying the heart, heavy and light. The word "Mother," asking for "Father" amidst the hundreds of questions in this life. He kept asking without end. Questions about life all around. She answered in full. He kept asking without end. Questions about the life encircling them. She made trysts, waiting for him to grow up. He still stood in front of the house. Waiting. After all that time. Separated. She once thought she could do it. Alone. Answering the strained voice that had sunk into the summer midday sleep: “Yes, this Spring, Father will come home with us.” Suddenly. The wind stopped playing, the rain stopped teasing, the sun stopped mocking. Realization. My heart is at peace, yet why so sad? Startled, I find myself crying, though I know not since when.
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