The sound of rain falling could be heard on the porch.

BAC GIANG - The rain pattered softly on the old eaves, each drop gently tapping on fragments of past memories. A chilly wind seeped through the small window, gently swaying the faded curtain. Dung sat quietly at the wooden table, her eyes dreamy amidst a jumble of books and papers that she hadn't yet rearranged.

The tea in the cup beside her had long since cooled, the condensation on the rim having vanished. On the porch, little Mai was engrossed in playing in the dirt in the small garden next to the house, where her grandmother had just tilled the soil that morning. Red soil clung to her hands, but her face was radiant like the morning sun. She grinned, carefree, catching the raindrops streaming down from the eaves to wash her small, dirty hands.

Illustration: China.

At nineteen, Dung, a second-year literature student at the Teacher Training College, fell in love with Hung, a skinny medical student juggling his internship shifts, packed class schedules, and hurried motorbike taxi rides to earn extra money for rent. Their love was simple, without rings or roses. It was just waiting for each other outside the hospital gate, late dinners in their rented room smelling of fish sauce and the creaking of the fan. Dung felt sorry for his dry, cracked hands, for the dark circles under his eyes after a night shift, and for his restless sleep beside his worn-out textbook. She believed that a hardworking man could build a home, even if it started with just a few crumbling bricks from difficult times.

One night, in the bitterly cold Hanoi winter, Dung had a high fever. Hung, who was on duty at the hospital, asked someone to take over his shift and rushed back, his face a mixture of panic and worry. He wiped her body with a warm towel, awkwardly cooked a bowl of plain rice porridge with an egg, and fed her spoonful by spoonful, blowing on it gently. The small, cramped rented room was damp, the yellow light casting shaky shadows, yet strangely, it felt warm to the heart. Hung sat nodding off at the edge of the bed, holding her hand all night. Dung opened her eyes at dawn and saw that he had fallen asleep, his head resting against the headboard, his hand still tightly gripping hers as if afraid of losing her. In that moment, Dung believed that if she ever had a home in the future, Hung would undoubtedly be the strongest pillar of her life.

And Hung, just as Dung had believed, did not disappoint her. Four years later, he became a doctor in the Outpatient Department of a central hospital, where each shift was a tense series of stressful days, but in return, the income was enough to support their simple dreams. They got married. A small apartment on the third floor of an old apartment building, an old wooden bed, a few potted plants on the balcony, and the cries of baby Mai, a tiny gift arriving in the middle of autumn when the leaves were falling. Happiness seemed within reach, warm and soft like a quilt on the first day of winter.

***

In the early days after their wedding, Dung would often wake up early, cook breakfast, and make her husband his favorite unsweetened black coffee. Hung, despite the dark circles under his eyes from his night shift, would always make sure to take their child to daycare. He would always carefully smooth Mai's hair before leaving the house. One day, he brought home a tiny bouquet of wildflowers, their stems slightly broken, their leaves still damp with dew. He smiled and said, "I thought those cosmos flowers behind the duty room were so beautiful. I picked them and brought them back for you. You can put them in a vase!"

Dung laughed, her smile radiant and warm. The small house, though cramped and lacking in many things, was still a complete and perfect home, where every corner, every clatter of her clogs on the hallway floor, made one long to return.

But then, things gradually became distorted, like a painting being pulled out of alignment, blurring over time, and nobody knew when it started.