The woman in the mirror

Early morning. Nestled in her warm pillows and blankets, she was startled awake by the sound of rain pounding against the windowpane. Outside, the sky was gray, and the raindrops trickled down, quickly forming puddles on the street. The pungent scent of hydrangeas from the balcony wafted into the room, tinged with the fragrance of dried roses. She lay still, watching the rain through the window. It had been a long time since she had been awakened by such a gentle rain. On the wall, the clock with the image of two doves chimed seven times, and she got up and went out onto the balcony.

From the neighboring house, the quarreling voices of the young couple echoed. She suppressed a sigh, went back inside, and stopped in front of the standing mirror. The soft yellow light illuminated the face of a woman nearing forty. Her skin was smooth and radiant, her nose high above lips meticulously tattooed with advanced technology. Since her youth, she had secretly prided herself on her beauty, a beauty that had only deepened after giving birth to Bon. But for some reason, today she saw in the mirror a woman whose eyes and demeanor exuded a despondent sadness. Perhaps it was the consequence of a long series of intense conferences; every night she arrived home past 11 p.m. After only a quick makeup removal, she collapsed onto the bed, drifting off to sleep amidst the lingering scent of perfume.

She went out onto the balcony again and looked down at the street. The downpour had stopped. Streams of people hurried past. The couple who had just been arguing were now reconciled, riding together on their old motorbike, their little daughter in a pink dress chattering happily in front. She saw the joy reflected on each of their faces.

She once had a family, was a loving wife and devoted mother, until she suddenly realized she hadn't become the person she had hoped to be in her youth. In the mirror, she saw only a haggard, sleep-deprived woman, a slovenly woman in worn-out pajamas. Everything was gradually pushing her into darkness.

When she decided to temporarily leave her marriage, many people criticized her for being selfish. She silently accepted all the judgments from family and friends. No one knew how much she longed to truly live, not just exist within her marriage. She felt she needed to learn to love herself again. Her husband listened to her story, gently accepting it and saying that he was partly to blame. He offered to raise their son, Bon, for now, as he had a stable career and could dedicate time to taking the child to school, allowing her to focus on her work and career, which she had neglected for so long.

So she decided to start over. First, she focused on restoring her once-beautiful appearance. Before long, she had regained her slender figure. She was once again a successful, intelligent, sharp, and charming woman. But sometimes, after dazzling parties, she would return home alone, lying there, her mind blank, wondering if the world she had just been through was real or not.

The clock struck eight. She sat at her dressing table, combed her hair, then opened her wardrobe and hesitantly chose a simple, ash-gray designer dress with a few white floral embroidery on the collar. She appeared gracefully in the conference hall. With her charming smile and confidence, she mastered her role. The conference concluded with a dinner party. She drifted along amidst the clinking of glasses and the seemingly pre-programmed compliments…

Every party eventually comes to an end. The last guests hurried away. She watched them, the men who just moments ago had been flattering and polite, now rushing about as if their outer shells had been stripped away and discarded. They were eager to return home after receiving phone calls from their families.

Left alone, she looked up at the sky. The city at night, twinkling with starlight, was dazzling and magnificent. The wind rustled through the streets. She strolled leisurely along the familiar camphor tree-lined road. In the night, the trees along the road darkened under the streetlights, black and cold. Suddenly, she shivered. In that moment, she stopped. A dream of a small house with a bougainvillea trellis in the yard, where she brewed coffee for her husband every morning, where she busily prepared her child for school. It was also there, where her child's joyful and longing calls could be heard from the end of the lane every afternoon, after school, her husband would pick the child up from kindergarten…

That dream was so old that she felt like she had become a foolish woman. Every time she remembered it, she would hastily tuck it deep into a compartment of her memory, so she would never have to recall it again…

The rain began to fall lightly, then poured down heavily, as if wanting to wash away the entire city. Her feet carried her through the dark, gloomy downpour. A few car headlights flashed by, the road surface glistening like a mirror, occasionally splashing water onto her ash-gray dress. A few people hurried past her, their raincoats pulled down, but no one paid attention to the woman walking alone on the street. The raindrops stung her face; she wiped them away with her hand, and smiled softly… Yes! Perhaps the dream of the past had returned. For the first time in so many years, she felt that dream so clearly within her.

The shadow on the road stretched long and silent. She continued walking slowly. The cool rainwater soaked into her clothes, seeping through her skin, but she only felt a sudden warmth creeping in, like a fire just lit, warming her soul. Over there, the house with the bougainvillea trellis still cast a faint light. Her steps slowed. "The child is asleep by now, isn't he, Bon?" she whispered.

Night was fading into dawn. She still stood there, gazing absentmindedly at the light shining down from the house with its bougainvillea trellis in full bloom. She had planted it herself, a gift from her husband who had returned from a business trip – a delicate bougainvillea cutting grafted from a rootstock. Day after day… the trellis grew, growing with little Bon’s age. Until one day, looking at the vibrant flowers, she suddenly felt herself changed…

From the balcony, the silhouette of a man emerged from the house, gazing absentmindedly at the sky before his eyes suddenly settled on the figure of a woman standing huddled beneath a camphor tree. The man rushed down the stairs, opened the gate, and ran towards the familiar tree. But no one was there.

Returning to her apartment, she stayed awake all night. Standing before the mirror, she gazed intently at the woman's face reflected in it. Still the same smooth, radiant skin, the same high nose above meticulously tattooed lips. But tonight, she suddenly realized that glimpsed in that face was the tender, longing look of a mother. "Bon! Tomorrow, I'll come to school to pick you up!" she whispered...
The night is deep. From someone's garden, the scent of laurel wafts by. Intense...

Short story: VU NGOC GIAO

Source: https://baocantho.com.vn/nguoi-dan-ba-trong-guong-a190849.html