Short story: The soldier's shirt on the day of return

1. Mr. Luyen limped out onto the porch, his green clothes had turned the color of withered grass, frayed in some places. The patch on the left shoulder of his shirt had also faded with time, the sleeves were knotted up close to his shoulders...
Mr. Luyen fiddled with the paper with the address on it, his heart filled with indescribable emotions. “Mom! I wonder if you still recognize me?”, he asked himself. Mr. Luyen’s son was driving his small car into the yard. His wife, Mrs. Mai, was packing a small suitcase, some specialties neatly packed in a plastic bag in the trunk.

MH: VO VAN

2. Lai's mother looked around the house. Her eyes stopped on the altar, focused on the empty photo frame, that was the altar for her youngest son, Luyen. Peace had been in place for so many years, but her son's body had still not been found. She also did not have a portrait of him to worship. Her eyes were cloudy, the folds of time were deeply etched on her face like a crumpled piece of cloth.

In the afternoon, a thunderstorm passed quickly, accompanied by deafening thunder. Lai's mother hurriedly gathered up the clothes that were drying in the front yard, and suddenly she was stunned. Who? Was that Luyen standing in front of the gate? That figure, that patch on the shoulder of the shirt, looked strangely familiar. Lai's mother's eyes suddenly blurred, and in her old eyes, murky tears rolled down through the wrinkles on her cheeks, and her mother hoarsely called out: "Is that Luyen?"
The blue shirt limped towards his mother, his other arm wrapped around her. Her body was much smaller than the mother in Mr. Luyen's memory.

3. Mr. Luyen lit incense on the altar, his hand gently touching the Certificate of Merit from the Fatherland that had yellowed over time, the certificate stating that comrade Bui Luyen had sacrificed his life in the cause of fighting against the Americans to save the country.

4. It had been a long time since Lai’s mother had smiled so much. Her smile seemed to have faded since the day she heard the news that her husband and son had been attacked by the enemy while they were crossing the river to return home. Her husband had swum close to shore and was picked up and buried behind the porch, while Luyen drifted with the current out to sea, “where can we find him…”, said mother.
Dinner was served in bright electric light. Holding the bowl of rice that his mother was serving, Mr. Luyen smiled and said: "The dishes that my mother cooked are exactly the same as the ones we had when we first came back. The difference is that we can now sit and eat properly under electric lights instead of sitting in the basement under the flickering light of an oil lamp."
“Damn you, why did you leave and never come back to visit me?” Lai’s mother scolded, but her voice was filled with love.

5. After finishing eating, Lai's mother lay swaying on the hammock, Mr. Luyen sat next to her on a pole. His hand held hers, caressing the wrinkles. Lai's mother unconsciously reached out to stroke Mr. Luyen's left shoulder and sighed: "Why are you still wearing this shirt?"
The old years like a film rewind gradually appeared in the memories of Lai's mother and Mr. Luyen.
During the years of the resistance war against the US, Lai's mother's hometown was an area occupied by the enemy. Her husband and children all "jumped over the mountain", leaving only her in the small house. During the day, she went to work in the fields, and at night, she dug tunnels to hide cadres and soldiers. That year, her son Luyen sent a message that he would bring cadres back. "I thought he would bring uncles and aunts like usual, but he only brought a young man, who looked like an intellectual," she recalled. Lai's son was small in stature, with dark skin. Because he was familiar with the terrain and was agile, he was assigned by the organization to be a liaison. Occasionally, he would lead cadres to safe bases in the area. Because he was the youngest son in the family, everyone called him Ut Luyen. That year, Ut Luyen was assigned to take Mr. Luyen from the North to the base area nearly 20 kilometers away. After the night of crossing the forest, he said he would take Mr. Luyen home to stay overnight before continuing on his journey.

On the way, Ut Luyen kept admiring: "This is the first time I've met a cadre who is as fair-skinned and scholarly as you. You must be a good student, right? If there was no war, you would have been an engineer or a scholar, right? I also wish that in the future, when there is peace, I can go to school properly. The uncles on the mountain taught me how to read and write, but there was too little time so I haven't learned all the words yet...", his hands parted the grass higher than his body, his mouth chattering, but Ut Luyen still paid attention to observe the surroundings, if there was even the slightest movement, he would quickly shield the person behind him with his small body.
Mr. Luyen recalled that thanks to the conversation of that liaison, he felt less bewildered, because it was the first time he left his hometown. He was also surprised when that little boy had the same name and surname as him, except that his name had the word Van in the middle...

6. Welcoming Mr. Luyen to the thatched house was a middle-aged woman wearing a dark brown Vietnamese traditional dress, her long hair tied up and pinned up with a small three-leaf clip. With a thick Central accent, the mother asked and cared for him in every way, just like her own son. Knowing the name of the cadre, the mother laughed heartily and said: "So now I have two children."
Intending to stay for one night, Mr. Luyen ended up staying at Lai's mother's house for 10 days, because he heard that the American soldiers were going on a sweep, and the enemy's lackeys were also lurking everywhere, so Ut Luyen decided to stay at home and not dare to risk leading him across the river. During the days of staying in Lai's mother's small bunker, Mr. Luyen was taken care of very carefully. To avoid being discovered, Lai's mother still went to the field every day, every afternoon she pulled a few more coconuts, and said to the neighbor's house: "The weather has changed recently, Aunt Ba, hurry up and pull the coconuts back so that we have something to boil in a few days"; "You have to take care of yourself, Aunt Ba, I don't care where my father and son are dying. If I'm gone, what's important anymore, right?", Lai's mother said while cleverly placing the coconuts to cover the bunker's entrance.

One night, Lai's mother went down to the cellar with a roll of green thread. She waved at Ut Luyen and said: "Youngest son, thread a needle for me. You two take off your shirts so I can patch them up for you." In the cramped cellar, the three of them huddled under the oil lamp, their mother's shadow carefully casting each needle's stitch on the cellar wall, she smacked her lips: "Why are your shirts torn in the same place, right on the shoulder, it's easy to see. When you go up the mountain, Luyen will take the new shirt from the other day and exchange it for your brother's." Ut Luyen nodded, smiled and patted the knitting bag on the ground, saying: "Don't worry, I brought a new shirt, luckily I haven't worn it yet." Mr. Luyen heard that and quickly waved his hand: "That's enough, Mom! I have clothes, just patch them up for me really well." Ut Luyen looked up at him and smiled broadly: "It's only been a few days and he can already speak local words, Mom."
Lai's mother skillfully patched the tear on the shoulder of the two green shirts, and inside was a piece of cloth cut from a parachute cloth that she picked up when American soldiers dropped supplies on a field near their house.

7. The day her son Lai took Mr. Luyen across the river, she stuffed food into a cloth backpack, then told him: "You two go well, when you have time, come visit me, even for a while...", her words choked up, the tears she tried to hold back made the corners of her eyes red. Then she turned around and walked home. It had only been a few days, but Mr. Luyen felt as if his mother Lai had raised him for a long time...
But after that time, Mr. Luyen never had the chance to return to Lai's mother's house or meet Ut Luyen again. The war was intense, and he was in a hurry to march with his unit, so he didn't have time to say goodbye. On the day of liberation, he returned to his hometown with his war wounds. He had planned to go back to Lai's mother's house to see how little Luyen had grown up, but he couldn't do it.
Ten years ago, Mr. Luyen asked someone to go back to the old battlefield to help him find his mother, but because he only remembered her name Lai and could not remember her specific hometown, it took him a whole decade to find his mother's family.

8. Mr. Luyen pulled out of his army backpack a neatly folded green shirt that smelled faintly of jasmine. The shirt had a patch that was identical to the shirt he was wearing. That year, after leading him to a safe point, Ut Luyen insisted on giving him a new shirt, but Mr. Luyen refused. In the end, Mr. Luyen exchanged his new shirt for the one that Lai's mother had patched for Ut Luyen.
“Isn’t that weird? Suddenly I have two new shirts, while you wear two patched shirts,” Ut Luyen scratched his sunburnt hair, looking confused.
Mr. Luyen said sternly: "It's okay, the patched shirt is even more precious than yours. Try to take good care of it."
health, peace later
go to school
“Yes, I know,” Ut Luyen said.
smile

9. “That shirt, for a long time, I have always worn. Fighting with the enemy, my shirt became more torn, so my old mothers had to stay up all night to mend it. That shirt, for a long time, I treasured more than rice. My mother was poor, seeing the torn shirt, the torn shirt made me feel sorry for her...”, the radio next to Lai’s mother’s bed played the lyrics of a song by musician Nguyen Van Ty as if expressing his feelings for Lai’s mother.

He still keeps the two shirts Lai's mother patched, one he always wears on important days, the other he carefully preserves in the hope that one day he can give it to his mother.
Handing Ut Luyen's shirt to Lai's mother, Mr. Luyen's eyes were red and he said: "Luyen has returned to you, mother!"

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