Short story: Father's Love

( Quang Ngai Newspaper) - 1. The midnight call from my neighbor informing me that my father had been hospitalized for emergency treatment made me cry like a child. It was the first time in my life I had cried like that.
Having finished my work, I immediately took a bus back to my hometown. Throughout the journey of over eight hundred kilometers, my heart was filled with thoughts and worries. How was my father's illness? Was it critical? And what about the days that followed? Should I stay in my hometown to take care of him, or should I return to the city to continue my work and pursue my unfinished dreams, since it was just the two of us at home?

2. The hospital corridors were bustling with people early in the morning. Those in white coats hurried about. The patients' families were equally anxious and worried. I pushed through the crowd and ran. The cardiology department on the third floor came into view. I rushed in as soon as I saw the room number. Tears suddenly welled up in my eyes.
Father lay on the bed with a light blue sheet. His eyes were closed. His breathing was labored. He seemed to have been crying. I saw tears in his eyes.
- Dad's fine, why are you coming home and delaying your work?
I sat beside my father, hesitantly taking his bony, wrinkled hand—the hand of a man barely over sixty. I noticed he had lost a lot of weight, especially after his only daughter decided to stay in the city to find a job instead of returning home after graduating from university.
"Back home, the wages are so meager, how can we possibly make a living?" I blurted out angrily, without restraint, while my father was busy shoveling sand, carrying broken bricks, and hauling cement to repair the slope that had just been eroded by the first heavy rain of the season.
"But I get to be close to you, Father!" His voice was breathless, filled with helplessness.
I felt guilty for displeasing my father, but I couldn't bring myself to obey him. It was very difficult to find a job in the province in my field of study. I might have to accept a job outside my area or face prolonged unemployment. The day I packed my bags and left home, my father tried to appear happy, but I knew he was very sad.

MH: VO VAN

3. I am a somewhat stubborn daughter. From a young age, I've always kept my distance from my father, and I still do. I can't explain why. Conversely, he cares for and looks after me unconditionally. He doesn't even let me lift a finger when it comes to laundry or cooking. He just tells me to focus on my studies and he'll be happy.

My father was very proud of me. I was always at the top of my class, and for many years I was a top student at the provincial level. My cupboards were filled with certificates of merit. He showed them off to everyone he met. He promised to give me a more comfortable and happier life than I have now. That's why he never complained or grumbled about anything. He worked tirelessly all day long. The barren fields and rows of corn and potatoes thrived. The rice paddies on the hillside, where irrigation was uncertain, still yielded bountiful harvests. The garden in front of the house was always green, providing vegetables in every season. My father also worked for others, doing whatever he was asked to do. He was always out in the fields, planting acacia trees, and growing cassava.

I lived in the joy of books, my grades each year higher than the last, achievements following achievements. My father was getting older. At night, he often tossed and turned because of coughing fits and chest pain. In the middle of the night, he would get up to rub oil on himself, warm himself up, or go outside to look around for a while before returning inside and quietly closing the door. I didn't seem to pay much attention to this. If I did think about it, I would just assume he had insomnia.
The day I received the news of my university acceptance, my father wasn't home. I ran to find him. He was busy tidying up and clearing weeds around the hastily dug graves in the cemetery at the foot of the slope, on the left side of the village. In the scorching summer heat, he looked like a small, pathetic shadow. I stood beside him, my voice trembling as I spoke. He dropped the handful of grass he was holding, stared at me, his eyes overflowing with joy.
"Let's go home, son!" the father urged.
All the way home, my father talked more than usual, while I just walked in silence, my heart filled with a sudden worry.

4. My village is small, with just over a hundred houses. From afar, it looks like bird nests clinging to the foot of the mountain. The people in my village live together, united and loving, sharing joys and comforting and encouraging each other in sorrows. That's what reassures me most when working far from home. My father also reassured me, saying, "With neighbors around, we'll be there for each other in times of need, so don't worry too much!"
"Who is my mother, Dad?" I asked my father this question many times. When I was little, I received a hasty, evasive answer from him:
- My mother works far away and won't be back until Tet (Lunar New Year)!

I naively believed my father's words, counting the days and months. When I saw the apricot tree at Mr. Thien's house in the lower village bloom, and when Mrs. Tinh came to ask for some banana leaves to wrap sticky rice cakes, I felt a pang in my heart, thinking that my mother would be home soon. But she remained missing. The small house was always just the two of us, father and son. As I grew older, I became less talkative. Meals were eaten quickly. My father smoked more and more, especially on cold, rainy days. The smoke mingled with the moisture in the house.
- I feel so sorry for him, a single father raising his illegitimate child...!

People whispered to each other when my father and I stopped at the grocery store to buy something. I was shocked and asked my father, but he turned away in response. I was angry with him and refused to eat or drink anything. He tried everything to coax and persuade me, but in the end, he gave in and told me the truth.
I was one of the unfortunate children among dozens of abandoned children that my father found and brought to the temple to care for. I was cute and adorable, so he adopted me. He gently stroked my hair while whispering to me. He told me that when he went through the adoption process, many people objected. Because he was a man, living alone, and the wounds he carried back from the battlefield in Cambodia would ache whenever the weather changed.

I was very sad, but in front of my father, I always tried to appear strong, laughing and joking so much that he was surprised and pressed me for answers. I tried to put on a cheerful face, telling him that having him was enough for me, while secretly I went around the markets and temples in the district, searching for what my mother was doing and where she was.

5. The cemetery on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month is desolate and deserted. A winding path leads from the village to the fields, occasionally punctuated by the roar of a few motorbikes speeding past. People going to the mountains or down to the fields walk silently. The father prepares offerings and brings them to the center of the cemetery to light incense so that the monks from the temple can perform prayers for the souls of the deceased.
I looked at my father, deeply moved:
- Did any of the parents of those unfortunate children come to the cemetery, Father?
"Yes, son. They've come back." The father nodded sadly.
- But how can one find the child they themselves abandoned? Many have regretted their actions, weeping and recounting their story. Some even slipped money into the father's hand to help with the funeral rites.

I pondered this for a while, and from then on, I no longer felt annoyed or wondered why my father had been doing work that wasn't his responsibility for nearly thirty years, even before I was born.
The father gazed intently at the sunset descending, enveloping the landscape, gradually plunging everything into darkness, and disappearing in an instant.

6. As December 22nd approached, my father's old unit contacted each other to hold a reunion and organize a search for the scattered graves of their comrades in the forests of a neighboring country. An elderly veteran came to our house. My father was very happy and asked me to boil water for tea. The two men, who had faced life and death together, talked endlessly. They shared joyful memories from the battles, counterattacks, and even times when they helped wounded comrades retreat to the rear.

In their conversation, I vaguely heard the names of places I was hearing for the first time in the land of temples: Oyadao, Ban Lung, Borkeo, Strung-Treng... Then the conversation suddenly quieted down when my father sadly mentioned the elimination of the 547 high points on the Dang-Rech mountain range, which Pol Pot's forces had chosen as a base for the Vietnamese volunteer troops. In this campaign, many comrades fell, some left behind parts of their bodies, or their remains could not be found to be brought back to the unit's cemetery, to their hometowns and families.

Through the veteran, I also learned that my father once had a beautiful love affair with a nurse. Their loving promises were made on moonlit nights under the forest canopy, by the stream. Dreams of a small house filled with children's laughter were woven together from their countless encounters and intimate conversations. But then...
My father's friend said nothing more, looking up at him. My father remained silent. But I knew his heart was in turmoil. Beautiful memories of his wartime romance always surfaced, giving him strength in this life filled with worries. I couldn't help him much, even expressing words of love was difficult. Perhaps he didn't blame me, so he continued to treat me sincerely and always hoped for the best things in life for his daughter who had suffered so early.

7. By the fifth day, my father insisted on returning home, because the fields, pigs, and chickens, and the cemetery were deserted and desolate. He couldn't walk steadily and needed help. I was also anxious because the company had a new project, and the department head kept calling to urge me to leave. With the intuition of a father who understood his child very well, he spoke up to put me out of an awkward position:
- Getting a good job these days isn't easy, so you'd better get it, the company is looking for you!
I was washing my father's clothes, and I stopped, looking up at him as if wanting to hear more from him. He looked so pitiful at that moment. He was so thin in his old, wrinkled clothes.

"I know, Mom!" I tried to hold back my tears, but my nose started to sting.
I visited the cemetery alone, silently walking among the lives of those who never saw the sun rise before being buried in the heavy afternoon. The small, hidden graves and crude headstones brought tears to my eyes. I thought of the woman who might be my mother, whose identity I don't yet know, perhaps one day I will find her.

I had to go back to my hometown to work, to take care of my father, and to help him tend the ancestral rites at this special cemetery. A sudden thought flashed through my mind as I saw embers flying high from a pile of paper offerings someone had just burned. I mumbled a prayer and then turned around.
As soon as I reached the top of the slope, I saw my father standing at the entrance to the lane. His silent figure blended into the mountain's shadow, magnificent and benevolent.

SON TRAN

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Source: https://baoquangngai.vn/van-hoa/van-hoc/202412/truyen-ngan-tinh-cha-ede14cb/