by Truong Thi Thanh Hien

I was crossing the sea alone, writhing in pain so strong that I didn’t want to keep living. I seemed to be walking through a mist, doing my utmost to reach the place from where my mother was waving to me. I wanted to bury my face in her lap and sob like a child, so that I could forget all my physical and mental pain. Mother opened her arms wide to embrace me. I sobbed violently and woke up. But mother wasn’t there. There was only stepmother embracing me. I yelled: "What are you doing? How in hell do you dare embrace me?"

"I’m, sorry," – she stepped back, stammering – "You’re in great pain, but I cannot do anything about it. I feel sorry for you..."

"I don’t need your pity. I told you not to come in here. Leave me alone. I don’t need anybody."

"How can I leave you alone in this state? Your dad cannot come, and your mother is dead. What will you do without me?"

"Do you think you’re my be-all and end-all? Why did my brother become a bum, my father turn sad and become seriously ill, and I get thrown out of the house?"

"It’s up to you to think of me as you like, bad or good, I don’t care, but I’ve got to care for you as part of my motherly obligations."

"A mother?" – I screamed – "How on earth do you have the right to act as my mother? Look at yourself and see if you deserve it? You’ve hurt my dead mother’s soul. Go away. Your being here hurts me so much, makes me so sad. Oh, mother, why did you leave me behind, mother?"

Frightened by my yelling, she clumsily ran out.

When I was 15, my mother died. She was a beautiful woman. Five years later father remarried – to a country nurse. That shocked me so much. Father was a good doctor. The marriage was a bad match, I thought. Father should have remarried, I agreed, but not to that nurse. They were incompatible. My brother shared my view and became so depressed that he left home and became a bum. I stayed, but not as a well-behaved girl. I behaved so cheekily towards her, and even towards father, that he flew into a rage and he turned me out of the house one rainy night. Later he felt remorse and came to fetch me home, but I decided to stay at my boyfriend’s house. Later, I married him without my father’s consent, and he developed such high blood pressure that he had a stroke. Half of his body has been paralysed ever since. I left university before finishing and my hasty marriage ended in divorce while I was pregnant.

When I gave birth to a daughter, my stepmother unexpectedly appeared with a big bag in her hands. In the bag there were all sorts of things for a newborn baby. I still wonder how and when she managed to get all these things ready.

She cooed: "Oh, my dear granddaughter, I’ve been expecting you for quite a long time, my diamond. Now, your mother is about to breastfeed you."

My stepmother was very happy. She went to get hot water and good food for me. I could not do anything to stop her, so I accepted it with a cold shoulder. The next day, my father came to see me in a wheelchair. I burst out crying.

He said to me in a composed manner: "I don’t want to force you to do anything for me, for stepmother, or even for yourself. But you must do everything you can for this baby. Don’t let it grow up with the mistakes you made. Please come home with me, and the whole family will work for the good of your daughter. Your mother will remain as a beautiful image in my heart and nobody has the right to sling mud at it."

His words penetrated my heart. I returned home, my heart colder. Stepmother was the happiest. I could not understand her joy. She did everything for me and my daughter without any calculation.

"Look, Hoµn, your little daughter is smiling."

"No, no, don’t go that way. Your legs should be kept close together. Wear this kerchief on your head to avoid the wind."

"I’ve washed the little girl’s clothes."

"Oh, my dear little granddaughter, don’t cry... Is she feeling unwell? Yes, she does not want to lie the whole day. Do carry her out to enjoy the sunlight," her voice was heard the whole day.

She served the whole family with all her heart. Yet, sometimes we found her sitting there, looking thoughtful and doleful.

"What a pity about Quang! I wonder where he’s now, in this rainy weather!"

Quang was my brother. He was already 18. I looked at her stealthily, and found her suffering real. My mother would have shown the same suffering for my brother and no more.

Every night when everything was done in the house, she would go out to look for Quang. She had been doing this for two years. Father and I no longer had any hope of finding him. It was no use looking for him, if he did not want to come home. But stepmother did not lose heart. One day she found him nodding off in a city park. Or to be exact, he was in need of heroin. From then on, the whole family tried to help him fight his heroin addiction. Stepmother gave him everything, good food, good medicine, to help him rehabilitate himself. He gradually became himself and looked healthier, but then he ran away again. She again found him and brought him home. This vicious cycle repeated itself over and over again. Father and I got fed up with him, but not stepmother.

"Hoµn, you should say something to your brother Quang. Try to encourage him to fight his addiction. I cannot say anything to him because I’m from the countryside, so I don’t know how to say healing words to him. But remember, we’ll never surrender. We’ll help him at all costs."

I found Quang lying on the bed, crying. I sat by the bed, trying to say something to console him: "Quang, our mother in the other world doesn’t want us to be in this bad situation. We have both made mistakes. We can keep feeling the way we do about stepmother, but there is no need to destroy our lives in this way. Stand up now. Take courage and lets rebuild our lives. Let’s do something worthy of our mother’s wishes."

I was speaking to him, but I was also speaking to myself. After that I went back to university. My brother stopped using heroin. The credit for all this should have gone to stepmother for all her efforts, but I wasn’t able to recognise this. Stepmother babysat my daughter so that I could go to university. She also cared for Quang so that he could become well again.

I did sometimes feel real sympathy for her, she did everything for us.

It seemed that she could read my mind: "I’m used to doing all these things. Everyone wants to live amongst clover, but life has compelled us to work hard for it," she said.

I opened my eyes and looked at her. Her words had moved me so much, even though she was only a nurse.

Another time, she read my mind again: "You’re wondering how I can speak in such a flowery way. I didn’t have a good education when I was young, but life has taught me everything, from how to speak to how to behave in a proper manner. I also learnt a lot from working as a nurse at the hospital. The patients were really my teachers. You too should try to learn too, so that when you leave school, you can serve other people well."

I was very surprised at her words. I rushed into father’s room to ask him something about her.

"Dad, what made you forget mother and fall in love with stepmother?"

"Do sit down, dear. Young people always have such absolute ideas. But nothing is absolute, you know. Why do you think that I forgot your mother when I married stepmother? Life is colourful. Why do you look at mother’s beauty and talent and think stepmother does not deserve to be married to me. Your mother is one world and stepmother is a different world. And nobody can say which world is more colourful and which is full of darkness. Stepmother has experienced ups and downs in her life, so nothing can bring her down anymore. When your mother died, how would we have survived without stepmother’s help and devotion? Stepmother was a wife and a mother, once before, you know."

"Stepmother was a wife and a mother, dad?"

"Why is that so strange to you? Stepmother has kept that suffering and pain to herself. Her husband died and she was so shocked that she went into premature labour and lost the child. She has lived a silent life ever since. Now she has reserved her immense love for me, you and your brother. She lives for other people, you know. So please from now on, give your stepmother your respect and sympathy. Don’t ask too much of her."

Had I asked too much of her? I wondered. I was born into the love between my mother and father. When I grew up, I lived in that love. But I did not have any love for stepmother, who had given me the devotion and care of a mother. Now I was going to graduate from university and become a doctor, but I did not even have as much love and altruism as a nurse. I felt so unhappy with myself when I realised this, that I stayed at the school library so late that stepmother had to come and fetch me home.

I walked home with her. My daughter Uyen was so happy when she saw me coming.

Stepmother said: "Please don’t get so absorbed in your work that you forget your right to be a mother."

She did not say "your obligations as a mother", but "your right to be a mother". I looked at her. She had again read my mind, and said in a warm voice: "Don’t you see that being a mother is a great happiness?"

I felt her words penetrate my heart again. Stepmother had lost the chance to be a mother when she was very young, and she did not get it back until she was much older. And then she was given very bad treatment for it.

Not long after that, my brother Quang passed the university entrance examination. Stepmother was very happy. She decided to take the whole family to a resort for a holiday.

On the way, I asked her: "What has made you happiest today?"

"I’m very happy because Quang has got enough courage to turn over a new leaf. I am very happy because I can now return to your mother her dear children, together with this lovely baby," she said, smiling at my little daughter Uyen.

On my graduation day, she introduced me to a young doctor who had worked in my father’s department. I was a little surprised.

"I don’t like matchmaking. Please understand that I am not afraid of passing the age of marriage..."

"Please do as I say, because I want to help you," she replied. "I can’t live on seeing you in this condition. I will be happy only when you and your brother Quang have your own happy families."

Human dreams are many. Mother’s dreams for their children are even more. Stepmother had made plans for me and for Quang, and even little Uyen. But she could not have any for herself. On one fine morning, everyone in the family woke up, but stepmother slept forever. She had left this world and gone to the other world in peace, and we all, even father, a talented doctor, could not find the cause of death. I imagined that she was going to look for my mother, to tell her that she had completed her mission for her.

My brother Quang cried his eyes out beside her grave. When my mother had died, he had still been very small and was not able to feel the kind of sorrow and grief that he now expressed for stepmother. We all cried by stepmother’s grave. But no one could see the tears for her that I had in my heart. These tears remained deep inside, so that my heart hurt all the time...