Two mothers

The Honda lurched for a while then stopped in the middle of the traffic. Mui quickly pulled over to the side of the road, hearing someone throw an annoyed sentence at her back. The rain was pouring down. The road was choked with people and water, choking with the screeching sounds of brakes and ear-piercing horns. Standing under the awning by the roadside, Mui patiently stepped on the gas pedal but the car still wouldn't start. The customer's package lay on the saddle as if it was angrily urging Mui. Mui fumbled for the phone that was vibrating in her pocket. It was the customer calling. The voice was hoarse as if it had just come out of an old radio with difficulty. "Hello, hello, can you hear me?" Mui tried to drown out the sound of the rain. Her response was a flash on the screen before the phone went dark and cold. Probably due to water damage.

Imagining the grimacing face of the customer made the raindrops that landed in her eyes suddenly sting. Her heart felt like a swarm of fire ants were buzzing. Mui raised her face to the sky and mumbled, “Don’t cry. Don’t cry!”. The rain continued to pour down like a bag of water that had been full for a long time and had burst open. Mui had no choice but to hug the box of goods and wait. Her pants were rolled up high but still soaked with water. The monsoon wind blew into her body, making her cold.

On the other side of the porch, an old lady sat huddled like a wet-winged bird nestled next to a potted plant. Her moldy hat had one side dented, covering a fist-thick stack of lottery tickets tied together with a yellow rubber band. The old lady cast a desperate gaze into the pouring rain, her back hunched like a restless question mark. She turned to look at Mui, intending to say something but stopped, anchoring a nervous smile on Mui. Perhaps because she had met Mui at the gas station at the intersection at noon, she hesitated to keep her usual phrase: “Buy me a lottery ticket.”

At that time, Mui stopped to fill up her gas tank and saw an old woman rushing to each car to sell lottery tickets. People were rushing in to fill up their gas tanks, the next car taking the place of the previous one, but the old woman only received head shakes or ignored looks. Seeing her lost among the bustling traffic, feeling like a dry leaf in a storm, Mui turned her car around and called her to the corner. “Give me ten tickets!” Mui patiently waited for her trembling hand to pull out ten lottery tickets. With a loaf of bread she had just bought, Mui immediately thrust it into her hand.

“Poor old lady!” Mui whispered as she turned to look at the old lady, the small figure was working hard to return to the gas station. The phone informed her that a customer had placed a delivery order, Mui was diving in the middle of the traffic like a school of fish in the pond draining season, when the rain poured down like an army. After advancing and retreating a few times, the battle was still going on noisily. Mui met the old lady again, the stack of lottery tickets in her hand did not seem to have waned much. The city’s weather this season was as confusing as a young girl’s, sometimes cheerful, sometimes sad. “Poor thing!” Mui thought as the old lady turned to smile sadly.

“Or should I buy ten more tickets?”, Mùi looked up at the tamarind canopy and wondered. Looking down at the motorbike that was on strike in front of her, the silent phone in her hand, she hesitated: “Or should I just buy five tickets?”. Mùi secretly glanced at the old lady, saw her leaning against the wall, dozing off, her hand still tightly holding the faded conical hat covering the lottery tickets. She tilted her head to the side, revealing a wide, patchy scar on the flabby muscles of her neck. Mùi suddenly felt a burning sensation. The long, rainy day was gradually ending, but the lottery tickets behind the conical hat were still thick. The rain gradually receded, and the old lady woke up in a panic.

- Give me ten more bills! In case I win tonight…”, Mui smiled gently. She reached into her pocket, and there was just a green bill wet with rain…

Mui hurriedly took the “war” bike to the repair shop. Following the address and phone number on the box, Mui walked to deliver it to the customer. “It shouldn’t be too far,” Mui was used to braving the wind and rain. Luckily, the heavens had some mercy on people, letting the rain stop before dusk. I just hope the customer will understand.

The glistening puddles of rainwater along the road reflected Mui's shadow as she walked as if she were running. That day, Mui did not think about the harsh words the customer had said that afternoon. She kept wondering whether the old woman had sold all the lottery tickets.

“Mom, I’m used to going up and down the main roads and small roads here all day. It’s not as stable as when I was a garment factory worker, but I think that’s enough. Some people say I’m too gentle, be careful of being cheated. Women and girls go to work as street vendors. But I’m just like you gave birth to me, right mom?” - Mui turned to her mother and whispered - “Oh, today I saw the old lady from the other day again, standing so gentle under the tree. I felt so sorry for her. There were no customers today so I only bought five tickets. Her bony hands were shaking when she gave me the lottery tickets. I just bought a lunch box for the kids at the red light, otherwise I would have given it to the old lady to eat.”

The lottery tickets that Mui bought from the old lady were neatly tucked into her worn wallet. The wallet grew thicker every day, of course not because Mui had a lot of money. “That piece of paper is more valuable than money,” Mui said loudly when a customer accidentally saw her open her wallet. As soon as Mui finished speaking, the old woman’s eyes, while counting the lottery tickets she gave her, flashed through her mind. A customer joked that the day she won the jackpot and quit her job as a motorbike taxi driver to become a city tycoon was not far away. “Even if that day comes, I’m not sure I’ll be as happy as I am now!” Mui smiled slyly. The customer just nodded after hearing that.

Every afternoon before the lottery draw, Mui would stop by the tamarind tree. She knew that the old lady would wait for her there, rain or shine. One day, when she was lucky enough to sell everything, she would still wait for Mui. “Oh my, she didn’t leave any for me, in case someone won the jackpot tonight,” Mui laughed. On her shriveled lips, the old lady forced a smile in response. She quietly hid the fact that she had just been robbed by gangsters, not leaving behind even a single lottery ticket. That whole day, the city didn’t rain…

Mui had just found a free vegetarian restaurant. The old man who owned the restaurant was almost eighty years old, and every morning he sat in front of the door waiting for customers. The slender old woman was always busy with trays of vegetables, the sun slanting through the ventilation window, spreading curtains amidst the morning smoke. The old man knew by heart every meal of his regular customers, this student often asked for white rice, the motorbike taxi driver often gave an extra portion to his orphaned nephew. Mui also came this morning, watching the old woman who owned the restaurant wander to the back of the kitchen, Mui's eyes stung, remembering her mother who was alone at home. Receiving three boxes of hot rice, Mui would share them with the two children who often stood in the sun begging for money at the traffic lights and the old woman who bought lottery tickets sitting under the tree canopy.

But that day the old lady was nowhere to be seen.

All the days that followed, the place under the tamarind tree was covered with only dry leaves and dust. The chirping of birds amidst the calm flow of cars continued.

Like a cloud born to drift, no one there knew where the old lady came from and where she went amidst the darkness of the tall houses and deep shadows. While driving in the late afternoon rain, Mui decided to let go of all her worries about the old lady, which had been lingering for the past few days. Mui just sat there waiting, every afternoon, amidst the distant echoes of church bells. Just like the old lady used to wait for Mui like that.

This season, the tamarind tree quietly sheds its leaf rain. The scrap collector Lien and her dusty bicycle often pass by, filled with tired, patient cries. Mui often sees Lien next to the trash cans in the row of boarding houses behind the school, picking up pieces of cardboard. At that time, her back is also bent like a vague question mark, like the old lady's back. The question marks float lonely in the rain and sun of the city, like a fishhook forever holding onto dreams submerged in the bustling sea of ​​people. A few times when Mui goes to the bus station to pick up passengers, she feels a pang from the resentful looks of the "traditional motorbike taxi" drivers, but Mui realizes that they are also question marks floating under this sky. It's like sometimes when Mui gets lost, the roads always revolve around her with the question: "Where will my life go?".

*

Who was like the shadow of an old woman walking slowly under the flickering street lights? Mui left the lunch box she was chewing, walked towards that place and saw her turn around and walk back the old way. Still the familiar small figure but the back like a fishing rod bent down, she walked limply in the thin rain. "Where have you been all month? I haven't seen you? I've been waiting forever", Mui said without noticing that her voice had changed. "Grandma, it's me. Don't you recognize me?". The old woman still walked hunched over with hopeless, weak calls: "Man. Man. Where did you go?" Let Mui's words flutter in the rain.

Putting aside the disappointment the old woman had just felt at the reunion, Mui silently followed. She kept wandering through the night, as if her Man was somewhere there. Late at night, Mui saw her returning to an old apartment building.

*

"Mom, I met the lottery ticket lady again today. But she didn't recognize me. She looked like a wilted vegetable. How pitiful!"

Mui looked at her mother and sighed. Outside the window, the moon condensed into drops on the bougainvillea like tears of the night.

"The security guard at the apartment said the old lady has been lying in a coma for a month now. When she can sit up, she forgets things. Sometimes she is conscious, sometimes she is not. She often wanders around looking for her daughter. Before, the two of them lived under the stairs of the apartment building."

A moth flew into the rented room and landed in front of Mui's mother and daughter, its thin wings fringed with the night dew.

"Back then, the old lady was still working as a garbage collector. Every night her daughter slept alone. That day, unfortunately, the apartment building caught fire without anyone knowing. The fire had reached the bottom of the stairs..." Mui hesitated.

"Okay, I won't tell sad stories anymore!".

That said, the story is still like a late storm, sweeping through the white night.

Mui ran back and forth to take care of the old lady. One time, when she went to look for Man, she tripped and dislocated her ankle as soon as she left the gate. In the shabby stairwell, the light was as thin as mist, there was nothing valuable except for Man's picture. The mice in the apartment building had lost their nesting place, and every night they scurried outside the makeshift newspaper-posted door.

Today is the anniversary of Man's death. After preparing the offering tray, the old lady sat still while Mui combed her hair. A silver strand covered the scar like the corner of a crumpled map on her neck. "She has a few more scars on her body, she wanted to follow her daughter so she poured gasoline on herself. Luckily she was saved in time!", those words in the guard's words turned into a swarm of bees, buzzing in Mui's head for the past few days.

The old woman stared at the picture through the smoke. The corners of her eyes wrinkled and shriveled, like drought clouds squeezing out salty drops of iron rain.

*

“Mom, let me take the old lady and Ms. Man home today!” Mui hugged the lotus-shaped urn of ashes to her chest, whispering.

“I’ve been buying lottery tickets for a long time now, and I’ve won the jackpot. From now on, I have two mothers. Plus an older sister, if you combine her name with mine, it becomes Mui Man. It means tender love, Mom!” Mui’s eyes lit up.

“Now who is richer than me. Right mom?”

The smell of rubbing the ashes. Outside, the early morning sunlight dyed the bougainvillea yellow. A stray streak of sunlight fell on Mui’s hair…