Chapter 3: Coming Home
933 Words
By the time Thu Ly reached the front gate of her childhood home tucked deep inside a quiet alley in Hanoi, her steps had slowed. Her heart thudded wildly against her chest as if sensing something miraculous was about to happen.
There it was—still the same three-story house with weathered green shutters, potted mười giờ flowers spilling over the balcony, and a soft humming of life coming from within. It looked exactly like she remembered it… and yet not. The kind of déjà vu that made your chest ache.
She pushed open the iron gate.
From the kitchen, the familiar rhythm of chopping, the clinking of pots, and the scent of garlic sizzling in oil hit her all at once.
And then—she saw her.
Her mom. Standing there, apron tied around her waist, gently stirring soup over the stove like she hadn’t been gone for ten whole years.
Without a second thought, Thu Ly ran to her and threw her arms around her from behind.
“Mom!” she choked out, “Mom, it’s me. It’s really me!”
Startled, her mother turned around, wooden spoon still in hand. “What’s going on? What’s wrong, sweetie?”
But Thu Ly couldn’t respond. She just buried her face into her mother’s shoulder, sobbing, letting a decade of grief, longing, and guilt melt away in that single embrace. She clung to her as if letting go would send her back to the empty apartment she used to cry in alone.
“Thu Ly!” her mother gasped, panicking, “You’re scaring me. What happened?”
Luckily, Hương Trà came rushing in behind her and immediately jumped in to help.
“Auntie, it’s okay—it’s just a little accident at school today. She fainted and hit her head. Probably just a bit of shock. I brought her straight home.”
Still concerned, her mother gently pulled her into a chair. “You poor thing. Let me call your father.”
An hour later, her dad, Mr. Thức, returned from work looking like he’d run a marathon. After a quick family meeting and a rush to the hospital, the doctor gave the verdict: mild concussion, a couple days of rest, and she’d be fine.
It should’ve been a relief—but for Thu Ly, the real medicine was being able to walk back into this life she thought she’d lost forever.
As soon as they got home, a whirlwind came charging down the stairs.
“Chị Ly!!!”
It was Thu Lê—her little sister—still just a middle schooler now, with chubby cheeks and a high ponytail bobbing as she ran.
“You’re okay, right? Did you cry at the hospital? Want me to make you noodles? I learned how to boil water!”
Thu Ly couldn’t help but laugh, ruffling her little sister’s hair.
“No need, boss. I’m not that helpless.”
Seeing her kid sister like this again—before marriage, before motherhood, before life made them both so serious—filled her with a warmth she hadn’t felt in years. What a strange and beautiful gift this was, she thought. A rewind she never expected.
That night, lying on her childhood bed, Thu Ly stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars still stuck to the ceiling, and the faded poster of Harry, Hermione and Ron from Harry Potter barely clinging to the wall.
“Wow… we really were that obsessed,” she whispered and laughed to herself.
But then tears welled up again. This was real. It had to be. Because if it was a dream, it was the kind that hurt too much to be fake.
For the first time in a long while, she drifted to sleep not feeling empty—but grateful.
She had a mother who hadn’t yet left her.
A father who hadn’t remarried.
A sister who still looked up to her like a hero.
What more could she ask for?
The next morning, she was given a free pass to stay home and rest. Of course, instead of relaxing, Thu Ly decided to open her old schoolbooks and try to reorient herself.
Big mistake.
Math was a foreign language. Formulas, graphs, theorems—none of it made any sense anymore.
Physics was even worse.
She flipped through a few pages of chemistry and winced. How on earth did I pass this back then? Was I possessed?
And don’t even get started on Biology.
She opened her old Literature notebook and was stunned. “Wow… I used to write like this? What happened to me?”
Paragraphs upon paragraphs of poetic analysis, clever metaphors, quotes from books she barely remembered now. It was impressive and vaguely intimidating.
Still, it wasn’t all bad news.
Much to her relief, there were two subjects she actually enjoyed revisiting: History and Geography.
Maybe it was her 35-year-old mind talking, but learning about the world’s past and how places connected made so much more sense now than it ever did at seventeen.
She could finally appreciate the drama of historical events and the way geography shaped people’s lives.
“Adult brain power unlocked,” she muttered, flipping the pages like they were a g********l.
But still—Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology?
Totally wiped from memory.
Great. I’m a complete beginner again.
Lying on the desk, face down, she groaned, “How the hell am I gonna survive class ?”
Outside, birds chirped like nothing had changed. The alley hummed with morning energy—motorbikes revving, bánh mì vendors yelling, dogs barking somewhere down the lane.
- Writer
