Khai Minh didn’t keep
them around to hear the excuses.
The next morning, Mai Ngoc
arrived at the villa just as he was climbing out of the pool.
The indoor pool was the one
place where Khai Minh needed no cane, no one to guide him, and no pitying
stares. He counted every breath, every stroke, swimming until his muscles
screamed, because he lived in constant fear that his body would give out at the
exact moment someone decided to push him under.
Mai Ngoc waited at the edge
of the water until he’d stepped out before she spoke.
“Minh, you’ve thrown out
four people in a single week. Do you plan to leave the whole villa with no one
left to serve you?”
Khai Minh took the towel
from the housekeeper and wiped the water from his hair.
“People who aren’t loyal
don’t need to be kept.”
“They’re only servants. If
they made a mistake, a warning or a pay cut would do. There’s no need to back
them into a corner.”
“Do you even know what they
did, rushing to plead for them like this?”
“I’m just worried you’re
shutting yourself off more and more. You don’t trust your family. You don’t
trust your doctors. And now you suspect the help too.”
Khai Minh turned his face
toward her.
“Are you worried I trust no
one, Auntie, or worried that if I live, I’ll take the hospital back?”
Mai Ngoc drew in one long,
slow breath.
“You’re talking to your own
flesh and blood.”
“It’s because you’re
my mother’s sister that I want an answer. If I die before my twentieth
birthday, who keeps managing those shares?”
“Minh, I’ve cared for you
for six years.”
“And you’ve managed my
assets for six years.”
“You think I want to hurt
you?”
“You’re trembling.”
Mai Ngoc immediately
clasped both hands together. Khai Minh couldn’t see the motion, but he could
feel the fluster in it.
“You’re turning more and
more into a porcupine. Anyone who comes close gets their quills, gets torn open
till they bleed.”
“Because the last time I
let someone get close was the day my parents died.”
Mai Ngoc stood frozen.
For a few seconds, the only
sound by the pool was the water dripping from Khai Minh’s swimsuit onto the
tile.
She wanted to tell him she
had cradled him when he was still red and wrinkled as a newborn, that she’d
kept vigil at his bedside through sleepless nights after the crash, that she
had genuinely, desperately wanted him to live. But none of those memories were
strong enough to scrub out what she’d done over these six years.
Khai Minh pulled on his
robe and turned to the housekeeper.
“Double the guards at the
gate. From today, no one enters the main house without my say-so. That includes
anyone from the hospital.”
Mai Ngoc watched her
nephew’s retreating back, the pain on her face slowly hardening into ice.
She left the villa and, by
noon, had summoned Dr. Tran Loi, head of the neuro-ophthalmology department,
to her office.
Dr. Loi set a file on
the desk and lowered his voice.
“The latest tests show that
Khai Minh’s optic nerve hasn’t fully died. With surgery combined with nerve
stimulation, there’s still a chance he could recover part of his sight.”
“And that chance is what
percentage?”
“Not high, but enough to
tell light from dark, to make out shapes. Possibly even to recognize faces, if
he responds well.”
Mai Ngoc stared at the
file, her gaze turning distant.
The moment Khai Minh could
see again, he’d go after the accident with everything he had, the crash, Lab
Seven, and everyone who had surfaced on that rainy night. And once the old
files were dug back up, she had no idea whether she’d be cast as the woman
who’d been coerced, an accomplice who had merely stayed silent, or the one who
had driven her own sister and brother-in-law straight to their deaths.
“Rewrite the report.”
Dr. Loi thought he’d
misheard.
“I’m sorry, Director?”
“In the official record,
state that the optic nerve is fully necrotic. No grounds for surgery.”
“But the test results don’t
allow that conclusion. If he’s treated soon, the window is still open.”
Mai Ngoc opened a drawer
and laid a thick envelope in front of him.
“Your son’s studying
abroad. Next term’s tuition still isn’t paid, is it?”
Dr. Loi looked at the
envelope, then at her, the color draining from his face.
“You’re asking me to
falsify medical records.”
“I’m asking you to choose
what’s good for your own family.”
“If this ever comes out, I
could lose my license to practice.”
“And if you refuse, you
lose your department head position today. You know exactly how deep in debt you
are for that boy of yours, don’t you?”
Dr. Loi sat
motionless. Mai Ngoc nudged the envelope closer and murmured:
“Khai Minh has lived in the
dark for six years. He doesn’t need to see anything more.”
Dr. Loi didn’t take
the envelope. But he didn’t stand up and walk out either. His silence was
answer enough for Mai Ngoc.
At that very same hour,
in the pediatric ward of Vinh An Hospital, Tran An Nhien sat at her little
brother’s bedside.
Tran Dong was only
fourteen. He had a hyperactivity disorder that had worsened sharply over the
past few months. On good days he was a sweet, gentle boy, but when an episode
hit, he would scream nonstop and bolt in every direction. His eating and
sleeping had gone haywire, his frame thinning fast, and he needed to stay
hospitalized for constant, ruinously expensive care.
Every time he surfaced from
an episode, An Nhien’s eyes would well up just looking at him. In those calm
moments he was so mild, so understanding, so tender toward his big sister.
“Don’t cry, sis. It’s just
a little headache.”
“The doctor said the second
it starts to hurt, you call for help. What if you keep gritting through the
pain and your head splits open?”
“Calling the doctor back
just costs more money.”
An Nhien’s breath caught.
A fourteen-year-old should
only have to worry about homework and his friends. But Dong had grown used to
reading their father’s face every time a hospital bill arrived, to overhearing
the adults talk about the cost of medicine, to enduring the headaches and the
miserable fits of screaming, and then, once he came around, to fearing he’d
cost the family even more.
“Money is a grown-up
problem. Don’t you worry about it.”
“Dad already sold the car.
You dropped a semester to go to work. I know all of it.”
An Nhien pulled the blanket
up over him and turned her face away to hide the redness in her eyes.
“You just get healthy. Dad
and I will handle the rest.”
Out in the corridor, Tran
Huu Loc sat before a stack of bills, adding the same figures over and over.
He was Vinh An’s head of
security, a widower living paycheck to paycheck, who had poured nearly every
last cent of his savings into treating his son. It was only because he still
worked at the hospital that Dong got a partial discount and a spot on the
waiting list for surgical assistance.
That afternoon, Dong was
hit by a savage headache.
Panicking, he ripped out
his IV line and ran from his room while An Nhien had stepped away to fetch his
medication. The corridor was packed. Clutching his head and screaming, Dong
barreled straight into a young man flanked by four bodyguards.
Caught off guard, the young
man roared,
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