The Mother in the Rain

I. The Question

It was a hot afternoon in the village, the kind of heat that presses on your skin until every breath feels like steam.
The cicadas screamed from the bamboo trees, and the earth smelled of dust and smoke.

I — Hanh — crouched in the yard, gathering dry branches for the evening fire. My son sat on the step, a small figure in his white school shirt, watching me with those eyes that always seemed older than his ten years.

“Mom,” he said suddenly, “why don’t I have a father like my classmates?”

The branch in my hand snapped in two.

I looked up, pretending the sweat on my face was just sweat, not tears.

“How did you come up with that question, child?”

“Teacher asked us to draw our family. Everyone drew a father, a mother, and a house. I drew just us. They laughed.”

He said it quietly, almost matter-of-fact, but each word sliced through me like a blade sharpened by years of silence.

I reached for him, brushing the dust from his hair.
“Because your father… had to go far away,” I said, the lie tasting of ash.

He nodded, not convinced but unwilling to press. He never did.
He was a kind boy, too kind for the cruelty of our world.

When he went inside, I stayed where I was, staring at the smoke rising from the hearth, thinking of a man who had once promised me eternity — and left me with a silence that lasted ten years.

II. The Beginning of Shame

I was twenty-three then, young enough to believe that love could overcome gossip, poor enough to believe that dreams could feed you.

When I found out I was pregnant, I thought the world would glow.
He had been so happy, holding my face between his palms, whispering, “I’ll go home tomorrow, tell my parents everything. We’ll make it right.”

He left with the sunrise.

He never came back.

At first, I told myself he was delayed. Then I told myself he was sick. Then, finally, I stopped telling myself anything at all.

The villagers noticed before my family did. My mother cried behind the water jars; my father refused to speak my name for weeks.
And the neighbors—oh, the neighbors—they turned cruelty into a sport.

“Pregnant without a husband! A disgrace!”
“Her belly grows but no wedding feast. Must be the father ran away.”
“Poor thing. Who will marry her now?”

Their words were knives disguised as pity. I learned to keep my head down, to hide my growing stomach behind old scarves.

By the time my son was born, even pity had run dry. Only curiosity remained. They wanted to see the nameless child, to measure the shame that bore him.

III. The Years of Survival

The first winter after his birth was cruel.
The wind came down from the mountains like knives, and the thatch roof leaked onto the straw bed where my baby slept.

I worked wherever they would let me:
weeding rice paddies for a bowl of rice, scrubbing pots in the teashop, carrying bricks for the new schoolhouse.

Some nights, I returned home with my hands raw, the child’s fever burning against my chest.

There were kind souls, a few — the widow Tam who slipped me leftover soup, the teacher who gave my boy free notebooks. But kindness was a secret act in our village. Publicly, they still spat when I passed.

When my son turned three, children began to mimic their parents.

“Where’s your father?” they would tease.
“Maybe he lives in the city! Maybe he’s a ghost!”

Once, they threw stones. Small ones, but sharp.

That night I held him while he cried and whispered, “You have me, son. That’s enough.”
But I knew it wasn’t. Children needed more than love; they needed belonging.

IV. The Man I Loved

Sometimes, when the nights were too long, I let myself remember him.

His name was Lam Thanh. He was twenty-seven, working as an engineer on the new road project. He had a gentle way of speaking and a confidence that came from education and wealth. He told me he liked the way I laughed even when life was hard.

For months, we met by the river where the moonlight touched the water like silver. He promised a house with blue shutters, a garden full of jasmine, a cradle by the window.

When I told him I was with child, he lifted me off my feet, laughing, eyes bright with joy.
“I’ll talk to my parents tomorrow. You’ll see.”

Tomorrow. How easily that word breaks.

I learned later from travelers that he’d never returned to the work site. No address, no letter, nothing.

I waited anyway. For years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

V. Ten Years of Solitude

People measure time by seasons; I measured mine by my son’s height.

He grew tall, slender like his father, with that same dimple that appeared whenever he smiled. Each year I told myself to stop seeing the man in the boy, and each year I failed.

We lived on the edge of the village, in a house so small that the wind could walk straight through it. I planted vegetables behind the fence, raised chickens, and saved every coin for his schooling.

When he brought home good grades, pride bloomed in me like spring.

Once, the teacher said, “He’s smart, Hanh. You should think about the city someday.”

The city — that other world. I imagined it sometimes: tall buildings, lights that never sleep, people who might not care who you married. But I never left. The village was cruel, but it was familiar, and I had no money for dreams.

VI. The Day of the Cars

It happened on a morning heavy with rain. The kind of rain that blurred the hills and turned the road into a ribbon of red mud.

I was sewing patches onto my son’s school shirt when the sound reached us — a deep mechanical growl, alien to our valley. Then another, and another.

Engines. Cars. Not the rusty motorbikes of farmers, but sleek machines that gleamed even beneath the rain.

The neighbors poured out of their houses like ants. Their umbrellas bobbed along the road, their voices sharp with gossip.

“My God, who owns those cars?”
“From the city, surely! Maybe the district chief?”
“No license plates like ours. Black glass windows—must be rich people.”

My heart pounded. Wealth like that did not belong here.

Then the convoy stopped in front of my gate.

The door of the first car opened.
A man stepped out — tall, gray-haired, wearing a black suit that looked absurd against the mud.
His eyes searched the yard until they landed on me.

And then, to everyone’s disbelief, he knelt.

Right there, in the mud.

VII. The Kneeling Stranger

I froze. The needle slipped from my hand.

“Please, get up!” I said, rushing forward. “Sir, what are you doing?”

He reached for my hand, gripping it as though it were the only solid thing in the world. His voice trembled.

“Ten years,” he said. “Ten years I’ve searched for you. For you—and my grandson.”

Gasps rippled through the crowd. My son clung to my skirt, staring wide-eyed at the man.

“Grandson?” I whispered.

The old man nodded and pulled from his coat a small, faded photograph sealed in plastic. The picture hit me like lightning.

It was Lam Thanh — younger, smiling — and beside him, me. The photo I thought had been lost the night he disappeared.

I couldn’t breathe.

The man’s tears mixed with the rain. “He was my son.”

VIII. The Story I Never Knew

He told it slowly, voice cracking like old wood.

The day Lam Thanh learned I was pregnant, he truly had been overjoyed. He’d called his parents from the city, announcing he was coming home with news that would “change their lives.”
They were confused but happy.

But fate, as always, has cruel timing.
On the road from the city, his car was struck by a truck. Instant. No witnesses, no survivors.

The old man’s hands shook.
“We didn’t even know about you. When I cleared his room months later, I found your photo but no address. I searched hospitals, villages, workers’ lists. Nothing. The years took their toll, but I never stopped looking.”

He had hired investigators, posted notices, even prayed at temples across provinces.
Finally, a hospital clerk—cleaning out old records—found my name scribbled on a birth document under “Mother: Hanh, District X.”
He had followed the trail here.

By the time he finished, the rain had softened to a whisper.
Every neighbor stood frozen, faces pale. They looked at me as though seeing me for the first time.

IX. The Revelation

The old man gestured to one of the cars.
A driver hurried forward, opening the door.
On the side gleamed the words: Lam Gia Group.

Gasps erupted.

“Lam Gia? That’s the biggest corporation in the country!”
“Her son is… the heir?”
“Dear heavens, we mocked the president’s daughter-in-law!”

The old man turned to my boy, tears shining.
He knelt again, taking the small hands in his.
“From today, child, you will never be alone. You are the blood of the Lam family. My grandson.”

My son looked up at me, confused but trusting. “Mom, is it true?”

I nodded, unable to speak. My throat closed around a sob that was half relief, half grief for the decade lost.

The neighbors who had hurled garbage at my gate now stepped forward, their voices stumbling over apologies.
“Forgive us, Hanh. We didn’t know.”
“We were cruel. We thought—”

I shook my head gently. “You thought what everyone else thought. Let it end here.”

X. Leaving the Village

When we climbed into the black car, the village gathered like a wave behind us. Some bowed, others simply stared.
The mud road glistened as we drove away, rain falling harder now, washing the footprints clean.

I looked back once — at the small house that had sheltered a decade of struggle — and whispered, “Thank you.”

The city skyline rose hours later, gleaming under clearing skies.
For the first time, I saw the headquarters of Lam Gia Group: glass towers reaching for the clouds. The driver said softly, “Madam, welcome home.”

XI. The House of Marble

The mansion was something out of myth — marble floors, chandeliers that spilled light like waterfalls, gardens manicured by unseen hands.
I felt out of place, my village clothes clinging damp to my skin.

But the old man — Chairman Lam — refused any ceremony.
He led me to a quiet room filled with photographs of his late son.
“He was kind,” he said. “He loved deeply. I see him in you both.”

That night, he asked if I would let them give my son the Lam name.
I hesitated.
“He is my child,” I said, “but he is also his father’s. If that name will protect him, I agree.”

The legal papers were signed the next morning.
In newspapers a week later, headlines blazed: Chairman Lam Reunites with Long-Lost Grandson.

XII. The Return of Pride

News traveled faster than storms.
Within days, the same villagers who had once spat my name now sent gifts — baskets of fruit, embroidered cloths, letters full of excuses.
The teacher wrote, I always knew he was destined for great things.
The headman called, offering to “rename the lane” after our family.

I smiled at their hypocrisy.
Forgiveness did not mean forgetfulness.

But I accepted none of the gifts. I only asked that they stop mocking women who walked alone.

XIII. A New Beginning

City life was another world — maids, chauffeurs, private tutors. Yet I refused to let my son forget humility.
We still cooked together on weekends, our fingers sticky with dough.
When he asked for bedtime stories, I told him of the rice fields, the smell of wet earth after rain, the kindness of poor neighbors who had still shared their soup.

One evening, he looked at me and said, “Mom, when I grow up, I’ll build schools in villages like ours.”

Tears pricked my eyes.
His father’s dream lived on in him.

XIV. The Visit

A year later, I returned to the village with the chairman.
This time, our convoy was expected.
Children lined the road waving paper flags; the adults bowed.
At the gate of my old house — now repaired by the company — stood the headman, trembling.

“Madam Hanh,” he said. “We… we are honored.”

I smiled. “You don’t have to be. Just treat others kinder than you treated me.”

He nodded, ashamed.

That evening, I visited the small temple by the river where I used to pray for Lam Thanh’s return. I lit three incense sticks and whispered,
“You promised to come back. Now you have — through him.”

The wind rose gently, carrying the smoke upward like a sigh.

XV. Epilogue — The Rain Again

When we left the village that second time, rain began to fall — soft, cleansing, the same rain that had once mixed with my tears ten years ago.

But it no longer felt like punishment.
It was blessing.

My son pressed his face to the window, watching droplets race each other down the glass.
“Mom,” he said, “do you think Dad can see us from the sky?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “And I think he’s proud.”

The road curved toward the horizon, the rain washing everything clean.

For years I had lived beneath the weight of shame. But truth, like rain, has its own season. It comes when the earth can finally bear it.

And as the car carried us forward — me, the mother once despised; him, the child once mocked — I realized that survival is not merely endurance. It is faith that someday, somehow, the world will see what you have always known.

That love endures.
That dignity returns.
That even if the world despises you, the truth will always find its way home.