Minh did not sleep.
He lay on his side, eyes open, staring at the leaf-shaped damp stain spreading across the ceiling. His phone rested on his chest. The screen had gone dark long ago, but the lines of text still glowed in his mind, clearer than the streetlights outside.
Lan would kill him at 9:40 p.m.
The kitchen.
Tomorrow.
He turned to look at his wife. Lan was still asleep—or pretending to be. Her breathing was steady, both hands resting against her chest. The woman in the photograph and the one lying beside him looked so much alike that Minh wanted to believe it was nothing more than a cruel joke.
But no one could have photographed the clock that was seven minutes slow.
No one but Minh knew about the dent in the refrigerator, left after he got drunk and threw a chair at it.
And no one else knew about that rainy night.
Minh sat up at 3:06 a.m.
He walked barefoot out of the bedroom. The small house was silent except for the rain pattering on the corrugated-metal roof and the refrigerator starting up with a hoarse rattle, like someone gasping for breath.
The kitchen from the photograph was right in front of him.
Minh turned on the light.
The fluorescent bulb flickered twice before coming on. The wall clock read 2:59, while his phone already showed 3:06. Seven minutes slow. Just like in the photograph.
He stood beneath the clock and suddenly felt his stomach clench.
In the photograph, his future corpse lay about three feet from the table leg. Minh bent down and examined the tile floor. There was no blood. No trace of anything. Only a long scratch near the cabinet, as if something heavy had been dragged across it.
He squatted and touched the scratch with one finger.
Dust clung to his fingertip.
A dank smell drifted up.
Not food. Not mildew, either. It smelled like wet earth after rain.
Minh pulled his hand back.
That rainy night had smelled like this too.
He shot to his feet and opened the drawer beneath the sink. Knives, scissors, plastic bags, and a few packets of detergent were jumbled inside. Nothing unusual. He opened the cabinet beside it and rummaged past some old pots, an empty tea tin, and electricity bills.
At the very back of the cabinet, he found a blue handkerchief.
It was old, its edges frayed, with a faint brown stain that would not wash out.
Minh did not remember who it belonged to.
He lifted the handkerchief to his nose. The smell of wet earth was still there, faint but enough to make an image flash through his mind: a dark road, motorcycle headlights swaying, Lan standing in the rain with both arms wrapped tightly around something against her chest.
Then the image vanished.
Minh dropped the handkerchief onto the floor.
A soft sound came from behind him.
He turned.
Lan was standing in the kitchen doorway.
She wore gray pajamas, her hair falling over her shoulders. She did not look fully awake, but her eyes were completely open.
“What are you doing?”
“I was thirsty.”
Lan looked at the handkerchief by his feet.
Only for a moment. But Minh saw it.
She recognized it.
“Where did this come from?” he asked.
Lan stepped forward and picked it up before Minh could bend down. She balled it in her hand.
“It’s just old junk.”
“Whose is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, but you’ve kept it for ten years?”
Lan looked at him. Her eyes held neither anger nor fear. Only a deep weariness, as though this question had been asked long ago, even though this was the first time Minh had spoken it aloud.
“Go to sleep, Minh.”
She walked past him, turned on the faucet, and dropped the handkerchief into the basin. Cold water streamed over the fabric, spreading the faint brown stain like an old wound.
Minh said nothing more.
He went back to the bedroom, but he did not lie down. He sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for Lan to return. Ten minutes later, she came in, set her phone on the nightstand, and went to wash her face.
The phone screen lit up.
A notification.
Lan had received a message.
Minh only had time to see the sender's name before the screen went dark.
It wasn't a name.
Just a single letter: H.
He looked toward the bathroom. Water ran steadily. The door was not fully closed, and Lan's silhouette blurred behind the glass.
Minh reached toward her phone.
He stopped when his hand was only a few centimeters away.
In ten years, he had never checked Lan's phone. Not because he trusted her completely, but because he had always believed there were things it was better not to know if he wanted to keep a family whole.
Silence was how he protected Lan.
Silence could also be how he helped a lie live longer.
The phone vibrated again.
A message appeared on the lock screen:
“She’s realized you’re investigating.”
Minh froze.
The message had come from a phone number identical to his own.
He raised his head and looked at Lan. She was still standing in the bathroom, her back to him.
Minh typed quickly:
“Who is Lan texting?”
The reply came at once.
“H.”
“Who is that?”
This time, the screen stayed silent longer.
Minh heard the water in the bathroom stop.
A drop fell onto the floor.
Then Lan's voice came, very softly:
“Are you holding my phone?”
Minh looked down at his hand.
He did not remember when he had picked it up.
The screen lit again.
The final message appeared:
“H is the one who disappeared that rainy night.”
The bathroom door opened.
Lan stood there, her face deathly pale.
There was no knife in her hand.
But she was holding the blue handkerchief.
And on her wrist, stark beneath the pallid light, a long scar showed clearly—a scar Minh had never seen in all ten years of their life together.