Aunt Ba's House

It had been three years since his aunt passed away when he returned to his hometown, to visit the old house where he had lived throughout his childhood until he entered university. The winding country road still had golden rice fields on one side, and the other side bordered the mountain, now filled with houses due to the speed of urbanization. On the mountain in the distance, there was still the shadow of a small, precarious pagoda, where in his free time he would often run up to the pagoda with the neighborhood kids to help the monk sweep the leaves and go with his grandmother to burn incense every full moon. The road to his aunt's house was like a winding slope that required a very strong driver to get there, imagining that once the car had accelerated, it would just keep going without being able to let go or it would lose momentum. But the end point would be a large yard, where he and his aunt would pull up a mat in the middle of the yard every time the moon came and sit and watch the stars.

- Do you see that little star? That's your parents always up there watching over you, so whenever you miss them, look at it and know that they are always watching you grow up and continue to live well.

The first time he went to his third aunt's house was when he walked from a family meeting at his maternal grandparents' house. The country road was deserted at that time, his aunt's family was poor, so they had to walk to work or visit their maternal grandparents. While he was exhausted, his aunt just smiled and bent down slightly to say to him:

- Jump on my back and I'll carry you.

He didn't want to bother his aunt, but the pain of loss, staying up all night and walking all day long had exhausted him, and even when he climbed up that broad back, he fell asleep without knowing it. He only heard the familiar lullaby that his mother used to sing when he was a child when he had trouble sleeping, and the sound of the wind blowing in his ears, as well as the sound of frogs croaking in the fields on the deserted country road.

Her aunt's house was perched on the top of a hill, and going up and down it every day to go to school was enough to make her gasp for breath, and once she even lost her balance and fell flat on her face on the road. Her aunt's yard was large and was also where she often played with her cousins. They, like her, considered her as their brother and never once discriminated against her. She still remembered the time she got up to go to the bathroom at night, and she sat there crying for a long time because of a gecko outside the door until her aunt found her. When she was little, she was always afraid of geckos.

It only remembered that its aunt picked it up and then let its little head rest on its aunt's shoulder and whispered: "If you're afraid of anything in the future, tell me, I will always protect you." It always remembered those words clearly and from then on opened its heart to its aunt more. When it was in high school, even though it was further away from home, it still walked, so its sandals quickly wore out and its feet had big blisters, but it still tried to hide them. Many days when it thought its aunt was asleep, it would sneak out to the front yard and sit there, groaning in pain, because it was afraid that the house would be quiet at night and there would be noises. But that night, its aunt caught it, she used ointment to rub on its blisters, and the next day took it to the doctor and bought it a new pair of sandals. The next day when it came home from school, it saw its aunt waiting for it in front of the porch with an old bicycle that she had bought from a neighbor...

Until he entered university, passed a school far away in the North, he hid the result because he knew his aunt's family did not have the conditions and secretly registered his second choice in his home province. He only remembered that he cried for a long time and held his aunt's rough hands from the wind and frost to promise. His aunt later sold the large yard in front of the house to have money for his education, the house became smaller but at that time his aunt still joked: "Living alone, why live in a spacious house...

Her aunt passed away suddenly when she had just received the decision to stay at the school after graduation. When she returned home to mourn her aunt, she realized that the years she had been gone had actually been a very long time, and the surrounding scenery had changed in some way. The slope of the past had carved steps for convenient travel. The rice fields where she used to catch snails were now sparsely populated, and one side of the road was now filled with houses. The large yard where her aunt and she often discussed finding a way to redeem the neighbor had also been sold again and a stranger's house had been built. She kept thinking that she would study hard and visit her aunt tomorrow, but time had passed so quickly that she didn't realize how many tomorrows she had promised. And her aunt, who always waited for her after school just to smile: "You're home?" could no longer wait for her anymore...

Huyen Tran

Source: https://baophapluat.vn/nha-di-ba-post545140.html