Short story: The Flow of Memories

The painting of the house on the hill that Tran hung yesterday still smelled of oil paint, perhaps because a small patch of hydrangeas was added to it when it arrived. The painting was so beautiful that I exclaimed it the moment I saw the first sketch. Strangely, those lines felt strangely familiar. It was as if I had once walked down that slope covered in wildflowers, touched that dark wooden wall on some distant rainy afternoon. And I, it seemed, had once loved that house with a deep love that now remained only as invisible fragments.
Tran gently reminded him, "You're staring at the painting absentmindedly again."
I smiled. A familiar smile, yet for some inexplicable reason, it left a lingering sadness in the days that followed. Every time I looked at the painting, a nagging, nameless longing would resurface. That house, the vibrant purple lavender fields, the winding, sloping road—it all seemed like a forgotten dream that had just been awakened.
...
Eight years ago, I woke up in the hospital with a throbbing headache, unable to remember why I was there or the past four years. My parents told me I'd studied art, that I'd made friends they'd never met, but all of it seemed like a fictional story conjured up by someone else's imagination. I couldn't believe that someone who had once been immersed in dry numbers could pursue something as vague and illusory as painting.
The doctor examined me and announced that the tumor had been successfully removed, and I felt like I had been given a new life. My father said, "There are things you don't need to remember. It's better that it was removed." I saw my mother cry, but her tears held joy when my father said that. My father's words haunted me, like a curse, a secret that couldn't be touched. What happened during those four years that even my parents wanted to erase? Why was forgetting the best thing for me?
I returned to my economics major, burying myself in numbers, and met Tran at a seminar on developing coastal hotel services. She had clear, cheerful eyes and a gentle, caring nature. We married after two years of dating and happily welcomed our little angel, the culmination of a steadfast love untouched by any storm. Recently, when I casually mentioned a house on a hillside, Tran smiled and began searching for a painter. “Let me paint your dream on the wall first, then we’ll figure out how to make it a reality.” Her smile, her gentleness—everything was real, the peaceful haven I had chosen and was proud of.
Until that fateful day. One late June afternoon, the sky was thick with dark clouds, signaling an impending heavy rain. I had just arrived home when I saw a young woman coming out of the gate. My wife was seeing her off, and before she could say anything, Tran introduced her.
"She's the artist who painted the picture of the house on the hill. The painting is as beautiful as you imagined."
I politely thanked her. Then I froze, struck by her gaze. She seemed paralyzed, her eyes as if she'd just seen a ghost, and she subtly avoided my eyes, as if trying to leave as quickly as possible. I remembered I'd never met her, but her face... it felt so familiar that my heart suddenly pounded, my chest aching. It was as if I'd once loved her deeply, only to lose her for some inexplicable reason.
That evening, I sat alone on a porch chair watching the rain. Tran brought me a coat, sat down beside me, and didn't ask a single question. In the rain, I felt like I was standing between two worlds: on one side, this cozy home, and on the other, the house that had once existed in my fragmented memories.
...
I began searching for fragments of the past, even the smallest clues. I rummaged through old notebooks and boxes of mementos my parents had carefully stored away, and I found a delicate silver ring engraved with the letters “V & D.” It lay silently at the bottom of a box, like a deliberately buried secret. I lifted the ring and tried it on my finger; suddenly, a jolt of electricity ran down my spine. At the same time, fragmented images flashed through my mind: The woman I had met a few days earlier, named Diep, with a face younger than hers now, her face smeared with white paint, cheerfully taking the loaf of bread I had hastily bought for her. The room cluttered with picture frames and scattered paint cans. Diep and I lay back on the floor, gazing up at the blank ceiling, and I told her about the house on the hill… There was burst of laughter as I playfully poked her hip, a quick kiss, and the ring I slipped on her finger under the sparkling lights, the letters “V & D” and a marriage proposal.
All my memories flashed before me like a lightning bolt, painful yet vividly clear. I remembered the day Diep came to the art gallery to take over my shift, the same day everyone gathered outside, the feeling of everything being plunged into darkness, my whole body drained as I was carried from the gallery to the ambulance on a white stretcher. I remembered the doctor's words about the tumor in my head, diagnosed as benign years ago, and how it had unleashed my artistic talent. I remembered the arguments with my parents when they forbade me from abandoning my financial situation to pursue art and Diep; they feared the tumor might become malignant, and they also feared that Diep and I would end up together. I defied everything, moved out of the house to pursue my passion and to attend the same school as Diep, a student from the highlands who had come to the city to study. She believed in me, a simple, honest boy from the Mekong Delta, who had overcome hardship to attend university four years later than her peers.
I remember it all. The physical pain of the past was nothing compared to the emotional pain of realizing I had forgotten an important part of my life, forgotten the girl I loved deeply, the one I had even planned to marry. I couldn't tell Diep the day I was discharged from the hospital because when I woke up, I had completely lost that beautiful time. I vanished from her life like a raindrop falling on burning sand. And now, I have a family, a new life.
...
Regret surged through me like a storm. I searched for information about Diep, going to the gallery we used to rent on Tran Phu Street, where I learned that Diep had visited several times to inquire about me. The glass door was still spotless, not a speck of dust, but the owner had changed several times. The young artist sitting there painting looked up at me with a surprised expression. “The latest owner of the gallery is now a middle-aged woman. And the artist who used to come here asking about someone named Vu, it’s been several months since her last visit.” Wandering along the street known as the art district now held no meaning for me except the pain that tore my world in two. Our mutual friends also knew nothing about her since the day I fainted at the gallery.
I returned home to my spacious house on the city's most expensive street, but now it felt like a cathedral with a priest who held absolute power to judge my soul waiting. Tran greeted me at the door with a smile and a worried look in her eyes, and my little child, babbling "pa... pa," ran to hug my legs. Everything was real, the happiness I was experiencing. But did I deserve this happiness, when my heart was now filled with a void named Diep, a void I didn't know how to fill?
I gazed at the painting of the house on the hill on the wall; now it had become a haunting reminder of a lost past. The artist who painted my dream was the very girl who had once dreamed of that house with me. She stood before me, yet I couldn't recognize her. This irony made me want to scream repeatedly.
I faced a moral dilemma: on one side was my present happiness, the warm family I had built, my gentle wife, and my young child; on the other, the memories of Diep, of a deep love that seemed to have been erased by time. My heart felt torn in two. I loved Tran, I loved my little son. But I also owed Diep an explanation, an answer, and I willingly accepted punishment if Diep chose to do so.
...
I went to Diep's house, the house I knew from searching for the address where my wife had ordered the painting. My heart, which had been calm and peaceful for so many years, suddenly pounded in my chest like a small boat about to plunge into a stormy sea. The person who opened the door was a stranger, and her words were like a bucket of cold water poured over my head, jolting me awake and confronting my sorrow. Diep had moved elsewhere. No one knew where.
Diep chose to leave so that I could have peace in a complete and happy home that thousands of people dream of. Diep let go, she chose a different path. But Diep doesn't know that, at this moment, I remember everything. I'm like a beggar standing at a crossroads, consumed by endless regret and remorse. Her disappearance is like a repayment for what I unintentionally did in the past.
The rain continued relentlessly, refusing to stop. The torrential downpour seemed intent on washing away everything, including the indelible marks I hadn't yet etched into my memory, even the name of the girl who made my heart ache at the mere thought of her. I returned home, where my present happiness awaited me. Everyone experiences rain, and its relentless flow washes over memories, leaving behind bubbles that never fade.