Short story: The flow of memories

The painting of the house on the hill that Tran hung yesterday still had the smell of oil paint, perhaps because of the addition of a patch of hydrangeas in a small corner when it was delivered. The painting was so beautiful that I exclaimed as soon as I saw the first sketch. Strangely, those lines were strangely familiar. As if I had once walked on the slope covered with wild sunflowers, had touched the dark wooden wall on a distant rainy afternoon. And I, it seemed, had loved that house with a deep love that now only remained in invisible fragments.
Tran gently reminded: "You're staring at the painting again."
I smiled. A familiar smile, but I couldn’t explain why it made me feel sad all those days later. Every time I looked at the painting, the lingering, nameless feeling of nostalgia arose again. That house, the purple lavender beds, the curving slope, everything was like a forgotten dream that had just been awakened.
...
Eight years ago, I woke up in the hospital, my head aching like a thousand needles were stabbing it, I had no memory of why I was there or the past four years. My parents told me that I studied art, had friends they had never met, all of it seemed to me like a fictional story created from someone else's imagination. I couldn't believe that someone who was once immersed in dry numbers could pursue something as vague and illusory as painting.
The doctor examined me and informed me that the tumor had been successfully removed, and I felt like I had been given a new life. My father said, “There are things that don’t need to be remembered. The more they can be removed, the better.” I saw my mother cry, but also felt happy when my father said that. My father’s words haunted me, like a curse, a secret that was not allowed to be touched. What had happened in those four years that even my parents wanted to erase? Why was forgetting the best thing for me?
I returned to my major in economics, buried myself in numbers, and met Tran at a conference on developing coastal hotel services. She had clear, cheerful eyes, and knew how to care for others gently. We got married after two years of dating and happily welcomed our little angel, like a crystallization of a strong love that no storm could touch. Recently, when I casually mentioned a house on the hill, Tran smiled and started looking for someone to paint. "Let me paint your dream on the wall first, then we can find a way to make it come true later." Her smile, her gentleness, all were reality, the peaceful shore that I had chosen and was proud of.
Until that fateful day. It was a late afternoon in June, the sky was covered with dark clouds signaling a heavy rain was about to fall. I had just arrived home when I saw a young woman walking out the gate. My wife was seeing her off, and before I could say anything, Tran introduced herself.
“She is the artist who painted the picture of the house on the hill. The picture is just as beautiful as I imagined.”
I politely said thank you. Then I suddenly stopped because of that woman's gaze. She seemed stunned, her eyes as if she had just seen a ghost and then deliberately avoided me, as if she was trying to find a way to leave this place as quickly as possible. I remembered that I had never met that woman before, but her face... seemed so familiar that my heart suddenly beat strongly, making my chest ache. As if I had loved this person to the core, then somehow lost her.
That night, I sat alone on the porch chair watching the rain. Tran brought me a coat, sat down beside me, and didn’t ask me anything. In the rain, I felt like I was standing between two worlds: one side was this cozy home, the other side was the house that once existed in my broken memories.
...
I began to search for pieces of the past, even the smallest clues. I rummaged through old notebooks, boxes of souvenirs that my parents had carefully stored, and then I found a slender silver ring, engraved with the two letters “V & D”. It lay quietly at the bottom of the box, like a deliberately buried secret. I put the ring on my finger, and suddenly felt an electric current run down my spine. At the same time, fragmented images appeared in my mind: The woman I met a few days ago named Diep, with a younger face than now smeared with white paint, cheerfully holding the loaf of bread I hastily bought for her. The room was cluttered with picture frames and paint cans. Diep and I lay on our backs on the floor, looking up at the empty ceiling, I told her about the house on the hill… The crisp laughter when I poked her hips, the hasty kiss, and the ring I put on her finger under the sparkling lights with the two letters “V & D” and a proposal.
All the memories suddenly flashed like a flash of lightning, painful but clear in every detail. I remembered the day Diep came to the gallery to replace me, the day everyone gathered outside, the feeling of everything sinking into darkness, my whole body felt drained when I was taken from the gallery to the ambulance on a white stretcher. I remembered what the doctor had said about the tumor in my head that had been diagnosed as benign a few years ago, and it was it that caused my painting ability to explode. I remembered the arguments with my parents when they forbade me to give up economics to pursue fine arts and pursue Diep, they were afraid the tumor would turn malignant, and also afraid that Diep and I would reach the final destination. I defied everything, moved out of the house to be free to pursue my passion, and to study at the same school as Diep, the student from the highlands who came down to the city to study. The girl believed that I was a simple Western boy, overcoming difficulties to go to university at an age four years later than her peers.
I remembered everything. The physical pain of the past was nothing compared to the mental pain when I realized that I had forgotten an important part of my life, forgotten the girl I loved deeply, even planned to get married. I could not tell Diep the day I was discharged from the hospital because when I woke up, I had completely lost that beautiful time. I had disappeared from her life like a raindrop falling on hot sand. And now, I have a family, a new life.
...
Regret surged through me like a storm. I searched for information about Diep, went to the gallery we used to rent on Tran Phu Street, and learned that Diep had also come to ask about me many times. The glass door was still clean, without a speck of dust, but the owner had changed over the generations. The young artist sitting and drawing looked up at me with a surprised look. “The newest owner of the gallery is now a middle-aged woman. The artist who often came here to ask about a man named Vu last visited several months ago.” Wandering on the street known as the street of paintings now meant nothing to me except the pain that tore me into two worlds. Our mutual friends had not known anything about her since the day I passed out at the gallery.
I returned home, the spacious house was located on the most expensive street in the city, but now it was like a church with a priest who had full authority to judge my soul waiting. Tran greeted me at the door with a smile and worried eyes, the little child babbled “pa… pa” and ran to hug my legs. All of it was reality, the happiness that I had. But did I deserve this happiness, when my heart was now in turmoil with a void named Diep that I didn’t know how to deal with.
I looked at the picture of the house on the hill on the wall, now it had become a haunting reminder of the past that had passed. The artist who had painted my dream was the same girl who had dreamed of that house with me. She was standing before me, but I could not recognize her. This irony made me want to scream.
I faced a moral challenge, on one side was my current happiness, the warm family I had built, my gentle wife and my little child. On the other side were the memories of Diep, of a deep love that seemed to have been erased by time. My heart felt like it was torn in two. I loved Tran, I loved my little son. But I also owed Diep an explanation, an answer and willingly accepted punishment if Diep wanted to do it.
...
I went to Diep’s house, the house that I knew when I searched for the address where my wife had ordered the painting. My heart, which had been so calm and steady for so many years, suddenly started pounding in my chest like a small boat about to plunge into a stormy sea. The person who opened the door was a stranger, her words were like a bucket of cold water poured on my head, waking me up and making me face the pain. Diep had moved to another place. No one knew where she went.
Diep chose to leave so that I could have peace with a complete home that thousands of people dream of. Diep let go, chose another path. But Diep did not know that at this moment I remembered everything, I was like a beggar standing at a crossroads with endless regret and torment. The way she disappeared was like returning to me what I had unintentionally done in the past.
The rain still poured down relentlessly. The torrential downpour seemed to want to wash away many things, even the stains I had not yet engraved, even the name of the girl that made my heart ache when I just remembered it. I returned home, where my real happiness was waiting. Everyone goes through the rain, and its flow splashes into memories with bubbles that never disappear.