Five days before the due date, Chu Man still didn’t go to the hospital.

Not because she agreed with Ngo Tu Anh.

She simply didn’t want another argument.

That decision almost became the greatest regret of Thanh Hao’s life.

At five thirty the next morning, Chu Man woke him.

—Thanh Hao.

Her voice was trembling.

He opened his eyes and immediately sat up.

Chu Man stood beside the bed, one hand supporting her belly.

—Something’s wrong.

Within seconds, Thanh Hao was dressed.

He grabbed the hospital bag they had prepared weeks earlier.

But when he opened the front door, Ngo Tu Anh appeared.

—Where are you going?

—Hospital.

Her expression changed.

She immediately looked at the clock.

—No.

Thanh Hao thought he’d heard incorrectly.

—What?

—It’s too early. The fortune teller said the best time is later.

Chu Man gripped the shoe cabinet.

—Mom, please move.

Ngo Tu Anh blocked the doorway.

—You’ve already waited this long. What’s another little while?

Thanh Hao stared at his mother.

—Move.

—I’m doing this for the child!

—Move!

Ngo Tu Anh stretched both arms across the doorway.

—Nobody leaves!

Everything happened in seconds.

Chu Man suddenly doubled over.

Thanh Hao saw her face turn frighteningly pale.

Something inside him snapped.

He pushed past his mother with enough force to clear the doorway.

Ngo Tu Anh lost her balance and fell backward.

The sound of the impact echoed through the narrow hallway.

—Mom!

Thanh Hao instinctively turned.

But Chu Man collapsed against him.

For one terrible second, he was caught between two people.

His mother on the floor.

His pregnant wife barely able to stand.

Then he made his choice.

He shouted for the neighbors to call emergency services for his mother, lifted Chu Man and hurried downstairs.

At the hospital, doctors immediately took her inside.

Her blood pressure was dangerously high.

The baby was showing signs of distress.

Thanh Hao stood outside the treatment area with shaking hands.

Only then did his eldest daughter’s voice come through the phone.

—Daddy, where’s Grandma?

A neighbor had taken the little girl downstairs.

Thanh Hao closed his eyes.

His mother had also been transported to another hospital.

Fortunately, her injury was treatable.

But that knowledge brought little relief.

For hours, Thanh Hao sat between two phone calls.

One concerning the woman who had raised him alone.

The other concerning the woman carrying his child.

Near noon, the doctor finally emerged.

—Mother and baby are stable.

Thanh Hao’s knees almost gave way.

—Boy or girl?

The doctor looked at him strangely.

—A girl.

He stared.

Then suddenly laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because after months of calendars, fortune tellers and obsession with a grandson, the answer had arrived without asking anyone’s permission.

Another daughter.

Healthy.

Alive.

When Ngo Tu Anh learned the news, she said nothing for a long time.

Three days later, Thanh Hao visited her.

She was sitting upright in bed.

The first thing she asked was:

—Was it really a girl?

—Yes.

Her lips tightened.

—Then all of this was for nothing.

Thanh Hao stared at her.

That sentence destroyed whatever guilt had been eating at him.

—For nothing?

His mother looked away.

—You know what I mean.

—No, Mom.

His voice became frighteningly calm.

—My wife nearly had a medical emergency because you blocked the door.

—I’m your mother!

—And Chu Man is my wife.

He paused.

—Those girls are my children.

Ngo Tu Anh’s eyes filled.

—I raised you alone for thirty years, and now you’re throwing your mother away because of a woman?

—I’m not throwing you away.

Thanh Hao placed the house keys on the bedside table.

—We’re moving.

She froze.

—What?

—Chu Man and the children won’t live with you anymore.

—This is your father’s house!

—Exactly.

—Then you should stay!

Thanh Hao shook his head.

—A house isn’t worth more than their safety.

Ngo Tu Anh began crying.

In the past, those tears would have made him retreat.

This time they didn’t.

A month later, Chu Man moved into a small apartment with Thanh Hao and their two daughters.

It wasn’t luxurious.

The kitchen was tiny.

The elevator occasionally broke.

But nobody hung auspicious calendars on the refrigerator.

Nobody compared their daughters to someone else’s grandson.

Nobody decided when Chu Man was allowed to seek medical care.

For the first time in years, she could close her own front door and feel safe behind it.

Thanh Hao visited his mother regularly.

He bought groceries.

Paid necessary expenses.

Took her to medical appointments.

But he never gave her another key to their home.

Months passed.

Then one afternoon, Ngo Tu Anh appeared downstairs carrying two bags.

She didn’t demand entry.

She called first.

Chu Man came downstairs alone.

The two women stood facing each other.

Ngo Tu Anh opened one bag.

Inside were children’s clothes.

Two matching dresses.

One larger.

One tiny.

—I made them.

Chu Man said nothing.

Ngo Tu Anh’s fingers tightened around the handles.

—I spent my whole life believing a son was the person who would remain with me.

Her voice became quieter.

—But I nearly drove mine away trying to force him to give me another one.

Chu Man looked at her.

—You didn’t only hurt Thanh Hao.

—I know.

For once, Ngo Tu Anh didn’t defend herself.

She didn’t mention tradition.

Money.

Fortune tellers.

Or good birth hours.

She simply said:

—I’m sorry.

Chu Man didn’t forgive her immediately.

Some apologies deserve to be heard without automatically restoring everything that existed before.

But she accepted the dresses.

That was enough for that day.

Years later, Ngo Tu Anh’s apartment refrigerator still had a calendar.

But there were no red circles marking lucky hours.

Instead, two photographs were attached with magnets.

Her granddaughters.

The eldest missing a front tooth.

The youngest laughing so hard her eyes had almost disappeared.

And whenever someone asked Ngo Tu Anh whether she regretted never having a grandson, she answered differently than she once would have.

—I almost lost my entire family chasing one.

Then she would point toward those photographs.

—Fortunately, my granddaughters taught me before it was too late.

As for Thanh Hao, he never forgot that morning either.

For years, he felt guilty about the moment his mother fell.

He wished he had handled it differently.

But he never regretted taking Chu Man to the hospital.

Because family wasn’t proved by blindly obeying the person who raised you.

Sometimes it was proved by having the courage to draw a boundary when obedience became dangerous.

And on the morning his second daughter was born, Thanh Hao finally understood something his mother had spent sixty-three years failing to learn:

A child’s value was never determined by whether the family had hoped for a boy.

She only needed to arrive safely.

And be loved.