“Borrow?”

I repeated the word slowly.

So Quan nodded.

“Thua Chu was afraid you’d misunderstand, so he planned to explain it himself.”

I almost laughed.

Apparently, in their world, my husband forging my signature and giving away our marital housing was merely a communication problem.

I turned to Officer Chau.

“The document.”

So Quan’s smile faded.

“Tri Du, there’s no need to make this so serious.”

I looked at her.

“You’re going to live in a house assigned under my husband’s marriage eligibility, using a waiver carrying my name.”

I paused.

“Tell me which part isn’t serious.”

Officer Chau finally opened the drawer.

He pulled out a file.

My eyes fell immediately on the signature.

Tham Tri Du.

Very similar.

Unfortunately for them, I had signed thousands of prescriptions over eight years.

I knew exactly how my own hand moved.

“That isn’t mine.”

Officer Chau’s face turned pale.

So Quan immediately said:

“Perhaps Thua Chu signed it for you because you were busy.”

I looked at her.

“Since when can a husband voluntarily renounce his wife’s rights by imitating her signature?”

She stopped speaking.

I requested a copy.

This time Officer Chau didn’t dare refuse.

I folded it carefully and placed it inside my bag.

Then I returned to the pharmacy and completed my night shift.

At four thirty in the morning, a moving truck arrived.

By five thirty, everything belonging to me had disappeared from the dormitory.

At five forty, Hoac Thua Chu came running upstairs.

And now he stood in our empty living room, staring at the waiver I’d placed on the table.

“Did your hand shake when you imitated my signature?”

His face changed.

“Tri Du, listen to me.”

“I am listening.”

“So Quan returned suddenly. Her housing approval hasn’t gone through yet.”

“So you gave her ours.”

“Temporarily.”

“And my signature?”

Silence.

That silence answered everything.

I nodded.

“Good.”

I picked up my last medicine box.

“Then there’s nothing else to discuss.”

Hoac Thua Chu blocked the doorway.

“Where are you going?”

“My mother’s house.”

“For how long?”

I looked at him.

“Permanently.”

His expression finally cracked.

“Tham Tri Du.”

The military wives outside immediately became silent.

He lowered his voice.

“Don’t say things out of anger.”

“I’m not angry.”

That was the problem.

My mother had taught me something when I was young.

There was no shortage of men in the world.

If one made you miserable long enough, you changed direction.

For three years, Hoac Thua Chu had treated me well.

So I had loved him sincerely.

But sincerity wasn’t a lifetime contract permitting humiliation.

“I’ll get the house back,” he said.

“No need.”

“I’ll withdraw the waiver.”

“No need.”

“I’ll explain everything to the housing office.”

“That’s something you should do.”

His eyes reddened.

“Then what do you want?”

I thought about it.

“An explanation.”

Hope flashed across his face.

So I asked:

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He went silent again.

That was enough.

“You knew I’d refuse.”

His jaw tightened.

“Tri Du—”

“You knew.”

I nodded slowly.

“That is why you didn’t ask.”

He reached for my box.

I moved it away.

“Don’t.”

His hand froze.

For three years, I’d never avoided his touch.

That tiny movement seemed to frighten him more than the moving truck downstairs.

“So Quan saved my life once,” he said finally.

I stared at him.

There it was.

The seventeen-mile story.

Again.

“She was injured during that exercise. I carried her out. Later, when my career was in trouble, she also spoke for me.”

“So you owed her.”

“Yes.”

“And therefore I had to repay the debt.”

“No.”

“Then whose housing qualification did you sacrifice?”

He couldn’t answer.

I smiled faintly.

“Yours?”

“No.”

“Hers?”

Silence.

“Mine.”

The word fell quietly between us.

“You were generous with something that belonged partly to me.”

His face went white.

“I thought you’d understand.”

“I would have understood if you’d asked.”

That stopped him.

Because he knew it was true.

If he’d come home and said So Quan had nowhere to stay, perhaps I would have helped find a solution.

Perhaps I might even have agreed to let her use the apartment temporarily.

But he hadn’t trusted me with the choice.

He had simply removed it.

“I’ll fix everything today,” he said.

I shook my head.

“You can fix the paperwork.”

I walked past him.

“You can’t fix the fact that when you had to choose between disappointing So Quan and deceiving your wife, you chose to deceive me.”

That afternoon, Hoac Thua Chu went directly to the housing office.

By evening, the allocation had been suspended.

The following morning, the forged waiver was formally withdrawn for review.

Officer Chau suddenly became extremely cooperative.

So Quan didn’t move into the apartment.

But none of that brought me home.

Three days later, Hoac Thua Chu appeared outside the military hospital.

He carried hot soy milk.

Exactly the way he used to wait for me after night shifts.

I walked past him.

“Tri Du.”

I stopped.

He held out the cup.

“You haven’t eaten.”

“I have.”

His hand remained suspended.

Then he asked quietly:

“When are you coming home?”

“I filed for divorce this morning.”

The soy milk slipped slightly in his hand.

“What?”

“I said I filed for divorce.”

His face lost color.

“Because of one apartment?”

I looked at him for several seconds.

Then I laughed.

“No.”

“Because when you forged my signature, you showed me exactly where I stand when your old feelings and my rights appear on opposite sides.”

“She isn’t my old love.”

“I don’t care anymore.”

That was the sentence that truly broke him.

He followed me two steps.

“I never betrayed you.”

I turned around.

“Hoac Thua Chu, betrayal isn’t limited to sleeping beside someone else.”

His expression stiffened.

“You took the trust I gave you and used it to sign away something belonging to both of us.”

I continued walking.

He didn’t follow.

A week later, So Quan came to the pharmacy.

She placed a box of expensive supplements on my desk.

“I came to apologize.”

I continued checking inventory.

“For what?”

She hesitated.

“I shouldn’t have accepted the house.”

“No.”

I looked up.

“You shouldn’t have behaved as though my husband owed you so much that his wife’s rights became available for repayment.”

Her face changed.

“Thua Chu and I went through things you wouldn’t understand.”

“Probably.”

I nodded.

“But I understand marriage.”

I pushed the supplements back.

“And whatever happened between you years ago doesn’t give either of you permission to make decisions for me.”

She left without taking another word from me.

Later, I learned something interesting.

So Quan had never actually been homeless.

Temporary accommodation had already been arranged for transferred personnel.

It wasn’t as comfortable as the family apartment.

That was all.

Hoac Thua Chu had known.

He’d simply wanted to give her something better.

When I confronted him during our divorce mediation, he didn’t deny it.

“She sacrificed a lot back then.”

“So you wanted to compensate her.”

“Yes.”

I nodded.

“Then you should have compensated her with something belonging to you.”

He lowered his head.

For the first time, he had no defense.

The divorce took several months.

During that time, Hoac Thua Chu did everything the old me had once dreamed he would do.

He publicly clarified that So Quan and I had no responsibility for the housing irregularity.

He admitted that the waiver had not been signed by me.

He accepted the consequences of the internal review.

He stopped seeing So Quan privately.

He came to my mother’s house twice.

Both times, my mother refused to let him inside.

The third time, I went downstairs myself.

He was standing beneath the streetlight.

“Tri Du.”

“What?”

“I’ve been thinking about what your mother said at our wedding.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“She told me you were difficult to fool twice.”

Despite myself, I smiled.

That sounded exactly like my mother.

He looked at that smile as if he’d been starving for it.

“I thought because you didn’t make scenes, you would forgive anything.”

My smile disappeared.

“Yes.”

He swallowed.

“I was wrong.”

“You were.”

“Can we start again?”

I shook my head.

His eyes closed briefly.

“I’ve corrected everything.”

“I know.”

“I admitted what I did.”

“I know.”

“I won’t contact So Quan again unless work requires it.”

“That is your decision.”

His voice became hoarse.

“Then what else can I do?”

“Nothing.”

He looked at me.

And I finally explained the part he still didn’t understand.

“You keep treating divorce like punishment.”

“It isn’t.”

“I’m not waiting for you to complete enough tasks so I’ll reward you by returning.”

I looked directly into his eyes.

“I simply don’t want this marriage anymore.”

For a long time, he didn’t speak.

Then he asked:

“Did you ever love me?”

“Very much.”

That seemed to hurt him even more.

“Then how can you leave so easily?”

I thought about the empty dormitory.

The moving truck before sunrise.

The copied waiver inside my bag.

“It only looked easy because you weren’t there during the moment my trust disappeared.”

He lowered his head.

Our divorce became final that winter.

I continued working at the military hospital.

A year later, I became deputy director of the pharmacy department.

The hospital assigned me a small apartment close to work.

The first night there, my mother came carrying two pots, three blankets and enough food for a week.

She inspected every room.

Then she nodded.

“Not bad.”

I laughed.

“That’s all?”

She looked at me.

“What else?”

“Your daughter got divorced.”

My mother snorted.

“So?”

Then she repeated the sentence she’d taught me when I was young.

“There is nothing lacking in men in this world.”

She put an orange in my hand.

“If you’re unhappy, change.”

I laughed until my eyes became wet.

Two years later, I met Hoac Thua Chu again at a hospital ceremony.

He had been promoted.

The scar on his hand was still there.

His uniform was still immaculate.

But when he saw me, he didn’t approach immediately.

He waited until the ceremony ended.

“Congratulations, Director Tham.”

“Thank you, Chief of Staff Hoac.”

The formal titles made both of us smile faintly.

He looked at me for a moment.

“You look well.”

“I am.”

He nodded.

“I heard you bought a house.”

“Yes.”

“Under your own name?”

I smiled.

“Under my own signature too.”

He actually laughed.

A quiet, bitter laugh.

“I deserved that.”

Perhaps he did.

Before leaving, he said:

“Tri Du.”

I turned.

“If I had asked you back then… would you have agreed to lend the apartment to So Quan?”

I thought for a moment.

“Probably.”

His expression froze.

That answer was crueler than no.

Because after all those years, he finally understood.

He hadn’t lost his marriage because I refused to help another woman.

He lost it because he never gave his wife the dignity of being asked.

I walked away before he could say anything else.

My mother had been right about one thing.

There really was no shortage of people in this world.

But later I understood something even more important.

A woman doesn’t need to immediately find another man after leaving the wrong one.

Sometimes the best thing to change isn’t the man beside you.

It’s the life that taught you to accept being treated as secondary.

Hoac Thua Chu spent two years reporting to the organization to obtain that apartment.

I spent less than two hours packing my belongings and leaving it.

He thought the house was what he’d given away.

It wasn’t.

The moment he forged my signature, the thing he truly surrendered was my trust.

And unlike military housing, that was something no application could ever assign to him again.