Luc Dinh stood in the middle of my tiny apartment and looked toward the small study.
“Where do I sleep?”
I froze.
The main bedroom had only one bed.
The study contained a desk, two computers, and a narrow folding chair that even I hated sitting on.
“I can sleep on the sofa,” he said immediately.
I looked at the sofa.
One meter sixty.
Then at him.
He was almost one meter eighty-five.
“You’ll wake up unable to move.”
“That’s fine.”
“It isn’t.”
After several seconds of awkward silence, I pointed toward the bedroom.
“The bed is big enough. We can sleep separately.”
He nodded calmly.
“Okay.”
Then he handed me the jewelry box he had been carrying.
“I bought this for you.”
“I told you not to.”
“I know.”
Inside was not expensive jewelry.
It was a small silver pendant shaped like a four-leaf clover.
I stared at him.
“Why this?”
Luc Dinh looked away.
“The salesperson said it means good luck.”
That answer sounded strangely prepared.
I smiled.
“Thank you.”
He nodded.
Then took his pajamas from his suitcase and went to shower.
That was our first night living together.
No romance.
No dramatic intimacy.
Just two people lying on opposite sides of a bed, leaving enough space between us for a third person.
Before sleeping, Luc Dinh suddenly said:
“Tong Di.”
“Hmm?”
“If you feel uncomfortable, tell me.”
“With what?”
“Anything.”
His voice was quiet in the darkness.
“We got married quickly, but that doesn’t mean you have to force yourself to accept everything quickly.”
I stared at the ceiling.
My ex-husband had once said the opposite.
Marriage means adapting.
Marriage means compromise.
Marriage means you should understand me.
Luc Dinh simply said:
Tell me if you’re uncomfortable.
For some reason, I remembered that sentence for many years.
Our married life was unexpectedly peaceful.
Luc Dinh woke up earlier than me.
He cooked terribly.
The first breakfast he made consisted of eggs burned black around the edges and porridge so thick that the spoon stood upright.
I ate two bites.
He asked:
“Is it bad?”
I lied.
“It’s edible.”
He tasted it himself.
Then silently ordered delivery.
The next morning, he tried again.
After three weeks, his eggs finally stopped looking dangerous.
After two months, I realized he remembered almost everything I casually mentioned.
I hated cilantro.
I got headaches when I skipped coffee.
My hands became cold whenever I worked overtime.
I liked sleeping with the curtains slightly open.
He remembered all of it.
But he never asked me to remember the same things about him.
That made me uncomfortable.
One evening I asked:
“What do you like?”
Luc Dinh looked confused.
“What?”
“Food. Movies. Places. Anything.”
He thought for a long time.
Then said:
“I like quiet.”
I laughed.
“That doesn’t count.”
He looked at me.
“I like coming home and knowing someone is there.”
I stopped laughing.
Three months after our marriage, Thuong Ngan returned to Shanghai.
The university group arranged dinner.
I originally did not plan to go.
Then the class monitor called me personally.
“Tong Di, everyone hasn’t seen you in years. Come.”
I hesitated.
Luc Dinh was sitting beside me debugging something on his laptop.
Without looking up, he said:
“If you want to go, go.”
I looked at him.
“You don’t mind?”
“Why would I?”
“My ex-husband will be there.”
His fingers paused for half a second.
Then continued typing.
“You divorced him.”
“Yes.”
“And you married me.”
“Yes.”
“Then I don’t see the problem.”
That should have ended the conversation.
But before I left, Luc Dinh suddenly stood up.
“I’ll drive you.”
“No need.”
“It’s raining.”
“I can take the subway.”
He silently picked up the car keys.
Twenty minutes later, we arrived at the restaurant.
Before I got out, he handed me an umbrella.
Then he said:
“Call me when you’re finished.”
I nodded.
When I entered, everyone’s eyes turned toward me.
Thuong Ngan was sitting in the center.
He had changed.
More mature.
Better dressed.
Still familiar enough to make my chest tighten for a second.
He looked at me.
“Tong Di.”
I smiled politely.
“Long time no see.”
Someone immediately joked:
“The legendary couple finally reunites!”
The room became awkward.
Thuong Ngan frowned.
“We’re divorced.”
Then his gaze fell on the ring on my finger.
His expression changed.
“You remarried?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
He stared at me.
“With whom?”
Before I could answer, someone laughed.
“Tong Di, you really move quickly.”
Another person said:
“You pursued Thuong Ngan for so many years. How could you marry someone else so easily?”
I looked at the people around the table.
Then suddenly understood why I had avoided these reunions.
They remembered the twenty-year-old version of me.
The girl whose entire personality seemed to be loving Thuong Ngan.
They did not know the woman I had become after leaving him.
I smiled.
“Because I’m thirty now.”
Silence.
“People are allowed to stop living inside their university memories.”
After dinner, Thuong Ngan followed me outside.
“Can we talk?”
I stopped beneath the awning.
“What about?”
He looked at me for a long time.
“Did you marry because I came back?”
I almost laughed.
“No.”
“You always wanted children.”
“Yes.”
“Is that why?”
I did not answer.
His eyes changed.
“Tong Di, we could try again.”
The words came so suddenly that I thought I had misheard.
“What?”
“I’ve thought about us a lot abroad.”
He stepped closer.
“I was immature when we divorced.”
I looked at him.
Two years ago, those words could have destroyed me.
Now I only felt tired.
“Thuong Ngan.”
“Yes?”
“You left because you said marriage with me felt suffocating.”
His face tightened.
“I was under pressure.”
“You said you wanted freedom.”
“I know.”
“I gave it to you.”
He became silent.
Then asked:
“Do you love your current husband?”
I froze.
I had never asked myself that.
Luc Dinh and I had never discussed love.
We discussed grocery lists.
Mortgage payments.
Work schedules.
Future children.
Whether the air conditioner was too cold.
But love?
No.
I answered honestly.
“I don’t know.”
Something like hope appeared in Thuong Ngan’s eyes.
Then a black car stopped at the curb.
Luc Dinh got out holding an umbrella.
He walked toward us.
Not fast.
Not aggressively.
He simply stopped beside me and held the umbrella over my head.
“You’re done?”
“Yes.”
He looked at Thuong Ngan.
I introduced them.
“My husband, Luc Dinh.”
“My former classmate, Thuong Ngan.”
Former classmate.
Thuong Ngan looked at me sharply.
But I had not done it deliberately.
The words simply came naturally.
Luc Dinh nodded politely.
“Hello.”
Then he took my bag because my hands were full.
“Let’s go home.”
Home.
For the first time, I realized I had started calling his apartment that too.
In the car, Luc Dinh did not ask what Thuong Ngan had said.
That bothered me.
Finally I asked:
“You’re not curious?”
“About what?”
“What he wanted.”
Luc Dinh looked ahead.
“You’ll tell me if you want me to know.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I won’t ask.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
He seemed confused.
“Because it belongs to you.”
That answer stayed with me.
After several minutes, I said:
“He asked if we could get back together.”
Luc Dinh’s hand tightened slightly around the steering wheel.
Only slightly.
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t answer directly.”
He became quiet.
My heart suddenly sank.
I asked:
“Are you angry?”
“No.”
“Then what are you thinking?”
He waited at a red light.
Finally he said:
“I’m thinking our agreement said you could leave whenever you wanted.”
I remembered.
On our first blind date, he had said exactly that.
If I ever wanted to leave, he would cooperate.
He continued:
“So if you want to return to him, I won’t stop you.”
The light turned green.
He drove forward.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, for some inexplicable reason, I became angry.
“Luc Dinh.”
“Yes?”
“Do you really not care?”
He looked at me for the first time.
His expression was strange.
“Do you want me to?”
I could not answer.
That night, we slept back-to-back.
For the first time since we married, our bedroom felt colder than before.
At three in the morning, I woke up thirsty.
Luc Dinh was not beside me.
Light came from the study.
I walked over quietly.
He was sitting in front of his computer.
On the screen was our marriage certificate.
Scanned.
Beside it was a folder.
Family Planning.
Insurance.
Savings projections.
School districts.
Medical expenses.
Even a spreadsheet estimating the cost of raising a child until university.
I stared at him.
“You made all this?”
He turned quickly.
“You’re awake?”
“When?”
“What?”
“When did you make this?”
He looked embarrassed.
“After we registered.”
I scrolled downward.
There was another folder.
Tong Di.
Emergency contacts.
My allergies.
My work schedule.
The hospital where I usually had checkups.
Even the number of the repairman I trusted.
I looked at him.
“Why?”
Luc Dinh lowered his eyes.
“Because you don’t have parents nearby.”
The room became quiet.
“If something happens,” he continued, “someone should know these things.”
My eyes suddenly burned.
I had spent years believing that being alone meant never becoming anyone’s responsibility.
Luc Dinh had quietly made me part of his life without ever announcing it.
I closed the laptop.
Then asked:
“Who was the woman you liked?”
He froze.
“The one who went abroad.”
He did not answer.
“Do you still like her?”
His ears slowly turned red.
That was the first time I had ever seen Luc Dinh embarrassed.
Finally he said:
“She came back.”
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“A few months ago.”
“Did you meet her?”
“Yes.”
I stepped backward.
“So why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because…”
He stopped.
I waited.
He finally looked at me.
“You already met her too.”
I frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
Luc Dinh rubbed his forehead.
Then laughed helplessly.
“Tong Di.”
My heart skipped.
“It was you.”
I stopped breathing.
He had known me in university.
Not personally.
We had taken two programming electives together.
I never remembered him because I spent nearly every free moment chasing Thuong Ngan.
Luc Dinh sat three rows behind me.
He once helped me recover a corrupted project file the night before submission.
I had thanked him with a bottle of orange soda.
Then forgotten him.
He had not.
Years later, he saw my profile on the matchmaking service.
Divorced.
Looking for marriage.
Wanting a child.
He agreed to meet.
“But you said the woman you liked went abroad.”
“You did.”
I stared at him.
“Me?”
“After graduation, you followed Thuong Ngan overseas for almost a year.”
Technically true.
I had forgotten.
I sat down.
“So on the blind date…”
“I lied a little.”
“A little?”
He winced.
“I thought if I said I had liked you for years, you’d run away.”
He was probably right.
I covered my face.
“Why did you wait twenty-three days for my answer?”
His voice became quiet.
“Because I’d already waited almost eight years.”
I looked at him.
For the first time, all the strange details rearranged themselves.
The four-leaf-clover necklace.
My favorite coffee already stocked in his apartment.
The way his mother knew I hated cilantro before I had ever told her.
The fact that he accepted my past without hesitation.
He had never married me because nobody else was available.
He had married me because, somehow, I had been the person he wanted all along.
I did not immediately say I loved him.
That would have been a lie.
Instead, I said:
“I want to try.”
Luc Dinh looked confused.
“Try what?”
“This marriage.”
His eyes widened slightly.
“Not just for having a child.”
I swallowed.
“For us.”
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then:
“Okay.”
That was Luc Dinh.
Even when receiving what he had waited years for, he only said okay.
I laughed.
Then cried.
He panicked.
“Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know.”
“Should I get tissues?”
“Yes.”
He returned with an entire box.
That made me laugh harder.
A year later, our daughter was born.
Luc Dinh cried before I did.
He held her as if someone had handed him the entire world and forgotten to warn him how fragile it was.
When the nurse asked his relationship to the mother, he answered:
“Husband.”
Then immediately corrected himself.
“Her husband.”
As if there might be confusion.
I laughed even though everything hurt.
He leaned over.
“You’re laughing at me?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Then he smiled too.
Thuong Ngan contacted me once more after our daughter’s birth.
He sent:
Congratulations.
I replied:
Thank you.
Then he wrote:
Are you happy?
I looked across the room.
Luc Dinh was walking in circles with our daughter because she refused to sleep.
His hair was messy.
His shirt had milk on the shoulder.
He looked exhausted.
When he noticed me watching, he whispered:
“Why are you staring? Help me.”
I laughed.
Then replied to Thuong Ngan:
Yes.
No long explanation.
No regret.
No revenge.
Just yes.
Ten years passed.
Then another ten.
Our daughter grew taller than me.
We moved twice.
Changed jobs.
Fought about stupid things.
Made up.
Raised a child.
Lost people.
Gained gray hairs.
Sometimes Luc Dinh still spoke too little.
Sometimes I still overthought everything.
But whenever we argued, he never insulted me.
Never threatened divorce.
Never disappeared.
He would sit quietly until both of us calmed down and then ask:
“Can we talk now?”
The quality I had wanted most from a blind date at twenty-eight was simple.
Someone who knew how to speak kindly.
I thought I had chosen that requirement because my first marriage had exhausted me.
Only later did I understand how important it really was.
A marriage is made from thousands of ordinary sentences.
Come home safely.
Did you eat?
I was wrong.
Tell me when you’re uncomfortable.
I’ll wait.
We can solve it together.
Twenty years after that blind date, Luc Dinh found the old matchmaking profile while cleaning our cloud storage.
He read my requirements aloud.
“Tall.”
He nodded.
“Not nearsighted.”
He pushed his glasses up his nose.
I stared at him.
“When did you become nearsighted?”
“Five years ago.”
“You violated the contract.”
He laughed.
Then read the final line.
Most importantly, knows how to talk kindly.
He became quiet.
I looked at him.
“That one you kept.”
Luc Dinh smiled.
Then said the same thing he had told me on our first night together:
“If something makes you uncomfortable, tell me.”
Twenty years earlier, I married him because I wanted a child.
I thought love was the least important thing.
I was wrong.
Love simply did not arrive the way it had when I was young.
It did not burn.
It did not chase.
It did not make me afraid of losing it.
It waited twenty-three days for an answer.
Cooked terrible eggs.
Remembered my allergies.
Held an umbrella over my head without asking who I had been talking to.
And after ten years—
then another ten—
I finally understood why Luc Dinh had never rushed me.
He had already waited for me once.
He was simply willing to keep choosing me for the rest of our lives.
