Lan entered the Anh Sao karaoke bar with worn rubber sandals, a black dress with short shoulders and only one pair of pants. The bar was at the end of a dark alley in Binh Thanh district, the smell of cigarettes and cheap alcohol clung to every stained wall. The bar owner, a pot-bellied man named Tam, looked her up and down and nodded: “Serving, daily salary, tips split in half. No more crying.”

Three years ago, she was a kindergarten teacher at a small private school, her husband was a construction engineer named Khang. They got married and rented a house for three million a month, dreamed of a child and an apartment. Then Khang’s company went bankrupt, debt piled up. Khang started to be impatient, beating her because of the poor meals, because he had no money to fix the broken fan. One night he came home and threw the divorce papers on the table: “You only drag me down into the mud. My house does not have children, it is famous for having a poor daughter-in-law.”

Lan did not visit. She just silently wrapped up Dom, left the wedding ring on the table and walked out of the house in the middle of the rainy night. No parents, no siblings, only a close friend who lent her a temporary room during the rainy season. The karaoke bar was the only place that would accept her without a degree or a background check.

The work started from eight in the evening until three in the morning. Lan served, wiped tables, drank, and faked smiles at drunken men. Some nights she was moved, some nights she was exhausted from weakening. But she learned to purse her lips, learned to look down, learned to let her tears flow.

The elderly appeared in a third block of rain. She wore a gray sweater, her silver hair tied up, her face was kind but her deep eyes seemed to contain an ocean of sadness. She called a small corner of the room, only asking for a pot of hot tea and a microphone. Her voice was entertaining, singing old bolero songs: “The person who came back in the rainy night…” Lan stood outside the door listening, suddenly feeling her heart tighten.

She came every week, always sitting in the same corner, always calling Lan. “Can you give me a glass of water, Con Thu?” She smiled, a strangely gentle smile. She never ordered alcohol, never Loved, never tipped more than five rounds. She asked Lan what grade she had finished, if she liked to sing, if she missed home. Lan answered vaguely, but gradually, she found herself looking forward to the Tuesday night things.

Her name was Hanh, she was sixty-four years old. She said she used to be a nurse at Cho Ray Hospital, her husband died early from cancer, her only son went abroad when she was a student and then became very absent. “I’m alone,” she said, her voice as light as the wind. “So I like to come here, listen to people sing, feel alive.”

Lan began to bring her hot tea without money, sometimes a package of cookies hidden in a box. Hanh accepted it, patting Lan’s head like a child’s. “If my daughter were still alive, she would probably be as old as you.” Lan smiled sadly: “I have not had a mother since I was little.” Mrs. Hanh was silent for a long time, then continued singing, her voice running.

A year passed. Lan still worked at the shop, still lived in the cake boarding house, still sent money back home to her old and weak grandmother. Mrs. Hanh still came, still gentle, still tipped the five fires with a sentence: “Take care of your health.”

Then fate came that night.

Friday night, Dong Dong shop had a business hotel. Rolling back and forth, sweating profusely. Mrs. Hanh came, sat in the old corner, ordered a bottle of white wine – the first time she ordered wine. “I want to say a little today,” she said, her voice thick. Lan worried: “I will drink from now on.”

Mrs. Hanh drank quickly, sang freely, cried in the middle of the song. At nearly 3 a.m., the shop was almost empty, the old woman woke up, her wallet fell to the floor. Lan was nearsighted, her wallet opened, an old color photo fell out.

It was the image of a little girl about three years old, wearing a pink dress, holding a doll, smiling broadly. Lan died. That childish face… was her face when she was young. She had found these photos in her grandmother’s old album, before the album burned in a fire when she was ten years old.

“Uncle… this photo…” Lan trembled.

Mrs. Hanh rose, her eyes red. She looked at the photo, then at Lan, then suddenly hugged her, sobbing. “Lan… are you Lan? Mom… I am your mother…”

The whole world collapsed on Lan’s head.

Mrs. Hanh said, central Vietnam. Three years ago, she fell in love with a man named Khoi – a construction engineer, the only son of the wealthy Tran family in Saigon. They got married in secret because Khoi’s family argued lyrically: “A daughter-in-law must be of equal social status, not a poor man.” When she became pregnant, the family forced Mr. Khoi to divorce, locked her in a separate house, and cut off all communication.

The child was born a girl. The Tran family feared that the daughter would fight over the property with her cousins, so they forced her to give the child to a farmer family in Long An, in exchange for a sum of money and a promise to “never come back.” She signed a paper giving up custody rights in tears, and was chased out of Saigon with nothing.

Mr. Khoi then married someone else, gave birth to a son, and took over the family company. That son was Khang – Lan’s ex-husband.

Lan’s blood froze when she heard that. It turned out that the husband who abandoned her was her half-brother. It turned out that the Tran family had forced her mother to abandon her child in the past, and now indirectly pushed that child into poverty.

Mrs. Hanh held Lan’s hand: “I have been looking for you for thirty years. I hired a detective,