When I was young, I witnessed my mother with my own eyes. My father was a worker in a mechanical workshop, often working the night shift….

“That night, I heard a knock on the door—three times, intermittently—right at 1 a.m. I thought my father was coming home early. But no… The man standing outside the door was a stranger, and my mother opened the door for him, with a look in her eyes that I haven’t forgotten for years.”

My name is Marco, full name is Marco Emmanuel Reyes. I am 25 years old, living and working in Manila. But the memory of that night, more than ten years ago, in my hometown – a small village on the edge of barangay Cansipit, Camarines Norte province – is still imprinted in my mind, like a scratch that will never heal.

At that time, I was in 5th grade. My family was poor, my father – Mr. Mang Alberto Reyes – worked as a mechanic in a small workshop nearly 20 kilometers from home, riding his motorbike for more than an hour every day. He often worked night shifts to earn extra income. My mother – Mrs. Aling Letty – stayed home to farm, take care of me, and at the same time take care of the tiny level 4 house with a rotten corrugated iron roof, located at the end of a red dirt road leading to the acacia forest.

During the day, my mother was always a model woman: gentle, skillful, with a gentle gaze and a smile that always seemed resigned. But when night fell, especially on the days when my father worked the night shift, my mother seemed to become a different person.

I don’t remember exactly when I first suspected something was wrong. Maybe it was when I saw my mother wearing red lipstick at night, perfume on her body—a scent that had never been in the house before. Or maybe it was when I woke up in the middle of the night, looking for my mother but not finding her in her room, and heard giggling coming from the kitchen, mixed with the voice of a man who wasn’t my father.

The first time I witnessed that scene was on a rainy night, my father called to say that the factory had a problem, he had to work all night. I remember it very clearly because at that time my mother did not have any sadness on her face, on the contrary, she put on heavy makeup and cooked dinner for two.

I pretended to go to bed early, but in fact I lay still, eyes open. Around 1am, there was a knock on the door – three times, intermittently, as if familiar to my mother. She didn’t ask anyone, nor hesitate, just went to open the door as if she was used to it. The man standing outside was Uncle Tu Hoa, my father’s long-time drinking buddy.

I almost jumped up, but I held back. I just opened the bedroom door and looked through the crack. The two of them didn’t say a word, just looked at each other and hugged each other. The sight made my heart pound, not because of fear, but because I felt something inside me had just collapsed.

For the next year, the same thing happened over and over again, every time my father worked the night shift. I didn’t know what to do. I was too young to understand the betrayal. But I felt humiliated, angry, and scared. I began to distance myself from my mother, no longer calling her “Mom” out of the blue. Every time I saw her, all I could remember was her wet eyes and her sly smile on that rainy night.

But ironically, my father still didn’t know anything. He still worked hard, sent money home, still said he loved my mother and “had a mother, I’m lucky all my life”. I felt sorry for him.

One day, when I was in sixth grade, my father had an accident in the factory, broke his thigh bone and had to take a few months off work. For the first time in many years, he stayed home all night.

Mẹ tôi bắt đầu thay đổi. Bà trở nên cáu kỉnh, khó chịu, hay tránh mặt bố. Còn tôi thì ngày càng im lặng, chỉ nhìn mọi thứ bằng ánh mắt căm ghét mà không thể chia sẻ cùng ai.

Và rồi, tôi quyết định nói ra ba sự thật. Tôi biết, có thể bạn sẽ không tin tôi. Nhưng tôi không thể chịu đựng thêm được nữa.

Đó là một buổi chiều đầu đông, trời lạnh. Tôi ra vườn tìm anh ấy – anh ấy đang sửa chiếc xe đạp cũ. Tôi ngồi xuống cạnh anh ấy, tim đập thình thịch như trống trận.

–Ba… Nếu anh nói điều gì quan trọng, anh hứa sẽ không giận em nhé?

Anh mỉm cười nhẹ nhàng:

“Vâng, hãy nói cho tôi biết.

– Con thấy bố… với chú Louie… – Tôi nghẹn ngào. – Nhiều đêm bố đi làm. Chính mắt con đã thấy.

Nói xong, lòng tôi như rơi xuống vực. Nhưng cha tôi lại chẳng phản ứng gì, chỉ dừng tay, im lặng hồi lâu rồi khẽ thở dài:

–Vâng… Tôi biết.

Câu trả lời đó làm tôi sửng sốt.

Tôi nhìn anh ấy như một người đã mất đi linh hồn.

“Bố nói… Con biết không?

Anh ấy không quay lại nhìn tôi, vẫn nhìn chằm chằm vào xích xe đạp như thể nó quan trọng hơn mọi thứ khác đang diễn ra.

– Vâng. Bố đã biết từ lâu rồi. Nhưng con vẫn còn nhỏ… Bố không muốn con biết những chuyện xấu xa của người lớn sớm.

Tôi nghẹn ngào, chỉ biết im lặng. Lần đầu tiên trong đời, tôi cảm thấy cha mình… không còn là người đàn ông bất khả chiến bại trong mắt tôi nữa. Ông yếu đuối hơn tôi nghĩ.

“Vậy tại sao anh không làm gì cả?” Tại sao anh vẫn… im lặng?

Bố ngước lên, đôi mắt thâm quầng và đỏ hoe vì nhiều đêm mất ngủ:

“Vì nếu con làm ầm lên thì sao? Ly hôn ư? Chuyện gì sẽ xảy ra với con? Con sống với ai? Lúc đó, con đang học lớp 5, Marco ạ. Bố thà nghiến răng chịu nhục còn hơn nhìn con sống trong một gia đình tan vỡ.

Anh đứng dậy và lau tay:

“Bố cũng là đàn ông, bố không biết vợ mình đã thay đổi sao?” Nhưng sống chung không chỉ là chuyện tình yêu hay phản bội. Còn có cơm ăn, áo mặc, con cái, và cả một cuộc đời dài phía trước.

Tôi cúi đầu, cảm thấy tội lỗi. Trước giờ tôi chỉ nghĩ đến cảm xúc của mình. Tôi chưa bao giờ cố gắng hiểu tại sao cha tôi vẫn còn đau khổ.

Đêm đó, không khí trong nhà tĩnh lặng như tờ. Mẹ tôi dường như nhận ra có điều gì đó không ổn. Bữa tối quá thịnh soạn đến nỗi ngay cả tiếng muỗi vo ve cũng có thể nghe rõ mồn một.

Một tuần sau, chú Kuya Louie… biến mất.

Không còn thấy anh ấy đâu quanh khu phố nữa, cũng chẳng nghe thấy tiếng xe máy giữa đêm khuya. Bố tôi không nói gì. Mẹ tôi cũng vậy. Nhưng tôi biết có chuyện gì đó đã xảy ra.

Hè năm tôi học lớp 8, mẹ tôi xin phép bố tôi lên Cebu. làm công nhân ở một nhà máy ở Mandaue. Mẹ nói để kiếm thêm tiền lo cho tôi ăn học. Bố tôi đồng ý, nhưng ánh mắt lại thể hiện điều ngược lại.

Từ đó, bà chỉ về nhà mỗi dịp Tết. Mỗi lần về, bà lại trầm tính hơn, gầy hơn và ít nói hơn. Tôi không còn gọi bà là “mẹ” một cách tự nhiên nữa. Giữa tôi và bà là một khoảng cách vô hình, âm ỉ như vết cắt chưa khép miệng.

I grew up in the silence and sadness of my father. He still took care of every meal, every shirt, every book for me. But deep inside, I knew that he had been tired for a long time.

My father died on a rainy night, my sophomore year in college. A stroke. A simple, quiet death, just like the way he lived. On the nightstand, I found an old notebook – the leather cover was yellowed.

In it were words he had written to me over the years, like a diary.

“Today Marco went to bed early, I heard the familiar sound of Aling ‘s motorbike . But I didn’t go out. I just looked through the crack of the door, saw Aling smiling… a smile I hadn’t seen in many years.”

“I thought about hitting Aling and scolding Aling . But then I looked at Marco… I couldn’t.”

“I’m not afraid of losing my wife, I’m afraid Marco will lose his peaceful childhood.”

“If one day Marco reads this book, don’t blame him. You will understand, being a man means not only being strong but also knowing how to be patient for others.”

I read it and cried. The lines were scribbled and distorted but full of love. I never thought my father silently carried so many things inside him.

After my father passed away, my mother returned. She stood silently for a long time by my father’s altar, not crying, just trembling as she placed her hand on the photo on the altar.

I looked at her – the woman who was once the first image of love and warmth in my life, now someone I could not approach.

I asked her a question, for the first and only time:

– Have you ever loved her?

She looked at me, was silent for a long time, then nodded slightly.

– Yes. But she made the wrong choice. A mistake that I cannot fix.

She took a letter out of her bag and gave it to me.

The letter contained handwritten lines addressed to my father. Short but full of regret:

“I’m sorry for all those years of neglecting you. I’m no longer qualified to call you my husband, but I’m still grateful to you – because you’re the best father to Minh, and the most noble man I’ve ever met.”

I don’t know how my mother lived after that. She left her homeland, and we didn’t have much contact anymore. But perhaps, for both my father and mother, love never died – it was just buried by wrong choices, the ups and downs of life that people didn’t have the courage to return to.

Now, every time I hear a knock on the door in the middle of the night, my heart still pounds – like an unconscious reflex. But I’m no longer angry.

I only remember my father – the man who chose forgiveness over hatred, chose sacrifice over revenge, and chose silence so that his son could live under an intact roof… even if it was just a shelter.