Sometimes May helped Grandpa row passengers across the river. She’d remove her artificial leg and painstakingly step onto the boat with her crutches. May always refused to charge her niece’s classmates for rides along the river.
“You never take our money,” the kids would say. “We feel bad.”
May smiled and said, “It’s okay. You can pay me back when you’re older and get a job.”
“We’ll save up and give it to you as a wedding present!” the kids cried out. Then they saw that this had made May sad, so they changed the subject. They really loved May, and often gave her fruit and cakes. Some even handed her lilies to place at the foot of her bamboo bed in the hut. Mai’s friends were like a flock of sparrows that brought excitement to the pier when they descended, but then left a melancholy silence when they eventually flew away.
A few months after her return to the village, May’s hair had grown back and she started to look healthier. On bright moonlit nights she would let her hair down and bathe in the river with Mai. The water felt calm and cool. Mai could clearly see her aunt’s bare shoulders, full breasts, white neck, and sparkling eyes. She remembered that her mother used to say May had been the most beautiful girl in the village and that the local boys would sneak up to the riverbank to spy on her while she bathed.
“Auntie, you’re still very young,” Mai said one night when they were in the river water together.
May smiled. “I will be old soon. But look at you! Every year I get older your body becomes more beautiful.”
Mai blushed and glanced down at her own breasts. Her aunt’s body sparkled in the silvery water as she swam in circles.
One day the head physician at the medical aid station quit, and the village chairman asked May—a former medic—to take over her position. She spent her nights now hobbling over the poorly kept village roads to visit sick patients.
“You should learn to ride a bicycle,” the village chairman suggested, “and I’ll pay to fix the roads.”
“Save the money for the medicine we need for the aid station, there isn’t enough,” May replied. “Anyway, the walking is good exercise for me.”
A few months went by. On rainy days the roads were full of her footprints.
It was raining again the night that San’s wife, Thanh, went into labor prematurely. Ba, who worked as a midwife, tried her best to help deliver the baby, but there wasn’t much she could do. Thanh screamed out, “Ba, I can’t stand it! I feel like I’m dying. It’s so painful!”
Thanh was exhausted and still hadn’t managed to push out the baby. It was too far to travel from their house to the town hospital. There was no other option—they had to call May for help.
May put on her raincoat and made her way to San’s house. When she got there, she found Ba outside with her son, Cun. Ba pulled May aside.
“We don’t have enough time to transfer her to the hospital, and anyway, surgery might kill her. Plus San is still unemployed. All the money he earned abroad is gone. There’s nothing left to buy medicine.” Ba paused for a moment. She scolded her son, who was restless at her side. “Maybe it’s better if you don’t get involved,” she said finally to May.
But May didn’t seem to care what Ba said. She entered the house and immediately gave Thanh a few injections and then began performing a procedure. She told Thanh to push harder.
“Please!” Thanh begged. “I can’t!”
“Try harder,” May said. “Think of your baby. Come on …”
Thanh bit her lip and called upon her last reserves of strength.
Mai, who had followed her Aunt May to the house and was watching all this, suddenly got scared and ran outside. A few minutes later Mai heard the sound of a newborn crying and Aunt May’s voice telling Thanh to put a bandage around the baby’s belly button. It was already dawn and the rain had stopped.
San began jumping up and down excitedly.
“My daughter!” he cried. “She’s alive!”
As she packed up her supplies, May began to cry. San noticed and felt immediately uncomfortable.
“It’s okay,” Ba said, ushering San toward his wife and newborn child. “Let May cry. Go be with your wife and baby.”
Under the silvery sky, the river looked white. It began to drizzle again. In the light early morning rain, May hobbled away toward the pier.
San eventually named the baby May.
Ba shook her head. “It was terrifying! I’ve been a midwife for twenty years, and I have never seen such a difficult birth before.” To May she said, “You’re very talented. If we had taken her to the hospital, they would have cut her belly up into pieces.”
A few days later, May returned to San’s house. She kissed the baby’s cute lips. Thanh was in tears.
“My family is indebted to you forever,” she said to May.
May gave Thanh some money as a gift for the newborn. When she refused to accept the gift, May explained, “This is for your daughter, not for you. Please take it.”
San meanwhile stood quietly in the corner. Nobody knew exactly what he was thinking about.
When Mai’s father heard about May delivering the baby, he didn’t try to hide his disapproval.
“You do people a favor without thinking of
