5. The Distance Between Notes

The fight, when it came, was not dramatic. It did not involve shouting or slammed doors. It was quiet, which made it worse. It started because Minh had been offered a residency at a music studio in Saigon. Six months, a real salary, a chance to record original work with decent equipment. He told Linh over coffee, expecting her to be happy for him. She was. She said so. But her voice was careful in the way it sometimes got when she was controlling something. "You should go," she said. "It's a good opportunity." "I haven't decided yet." "What's there to decide?" He looked at her. In the two months since the rainy night at the café, he had come to know her face well—the slight tension around her eyes when she was worried, the way she looked at her hands when she was working something out. "I'd be gone six months," he said. "I know." "That's all you're going to say?" Linh set down her cup. "What do you want me to say, Minh?" "Something true." A pause. Outside, the morning traffic was beginning to build. Somewhere nearby, a street vendor was calling out the names of things for sale. "I think," she said carefully, "that we have not said clearly what this is. And until we do, I don't have the right to ask you to stay." "And if I want you to have that right?" She looked at him for a long time. "Then you'll have to say so." He was quiet. She picked up her bag. "The offer closes next Friday," he said. "I know." She paused at the door. "Play me the unfinished song before you decide." She left. Minh sat alone with his coffee, watching the street fill up with morning, and understood that she had just told him everything without saying anything at all.