There were two days left before Tet. It was raining without let-up. A winter rain and Hanoi, as cold as it usually was, was much colder with it. Anh Thuy and her husband had just come home from Russia. Over a decade living away from home, she, a doctor of linguistics, had time and again waited and longed for coming home to enjoy Tet and to be back to the fold with her mother for the first time.
