During a stirring, intense year, Mai Linh had gathered cards, notes, letters, sms and emails, the creative atoms of a fated romance. Beside the Lake of the Redeemed Sword, under the broad shimmering bang tree, earnest Jack held her shoulders and tried to burn a message through her eyes: "You will see, em se'e xem, you will believe in you, in me, in Life's chances. Before the last bang leaf falls." She sighed and smiled: "The leaves will fall, and all be bare, and the Winter clouds will stifle the sun. That is our Hanoi."