Chapter 3: The Unforgettable Years 05
After he left, I took a bus back home. When I entered the house, my mother was sitting by the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, warming herself by the fire, and Shen Huai was busy in the kitchen.
The door was not locked. When she heard the sound of the door opening , Mom hurried to look at the door, and Shen Huai also hurried out to see.
"Yang ah..." When my mother saw me, her eyes turned red and tears welled up in them.
"Mom." I felt so guilty that I closed the door and sat down next to her. Mom held my hand, rubbed it to warm it up, and kept saying sorry.
Seeing us like this, Shen Huai quietly closed the kitchen door.
My mother leaned against me, patting my back with her hands, and her choking breath made me feel uncomfortable. I waited for a long time, gently stroking the back of her hand until she slowly calmed down.
As her daughter, having lived with her day and night for 18 years, I know she feels the same pain.
I slowly squatted down next to the sofa, put my hand on her belly, and said softly: "You shouldn't hide it from me. Maybe I can try to accept it."
"Mom, I'm sorry." Mom cried.
"Dad also said sorry to me." The soft touch of the blanket brushed against my palm, and my voice was so soft that I could hardly hear it clearly. "In my heart, I often wonder why mom and dad would feel sorry for their own child. You shouldn't feel sorry for giving birth to me."
My mother looked down at me, her crystal tears falling on the back of my hand. I saw a few strands of white hair on her temples, and the string in my heart was plucked and it hurt.
"If you can't love each other, then let each other go. Now I understand the difficulties of mom and dad, so I told myself to try to understand. I also hope that while I understand, you can also stand in my position and think about me." I tightly pinched a corner of the blanket, and my words trembled. "Mom, I'm not a child anymore. Don't hide everything from me and tell me the results like a judge. This is really too cruel. Maybe some results are not what I want."
My mother put her arms around my head, hugged me in her arms, and kept patting my back: "My Yang has grown up..."
I couldn't hold it in any longer, I hugged my mother's warm body, and my burning emotions finally found an outlet, and I burst into tears. At night, Shen Huai used the excuse of going to a neighbor's house to borrow something, and didn't come back until late at night. I lay beside my mother , curled up in her arms, and knew the whole story.
My mother said that Shen Huai's last wife died of dystocia and the child also died, which has always been a scar in his heart. When he met my mother, he was at the lowest point in his life. At that time, my mother divorced me and took me with her, and there was no future for us. The two sad people began to get closer because of working together, and because of the long-term tacit understanding and temperament, they developed a yearning for love. The two broken hearts comforted each other and slowly came together, and quickly took root, sprouted, and formed the flower of marriage.
Apart from herself, I don't rule out the idea that my mother wants me to have a complete family again.
Shen Huai has always been by her mother's side. She wants to leave a child for this man who loves her and her daughter like his life, but her health is not good and the chance of pregnancy is very small. Her mother is an elderly mother, and even if she succeeds in getting pregnant, giving birth is very dangerous.
In other words, Mom is like a gambler, betting on a glimmer of hope.
When Shen Huai knew about this, he firmly opposed it. However, after his mother's pleading, this usually taciturn man burst into tears and reluctantly agreed to her request.
After telling me all this, my mother laughed and talked about the experience of sharing hardships with me.
I listened to my mother say these words easily, holding her arms, my whole body shaking uncontrollably with fear and sadness. This is my mother, a great mother with love and kindness in her ordinary soul.
She reveres life because of love, and loves more bravely because of life. Even if the world were to end in the next second, she would never regret or take a step back.
In the darkness, my tears were flowing uncontrollably. Afraid that she would notice, I turned my back and secretly wiped my tears with my arm. But my tear ducts seemed to have collapsed. The more I wiped, the more tears came out and I couldn't wipe them away.
I don’t know when I fell asleep. In a daze, I felt someone carrying me back to the room, tucking me in, and then walking out quietly.
When I woke up in the morning, I was sleeping in my own bed, and there was a note on the bedside:
Weiyang, let's go to the hospital for a check-up. Remember to eat breakfast.
The signature was Shen Huai. My heart was instantly filled with regret, for my previous attitude towards Shen Huai, and for my willfulness in rushing out of the house without caring about anything.
I opened the curtains and found that Shen Huai's car was gone downstairs. I cleaned up the messy living room, watched TV for a while, and started preparing lunch at around eleven o'clock, thinking that I could eat directly after my mother and Shen Huai came back from the hospital. However, they didn't come back until one o'clock. I waited for another half an hour, but still didn't see them come back, so I called my mother's cell phone anxiously, and it was Shen Huai who answered.
Shen Huai said they were still waiting in line. There were fewer doctors during the Spring Festival, but there were still many patients. Shen Huai discussed with me whether it would be better to let my mother be hospitalized directly, so that she would not have to run back and forth between home and the hospital, and avoid the hardship of traveling and waiting in line every day. Of course I agreed.
Thinking that they didn't bring any daily necessities with them, and Shen Huai was taking care of his mother and couldn't move, I packed some daily necessities that they would need and sent them to the hospital.
When I arrived at the hospital, Shen Huai was waiting for me outside the ward. He said that my mother had just fallen asleep, and there were many people and germs in the hospital, so I could go home and rest without worry, and he would take care of my mother in the hospital.
I went home hesitantly. Shen Huai stayed in the hospital with me for several days. I was worried that they didn't eat well, so I used my limited cooking skills to deliver meals every day and try to improve their meals.
I was washing vegetables in the kitchen that day when July called.
She sounded very excited on the phone and said that she would not be back until the evening and asked me to go to her grandmother's house early to celebrate Grandma Zhuang's 70th birthday.
Last time I went to Grandma Zhuang's house, I came back empty-handed, and I felt bad about it, so I took this opportunity to repay her in a small way. Thinking that no gift could compare to my own thoughts, I cooked a bowl of longevity noodles, added minced meat, vegetables and poached eggs, and packed it in a thermos box.
The noodles will become a lump if left for too long, so I closed the door and ran to the bus stop carrying the thermal box.
Along the way, I was worried about whether the noodles were salty or not. Grandma Zhuang is in poor health, and it is best for the elderly to eat light food. I just started to taste it.
After entering the alley, I saw the small bungalow of Grandma Zhuang was surrounded by a crowd of people, pointing and talking, and I had no idea what was going on.
"Please make way, please." I squeezed in through the crowd with difficulty.
After squeezing out of the crowd, I found that the flower pots in the yard were smashed to the ground, the bamboo poles for drying clothes fell beside the wall, and all the chickens fed by Grandma Zhuang were dead. There were a few broken bricks scattered around, and the scarlet chicken blood mixed with the stagnant water was flowing all over the ground, which looked shocking.
Something happened! This thought flashed through my mind, and I ran into the house desperately. I shouted Grandma Zhuang's name loudly. Today is Wednesday, Zhuang Nan is in school, and Grandma Zhuang is home alone.
The inside of the house was in an even more disastrous state. There was no space to stand. Tables and chairs were toppled over, dishes and chopsticks were thrown from the kitchen onto the cabinet outside, clothes were scattered everywhere, and broken glass and porcelain pieces were everywhere.
I picked up the centenary dress I had seen earlier. The dress was already finished, with muddy footprints all over it and a hole burned by falling cigarette ash. My throat seemed to be grabbed by invisible iron claws, and I couldn't breathe. I put down the clothes and the thermos bucket I brought with me, and ran to the bedroom to look for someone. There was no one in July's room; there was no one in Grandma Zhuang's bedroom.
I returned, rushed out the door, and anxiously shouted to the crowd, "Where's Grandma Zhuang? Has anyone seen her?"
"Poor thing, I heard he was beaten by loan sharks."
"She was noisy all morning, and when we got there, Grandma Zhuang was lying on the ground. She looked like she was dying."
"You are Grandma Zhuang's granddaughter, right? Why do you always mess with all these bad people?"
"It's not her granddaughter. I called her granddaughter. I'm afraid she's already in the hospital."
"Mingya Hospital, a kind-hearted person has taken grandma to the hospital."
I heard the words "Mingya Hospital" from the chaotic responses, and desperately pushed through the crowd and ran out. But was it too late? Was it too late to save those lives that were ruthlessly lost despite desperate calls? Was it too late?
I heard the sound of breathing rising and falling in my chest, again and again, as if it was about to burst out.
By July, she had lost so much, so much.
Dear God, if you really exist, please don't be so cruel.
