Chapter 3
Chapter 3
In my memory, that woman ran a small snack shop, leaving early and returning late every day.
Before heading out, she would pull a few bills from her wallet and grandly tell us to go buy some breakfast.
When she returned in the evening, her hands would be full of bags. She’d lecture us about eating fewer snacks while simultaneously pulling ice cream, cola, and chocolate out of those very shopping bags.
Whenever she bought something, she always bought two. Her daughter’s canvas shoes, dresses, sunscreen… I had a set of my own.
They were identical.
Those days have always held a special place in my memory, yet I could never quite put my finger on why they were so significant.
It wasn’t until I returned to this summer and more details surfaced that I made a startling discovery:
That was the first time I ever admitted to myself that I missed my mother.
As it turned out, that inexplicable feeling those days brought me was simply longing.
If time were following the path of my memories, it shouldn’t have skipped over that period.
And yet, fate seemed to be playing a cruel joke on me.
Time had jumped directly from the last day of summer break back to the very first day.
It had perfectly bypassed the month I spent working as a tutor!
On the first day of summer break, my father refused to take any of my calls. On the second day, I found the part-time job advertisement on my dormitory door.
And on the last day of summer break, I was cleaning the dorm because I had just moved back from that family’s home the day before.
It was as if time had been meticulously timed to precisely excise that one month.
In the mirror, the countdown continued to tick, the numbers dwindling.
Three digits representing years, months, and days.
In despair, I buried my face in the washbasin, frantically searching through my chaotic memories.
Only when the last bit of oxygen in my lungs was exhausted did I snap my head up. Staring at my dripping reflection in the mirror, a question suddenly struck me:
“What did they actually look like?”
Suddenly, I realized I couldn’t recall the faces of that mother and daughter at all.
In the images of my memory, their faces never seemed to be in focus.
Every detail of our life together was crystal clear, yet their faces were blank!
Fear coiled and grew in my heart like poisonous vines.
They… they really existed, didn’t they?
I slammed my head against the mirror. Once, twice, three times…
Until finally, I remembered: the woman’s surname seemed to be Luo, and I remembered their address.
I decided to go there myself to verify my own memories.