Chapter 13

Chapter 13

In the spring of the third year after Nanzhi left, I took Xiaoman to the back alley of the hospital to feed Doubao.

Doubao was very old now. Its fur had gone dull and gray, and it moved slowly. Xiaoman crouched by the foot of the wall and called it “Teacher,” just like Nanzhi used to. Doubao looked up at her and, as if doing her a reluctant favor, ate two mouthfuls of cat food.

The wind blew in from the mouth of the alley, carrying the scent of locust blossoms and rain-soaked earth.

Xiaoman suddenly asked, “Daddy, is Mommy in the wind today?”

I would have said yes before.

I would have been in a hurry to turn Nanzhi into wind, into clouds, into every untouchable thing that could still comfort a child. But the therapist said children needed poetry, and they also needed honesty. Honesty didn’t mean pouring all the cruelty onto her. It meant giving her a patch of ground steady enough to stand on.

So I crouched down and looked her in the eye.

“Mommy isn’t in the wind,” I said. “Mommy has passed away. Passed away means she can’t come back to eat with us, or sleep, or hug you anymore.”

Xiaoman’s eyes slowly turned red.

I went on, “But Mommy loved you. She wrote you lots of letters, and she taught Daddy many things. When the wind blows, we think of her. That part is true.”

Xiaoman lowered her head and thought for a long time. Then she asked, “Does missing her hurt?”

I said, “It does.”

She asked again, “What do you do when it hurts?”

I pulled her into my arms.

“When it hurts, tell the people around you. Don’t bear it all by yourself.”

She lay against my shoulder and said in a very small voice, “Daddy, I miss Mommy.”

I closed my eyes for a moment.

“I miss her too.”

After we got home that day, I opened the letter Nanzhi had left for Xiaoman’s third birthday. There were only a few short lines inside:

Xiaoman, at three years old, you may ask a lot of whys. If you ask why Mommy isn’t here, don’t be afraid of making Daddy cry. When grown-ups cry, it isn’t your fault. And you coming into this world was never anyone’s fault either. You were simply loved, and then you kept growing up.

I read it to Xiaoman.

She didn’t really understand, but she very carefully folded the letter and put it inside the red block house.

Before bed that night, the final saved reminder in Fengli went off.

It was Nanzhi’s voice.

She said, “Liang Yanzhou, if you’re hearing this, please open the window. The wind is lovely today. You don’t have to hold on to it.”

I opened the window.

The spring breeze rushed in, stirring the string of Four Seasons Wind Chimes on the balcony. Spring was a cat’s meow, summer was soda, autumn was falling leaves, and winter was snow.

Xiaoman called from the bedroom, “Daddy, story time.”

I turned off my phone and walked toward her.

This time, I didn’t look back to search for Nanzhi.

Because I finally understood that she had left the wind behind not to keep me rooted in place.

It was to give me a push whenever I forgot the way home.

Later, Xiaoman learned how to write her own name.

She stuck a piece of paper beside Nanzhi’s photograph. On it, written crookedly, were the words: Xu Xiaoman.

I asked, “Why not Liang Xiaoman?”

She said, “Grandma said Mommy wanted to be remembered too.”

My nose stung. I nodded and said, “Okay.”

Later still, she added another line beside it: Liang Yanzhou.

I laughed and asked her, “Does Daddy need to be stuck up there too?”

Xiaoman nodded seriously. “A family should be together.”

The paper was pasted on crookedly, and the tape was wrinkled. But I didn’t re-stick it. A home wasn’t a neatly aligned form. Not every name had to stay in the correct place.

On the third anniversary of Nanzhi’s death, Xiaoman and I took a can of orange soda to the cemetery.

Xiaoman placed the soda in front of the gravestone and asked, “Will Mommy drink the first sip?”

I said, “Mommy always used to want to give the first sip to someone else.”

Xiaoman thought about it, opened the soda, and took a tiny sip herself. The bubbles stung her tongue so badly that she stuck it out.

“Then I’ll drink it for Mommy,” she said.

I looked at her and smiled, and suddenly something in my heart loosened.

After some people leave, they don’t become the eternally correct, eternally gentle shadows of legend. They lost their tempers too. They were afraid too. They wrote messy sticky notes too. They gave everything they had and still couldn’t stay.

Remembering her didn’t mean enshrining her in pain.

It meant allowing her to have lived as a whole person, and allowing us to keep living too.

On the way back, Xiaoman fell asleep in the back seat, clutching the unfinished can of soda. The setting sun slanted in through the car window, turning her lashes golden.

At a red light, I received a message from work.

They asked if I could join an emergency meeting that evening.

I stared at it for a long time, then replied: No. I need to cook dinner for my daughter tonight.

After sending it, I didn’t explain. I didn’t add a “sorry” either. The light turned green, and I drove on, my heart surprisingly calm.

When we got home, I made scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

This time, the eggs weren’t overcooked. Xiaoman took a bite and gave her serious assessment. “A little better than last time.”

I said, “Thank you, Teacher Xu.”

She laughed, a grain of rice stuck to the corner of her mouth.

After dinner, she moved the red block house to the window, then placed the gray blocks beside it. The bridge in the middle was still crooked, but it was much steadier than before.

The wind rang the Four Seasons Wind Chimes on the balcony.

I heard the cat’s meow, the soda, the falling leaves, and the snow.

I also heard water running in the kitchen, the sound of a child turning pages, and my own breathing, steady enough.

These sounds mingled together, and at last, they no longer felt like hallucinations.

They were life.

Nanzhi did not come back.

But she had been here.

And Xiaoman and I would go on building our bridge in the world she had loved.