Chapter 4

Xiaomin’s mother cooked a table full of dishes and called her husband home to share a few drinks.

After decades as neighbors, they took Dad’s misfortune as the settling of an old score.

They talked nonstop over dinner. Dad had broken the bridge of his student’s nose, they said. Legally, intentional assault was an open-and-shut case. Morally, things looked even worse.

The student had produced a diagnosis of depression. A decline in his grades was understandable, yet Dad—a teacher—had constantly humiliated him, calling him garbage, useless, and retarded.

“Serves him right,” Auntie Xiaomin said. “Does he think he’s the only intelligent person in the world? Everyone he meets is a retard to him.”

Clearly, Xiaomin had been one of his victims too.

When they heard he might be suspended, the couple happily clinked glasses.

Then Auntie Xiaomin asked, “Little Mimi, your mother didn’t come back to save him, did she?”

Uncle Xiaomin said, “No chance. Even if Ms. Zhang had that kind of power—and she doesn’t—why would she use it on him?”

They both turned to me expectantly.

“Right, Xiao Mi?”

Since I was eating their pork hock, I nodded with great tact.

“Don’t worry, Uncle, Auntie. The moment I hear anything, I’ll report back.”

“That isn’t what we meant,” Uncle Xiaomin said.

“Right, right,” his wife added quickly. “We only mean you should come over often. Auntie will braise pork hock for you.”

I had not even swallowed the bite in my mouth when her husband said, “She’ll get tired of that. Tomorrow, let’s fry her a whole chicken!”

Thanks to Dad, I had excellent food.

As I said, Mom had come for my sister. She thought Wenwen’s emotions were far too unstable. How could she miss the national exam over something like this? Mom wanted to take her to a psychiatrist.

My sister took the suggestion as a mortal insult.

“You think I’m like those retards? You think I could have that so-called depression? Dad would never say that about me! If I lose him, I’ll kill myself!”

Mom did not dare provoke her. She could only accompany her to the police station each day for the mediation meetings.

But Mom made one thing clear to me. “Your sister is my problem, not yours. The best way you can help is by enjoying yourself.”

That would not do. I needed fresh gossip. Otherwise, how could I show my face at Xiaomin’s house and eat their meat?

So every day, I happily followed Mom to the station to watch Dad act like a lunatic.

He truly was one.

He even ranted at the police, “I’m the boy’s teacher. My methods may have been excessive, but I was helping him understand what he really is!”

I carried every scrap of news back to Xiaomin’s family.

Her father pounded the table, laughing. “If he weren’t at a police station, someone would have broken every bone in his body.”

But her mother asked, “Was the student there when he said all that nonsense?”

I said yes.

Her face instantly softened with pity. “And that man calls himself a teacher.”

The mood turned somber.

“He belongs in prison,” Uncle Xiaomin said.

His wife kicked him under the table and glanced meaningfully at me. The gesture was painfully obvious.

She tried a gentler approach. “You know, you don’t have to go to the station. Wouldn’t it be nicer to stay here with Xiaomin? I’ll buy you a giant watermelon, and you two can enjoy the air-conditioning.”

I nodded furiously. “Okay! I won’t go anymore!”

I had little affection for Dad and carried no real emotional burden over him.

But watermelon and air-conditioning were extremely persuasive.

Besides, I did not need to visit the police station to enjoy the drama.

One afternoon, Xiaomin, her parents, and I were upstairs when the spectacle came straight to us.

Mom and Dad began arguing in the courtyard below.

Dad’s booming voice drew us to the window.

“I’m his teacher! His intelligence is low, and I’m not allowed to educate him?”

Mom was going out of her mind. “That child only wants an apology!”

“He deserves one? What is he, anyway? A retard thinks he can demand my apology? Low intelligence is low intelligence. I call my own daughter retarded too—”

“Enough!” Mom roared. “Do not mention Xiao Mi!”

He continued screaming abuse across the compound. He said Mom was like every parent who spoiled a child and refused to recognize the child’s limits.

At the time, Xiaomin, both her parents, and I were at the third-floor window, each clutching half a watermelon.

As if struck by divine revelation, Mom suddenly turned and looked up in horror.

I ducked below the windowsill.

That day, Mom slapped Dad.

Dad, magnificent man that he was, dragged her right back to the police station. He squeezed two thousand yuan out of her before agreeing to settle.

Mom did not come for me that night.

I found her beside the river.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked.

It was hardly a mystery. Right after the divorce, she had fought battles all day and come here every night.

Suddenly, she said, “I’m not a good mother.”

What?

She plunged into frantic self-reproach.

“You were only a little different from me, and I didn’t know how to teach you. I had to hire someone else.”

“My emotions are unstable too. Your father says people in literature are prone to losing control.”

“And I…”

At last, I understood. That day at the station, Mom had not only lost two thousand yuan; Dad had also gotten inside her head.

That was what he did. With twisted logic, he could reduce anyone to nothing. He often told Mom that “arts students have no brains.”

What rotten luck, having an ex-husband like him.

I walked over and hugged her. “Mom, Dad is a lunatic. Everything a lunatic says is a fart.”

She froze, then burst out laughing.

She was smiling! I hurried to keep going.

“Mom, everything will be fine once we go home. You’ll be happy again.”

I was young and could not express exactly what I meant. I only knew that Mom had slipped back into the terrible state she had been in before the divorce.

But she was brilliant and beautiful. It was so much better when she laughed every day. She only had to stay away from that madman.

While I desperately searched for another way to cheer her up, she seemed to make a decision.

“Xiao Mi, do you remember when you were nine, at your grandmother’s house?”

I nodded.

“When your father took you away, what was your sister doing?”

“Watching,” I said.

In that instant, Mom looked as if she might shatter.

She lowered her eyes. “There must be something wrong with my genes, to have given birth to a daughter like that.”

I answered without thinking. “Come on. If you said she took after you, Dad would be the first to object.”

Mom smiled faintly.

Then she said softly, “Xiao Mi, I’m sorry. Just because you were the more sensible child, I pretended you weren’t hurting. I promise that from today on, I’ll be a strong mother.”