The Love

My mother lay motionless in the bush, showing no trace of life. I wept until every tear was gone, and until I was left exhausted and starving. I had no choice but to wait for death and reunite with my mother in heaven. The last morsel of meat was stale, maggots crawling from it; though it sickened me, survival demanded I eat. I devoured it in haste, but I choked as it caught in my throat. I was breathless and soon my vision blurred. Beside my ears, my mother whispered again and again, “you’ll be only yourself, until the person who matters most enters your life.”

This was not only my dream, but the life I truly lived.

I curled up in my small bed on the balcony, basking in the morning sun, until a scent reached me. At first, its fragrance was sharp and pungent, like detergent, but soon it softened into the scent of roses. Curious, I traced the odor to the bathroom, where Qing stood before a mirror, combing her hair with a white cream. I hopped onto the washbasin and saw the words ‘Hair Dye’ printed boldly across the packaging. She combed the dye through every strand, refusing to let a single gray hair escape its touch. After a while, the dye had cloaked every silver strand, leaving her hair as black as coal.

On the table lay a letter and a photo, in which Qing’s husband, Zhao, wrapped his arms around another woman who cuddled a baby. The truth – that Zhao’s poems were not only for Qing but also for another woman – remained hidden until the letter and the photo struck Qing like a tornado—sudden, fierce, and unstoppable. For five years, as Zhao battled the lung cancer, Qing bore the weight of life alone. I still remembered that Qing’s hands trembled as she held the photo—it felt like a knife slicing through her heart. The quarrel with her son in last night still lingered in this house. “Mom, you’re a control freak!” “You never really care about what I want.” I had never seen Qing cried so brokenly, and I cuddled up to her, trying to offer comfort.

After dyeing her hair, Qing walked back to her bedroom, the only place that I was not allowed to enter. She was anxious that my touch might unravel the neat world she had built. It was Qing who shielded me from the fate of homelessness and offered me the warmth of a home. Despite her relentless need for control, my love for her remained unchanged. But today, the door was ajar, leaving a slit, through which I could peep inside. Qing took a red velvet dress from the closet and held it before her. Once, she told me that this was her wedding dress, the one she cherished so deeply. Now, she stood before the closet for a long moment, staring into the mirror, as if the dress were a monster ready to devour her and digest every part of her. Slowly, she took off her pajamas and her figure was revealed. I saw how years of marriage had etched its quiet marks on her body—silver hair, soft creases, and sagged breasts. Her breasts surrendered to gravity – as though they were two deflated balloons. She took a deep breath and slipped into the dress, which seemed to cast a quiet spell on her, making her look younger and stronger, like a queen preparing to reclaim what was stolen.

Later in the afternoon, someone knocked on the door. I jumped off the table to crouch beside the door. As Qing opened the door, a middle-aged man stood outside, with a case of milk in his hands. A case of milk, in China was always considered an appropriate gift – neither too extravagant nor too trivial, for a first visit to a friend. She led the man into the small living room and seated him on the sofa, beside which lay my bed. I walked to my bed and lay there watching them. He complimented me, saying that I had snow-white fur and looked like an authentic Shandong Lion cat. Through their conversation, I knew that his name was Tong, and that he had been teaching chemistry at Qing’s school for just a year. I guessed he was in his late forties, but to my surprise, he had never married before. He didn’t look young, but neither was Qing – not to mention, she had a nineteen-year-old son.

From that day on, Qing changed her dressing style from trousers to long dresses, and also applied lipsticks. Even when neighbors gossiped about her, she chose to ignore them. The letter and the photo were placed in a drawer, and she appeared quiet and calm, yet beneath the surface an earthquake was erupting.

But I knew she was about to begin a new life, like a computer rebooting itself. She packed the clothes of her deceased husband into bags, boxed up his poetry collections and their wedding photos, and took down the curtains they had bought when they married. She carried the bags and boxes downstairs, trip after trip, until the last trace of her husband was gone. Neighbors complained that someone had dumped so much trash that there was no space for their own.

Torrents of summer rain battered the entire city all day long, flooding the streets and pavements. I crouched on the windowsill, watching the cars crawling through the flooded pavements outside. A few days ago, a child drowned when the drainage cover floated away. The city lay immersed in grief, as heavy and damp as the rain. The sky wept harder, and I thought it was grieving for the child. Moss crawled onto the walls, even though our home was on the third floor. Qing came back with a brochure advertising apartment sale, though all the buildings were still under construction.

Though I felt lonely when Qing was not at home, I had my friend, a pink toy mouse. One night, she came back and looked slightly drunk, her eyes sending out of a shadow of worry. “Tong asked me to marry him,” she crouched beside me, whispering, “he vowed to look after me, but I have no faith in marriage.” Weeks later, I noticed a pile of documents lying on the table — the purchase of the apartment had been canceled. Through her calls with her son, I understood that the money would be prepared for his master’s program in the United States.

Soon, the summer holiday came, but Qing couldn’t truly rest because the education bureaucracy required schools to reform on subjects, chaining all teachers to their desks. Her son, Xiao, came back from Beijing to spend his summer holiday. Qing was happy – until the day Tong encountered her son. Tong came, wearing a suit and holding a box of biscuits and a bottle of wine. During the lunch, Tong asked about how the life and study of Xiao in Beijing was. Xiao seemed distracted, his mind elsewhere, unwilling to respond Tong’s questions. The silence grew awkward, so I tried to divert their attention by knocking over a bottle. Out of the blue, Xiao turned and hurled a book at me; it struck my head squarely. I leapt back with a hiss, but he ignored me. Terrified, I crouched beneath the sofa.

Tong left, and soon Xiao and Qing quarreled fiercely.

“Mom, why do you need a boyfriend?” Xiao snapped, his voice sharp with fury. “Only young women chase after love.”

Qing remained silent, but her son pressed on. “You have me. You don’t need other men.”

He drew a heavy breath. “I studied so hard to enter the top university, just to make you proud. But now you’re hurting me. You’ve abandoned me for a man you barely know.”

Qing wept. “That’s not true,” she whispered. “I will always love you. You’re my priority.”

In the following days, Xiao was gone from noon to night, while Qing stayed at school, working on her project. I stayed alone at home. But one noon, Xiao came back with another boy who was chunkier than him. Now Xiao was fumbling through the drawer of Qing’s closet. It was a two-layer drawer, in the upper one, a box kept all certificates of prize that Xiao had won at school. But Xiao skipped it and opened the lower one, from which he grabbed a bank card. The boy beside him snatched it away, “Xiao, well done.” Then the boy frowned, “but do you know the password?” “I can try,” Xiao said. They returned the other items to the drawer and restored the scene to its formal calm – as though the crime had never occurred. I stood silently on the bookshelf, trying not to make a sound. Their stomping footsteps echoed along the walls and their laughter filled the corridor. My anxiety built up, hoping that Qing would come back and bump into them as soon as possible, but Qing couldn’t hear me.

Around six, Qing made back home, with a basket of apples. The basket was heavy, with very red, big and gleaming apples. I walked towards the apples and smelt them. Qing smiled and stroked me, “Snowball, you like them, right? Tong gave me these.”

She washed the celeries and green peppers, while I stood on the top of the freezer. She was chopping the celeries, suddenly, I heard a sharp “Ouch!” She had chopped her finger, the blood seeping out quickly. Crimson spread across the tissue, blooming like a rose in fresh snow. It was cruelly beautiful. She patched the cut with a plaster and resumed cooking as if nothing had happened. When the dish was placed on the dining table, Xiao came back. He stared into the dish for a while as though his mind had drifted elsewhere. “Son, your favorite food – stir-fried pork with celery.” Qing slid the plate towards her son, but Xiao just lifted his chopsticks, snatched a chunk of pork and put it in his mouth. He performed the series of actions on autopilot, like a robot programmed to complete a task. I was angry, so I leapt onto the dining table, trying to grab his attention. I hissed in front of him, while Qing thought I might be uncomfortable after eating stale food, so she took me off the table and put me in my bed.

After dinner, Qing washed dishes in the kitchen. I was jolted out of my dream by a sudden “pong”, and moments later, I smelt of blood. I crept into the kitchen and saw Qing lying on the floor, a pool of blood seeping from her head, while her son held a wrench. “Son, run! Don’t be caught,” Qing murmured in a feeble voice. My bank card’s password is your birthday.” Then her eyes closed.

As the door slammed shut, a shiver seized me. I strolled into my bedroom and snatched the red velvet dress, sprang onto the windowsill, and then dissolved into darkness.