Chapter 42: Separation
On the fourth day after the birth of the child, Lao Jiang finally rushed back. As soon as he entered the ward, he saw Hang Liumei sitting by the bed, bending over and patting the child to sleep.
"Xiaomei!" Lao Jiang shouted and ran to them, bringing with him a gust of cool dust. When he got closer and saw Hang Liumei's yellow face and swollen eyelids, he knew that she was not living well.
Hang Liumei had just been smiling at the child, but when she saw Lao Jiang, she froze and burst into tears: "Where were you on a business trip? Why are you here just now? You weren't here when I gave birth."
Lao Jiang's eyes suddenly turned red, and he kept waving his hands to comfort Hang Liumei, "Don't cry, don't cry. They specifically told me not to cry during confinement. It will damage your eyes. Look at the corners of your eyes, what's wrong with them? Why are they all bloodshot? Did you cry after giving birth?"
"No! That's because my eyes were congested from giving birth too hard. The doctor said I should wait for it to get better slowly." Hang Liumei cried harder and harder. The nurse came in to check on her and stopped her, "If you cry again, your milk will stop coming out! Your baby will starve!" Her sobbing stopped immediately, and she calmed down with a sniffle.
"I knew you weren't here to see me. Look, your son is over there." Hang Liumei pointed at the child coldly. Old Jiang leaned over to take a closer look. "Such a good child! This is our child. This child is really good."
"You're looking after the children, not picking watermelons. Hug your son."
Lao Jiang was about to reach out his hand, but immediately retracted it, turned around and went out to wash his hands. When he came back, he wiped the water on his hands on his pants as he walked. After wiping the back of his hands, he changed to the palms, stood by the bed, and cautiously reached out to the child.
He held the child's neck with one hand and his buttocks with the other, lifted him up flat, and then he didn't know what to do. The child was uncomfortable and struggled to move his hands slightly. Lao Jiang felt that the soft flesh in his hand seemed to be slipping away, and asked Hang Liumei anxiously, "What should I do? Hurry up and take it."
"He's just a baby, not an atomic bomb. Why are you holding him like this?" Hang Liumei stood up and helped him adjust his posture. "You've also held Yingying before, so why can't you do it now?"
Hang Liumei happily sat back on the bed, looking at the father and son.
Old Jiang was teasing the child while looking at his wife. The cotton coat and hat that Hang Liumei was wearing were all made and sent by her family in advance. It was obvious that Hang Liumei was not as generous and plump as they had expected. The clothes were too big for her, and she looked like an unripe peanut hidden in a peanut shell.
Lao Jiang felt bad and was afraid that Hang Liumei would see it, so he turned around and pinched the edge of the swaddling clothes to wipe away a tear.
Hang Liumei was soon taken back to the research institute to recuperate after her childbirth. Old Jiang seemed to have endless energy; the moment he opened his eyes, he was filled with activity. He boiled water, cooked, held the baby, washed clothes and diapers, leaving tiny cracks on his hands. It was cold, and the water was so icy it hurt his bones. Old Jiang taped the wounds shut and continued working.
There weren't many good foods back then, so the only nourishing foods during the confinement period were millet and mutton. Hang Liumei, unwilling to stay in bed all the time, got up and made millet porridge and mutton soup. When the mutton was ready, she asked Lao Jiang to share it, but he refused to eat it. So Hang Liumei deliberately left the bones in his bowl.
Lao Jiang saw through her trick and refused to eat it after trying it once. The two of them pushed each other and the good mutton soup got cold and had to be heated up again.
After maternity leave, it was time to return to work, and raising the child became their biggest headache. There were no nannies in Dunhuang, and not everyone could afford to bring their elderly parents here to help. Just finding accommodation was a challenge. At first, Hang Liumei ran a lot—she had to breastfeed. But copying and painting requires complete concentration, and her constant interruptions delayed her progress.
Before long, her milk stopped flowing, so she bought her son some formula so Lao Jiang could take over. As the child grew older, they still had to be tied to the bedside, just like Yingying had done back then. The elders advised Hang Liumei that this was dangerous; the child could crawl now, and if he got tangled around her neck, it would be troublesome. But they had done the same thing back then. If anyone had a spare person, they would help out and keep an eye on the child from time to time. If not, it was all up to the parents, worried and taking a gamble, raising these little people helplessly.
Finally, something happened that made Hang Liumei and Lao Jiang decide to send the child away temporarily.
Their son, like Yingying back then, crawled around and fell off the bed. Fortunately, he wasn't injured, but instead crawled even more happily, leaving the yard on his own. A colleague, feeling unwell, came back to rest and saw the child crawling into the woods. He picked him up and went to find Lao Jiang. There were many stray dogs and cats nearby. If they hadn't been around at noon, the child might have been lost or injured. Neither of them would have been able to get over this.
Hang Liumei and Lao Jiang were terrified, so they decided to send the child to Lao Jiang's hometown in Henan. It was a similar farmhouse, more crowded and lively, and the older children were older, so there were plenty of helpers and playmates.
They took a leave of absence and boarded the train back home with their son. Hang Liumei couldn't describe her feelings. The child could now walk unsteadily and was trying to climb up with support, trying to get to the window to see the scenery. Hang Liumei hugged him in her arms: "Mom will hold you and watch, don't make trouble."
He was disobedient and twisted his body in her arms to get off the ground. Hang Liumei put him down, but he wanted to climb the window by himself. She gave him space and let him press his little face against the car window.
The adults thought the train was going too fast, but the child thought it was too slow. By the time the train arrived, the carriage and the scenery outside were no longer new to him. But he adapted quickly, seemingly accepting life on the train. He could finally sit quietly on Hang Liumei's lap, letting her hold him while she pointed out the farmland outside and told him stories.
After getting off the train, they took the bus, then hitchhiked back to the courtyard where Lao Jiang grew up. He'd gone to school at fifteen and had been away for years. The last time he'd been home was to visit the ancestral graves with his new wife. Hang Liumei's parents-in-law and aunts were waiting for them to eat, making them stewed vegetables and pulled noodles.
Old Jiang ate voraciously, while Hang Liumei had no appetite and fed her son the porridge while she ate. Her mother-in-law looked at her with the bowl in her hand for a while and said, "Xiaomei, you didn't take good care of yourself after giving birth. Your hair isn't as good as it was last time. It's okay. I'll buy you some sesame seeds later. You can take them with you when you leave. It will be fine after you have some nourishment."
"I was so busy at that time that I didn't have time to pay attention to it." Hang Liumei forced a smile and lowered her head to scrape the edge of the bowl.
Seeing that she was still somewhat energetic, everyone started a conversation, following her lead. My second sister said, "City women are the best. Look at her, she looks like she didn't give birth before. Unlike me, who has a thick waist and a big butt, I look like a butcher from behind. Xiaomei, you really need to eat well. Don't worry about leaving the child with us. We know you're reluctant to let him go. A good seedling will grow up quickly, and it will be the same when you take him back."
She was about to take the child away so that Hang Liumei could concentrate on eating. Hang Liumei didn't react and raised her arm to stop her. After understanding her intention, she withdrew her hand and picked up the bowl again.
The second sister tossed the child around the dinner table and said, "Look how skinny you are! Your parents left you here to play in the mud. When you grow up you'll be so fat they won't even recognize you."
Hearing this, Hang Liumei pursed her lips, tears falling into her bowl. Seeing her like this, Lao Jiang winked at his family, telling them to pretend they hadn't noticed. He stood up, wiped his mouth, and brought the child over, letting him ride on his neck. The child giggled, and Hang Liumei finally finished her meal without savoring it.
At night, when the children were already asleep, the two of them lit banknotes by kerosene lamp.
"How about leaving some more for Mom?" Lao Jiang divided the money they brought into two parts, one for his mother and one for his second sister. These two people would be the main force in raising the children in the future.
"Mom is old, and sometimes she doesn't know what to feed or use for the children. The old lady lives frugally, so I'd better give some to my second sister so that she can be more frugal." Hang Liumei distributed the pieces here and there, as if she had cut her own heart into pieces, throwing one piece here and one piece there.
Lao Jiang took the money and gave it to his mother first. She took half and gave him the other half: "No, no, we eat and wear our own food, so we don't need so much. You and Xiaomei still need to take some for the way back. Take it."
"We still have some, and it's not just for taking care of the kids. We also have some for you and my dad. Don't be too stingy with yourselves. Replace things around the house if they need replacing. Our chopping board is almost cracked in two. Let's buy a new one."
After watching his mother accept the money, Lao Jiang went to see his second sister again. His second sister lived across the street. Seeing Lao Jiang coming over in the middle of the night, she was a little surprised. She sat on the bed and continued to sew shoes: "What's wrong again? Are you holding back your fart?"
As soon as Lao Jiang took out the money, she cried out, threw her shoe sole aside, jumped off the bed, stood in front of Lao Jiang and said, "You two are really, really careless. What kind of money can you spend on a child this young? And you are so polite to us? You two are really something! Take it back quickly, and tell your wife that although we are farmers, we will never mistreat the child."
"Sister! That's not what we meant! He's your nephew, so why should we worry about leaving him to you? But even if he's a very young child, he's also tiring. Your Tianwa also has to go to school, and you've worked hard, so you take it. Otherwise, we'll both feel bad."
"Hey! Okay, okay, don't be so sad. You're still at home. It's not like you're giving the child away. Come back when you miss him. It's quite convenient now."
The brother and sister talked for a while, and when Lao Jiang said goodbye and went back, Hang Liumei had already coaxed the child to sleep.
After much deliberation, the two decided to leave while the child was still asleep. On the way back to Dunhuang, Hang Liumei cried from time to time. Even when they reached Liuyuan, she was still telling Lao Jiang that if they continued walking, they would be back at the Mogao Grottoes. It would be too late to turn around, so they should just bring the child back.
Lao Jiang pressed her shoulder and said seriously, "Xiaomei, it's okay, but we have to think it over carefully. If we accept it, we have to bite our teeth and take care of it ourselves no matter what. We never want to send it away again. I'll listen to you, but we can't regret it."
Hang Liumei sat at the station for a while, then stood up and said to Lao Jiang, "Let's go back to Dunhuang."
It was a year later that they saw the child again. Hang Liumei and Lao Jiang returned home, but no one was there. They asked the neighbors, who said they'd gone out to market. They ran out too, and on the way, they ran into the parents and their son. Such a young child changes every day, and after not seeing him for a year, they couldn't believe the dark, plump boy in his mother's arms was their son. He looked two years old, but he was the size of a three-year-old. He had a runny nose and wore open-crotch wool pants. He didn't react at all to seeing Hang Liumei and Lao Jiang.
His grandmother pointed at Hang Liumei and Lao Jiang and said to him, "These are your father and mother. This child is stupid. Why didn't he call for help?"
He hugged his grandmother's neck and turned away from them. His grandmother patted his butt and said, "It's been too long. You're shy. You're such a heartless kid. He'll be fine after a while. He has a good personality and has gotten along well with everyone in the area around our village."
When they got home, grandma wanted to put him down, and Hang Liumei followed beside her and opened her arms: "Let mommy hold you?"
He still didn't want it, and went off to play by himself after landing.
But when Hang Liumei went to the water tank to draw water, he watched from afar; when Hang Liumei sat down to pick vegetables, he moved in beside her; when Hang Liumei went to the toilet, he wanted to follow her. In less than half a day, he thought of them and clung to them all day long.
Unfortunately, Hang Liumei and Lao Jiang could only come back for a few days during their vacation. When it was time to leave, their son cried non-stop. Hang Liumei gritted her teeth and left. Only after getting on the train did she realize that she had been clenching her hands so tightly that a row of nail marks had been left on her palms, messing up the lines in her palms. Hang Liumei still saw the marks of her son's tears on her shoulders, and she couldn't help crying again.
After returning to Dunhuang this time, she changed her mind. Another year passed, and Hang Liumei told Lao Jiang that the child was almost three years old, so she should bring him back and raise him herself. Lao Jiang said, "Okay, I can't stand it anymore."
However, Hang Liumei found out that she was pregnant again, but when she realized it, the child had already left her.
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