Mom's Bone-Carving Craft

My mom was an expert at faking accidents. She taught herself human anatomy for one reason: to break my bones with pinpoint accuracy. She said a minor fracture would fool the hospital’s X-rays perfectly, heal quickly within a month, and never interfere with the next “job.” After she’d broken my bones thirteen times, I’d become something of an expert myself. I’d even remind her without being asked: “Mom, last time it was the tibia in my left leg. This time, let’s go with the ulna in my right arm. Otherwise, too many old fractures will give us away.” Every time she swindled a large sum of money, she rewarded me with a cheap popsicle. It was the only sweetness I could taste amid the endless pain. I even began to look forward to each new fracture. Until one day, we bumped into an unremarkable van. The owner crouched down. I expertly squeezed out a few tears, ready to recite my “I broke my leg” lines. But he ignored my leg, gently lifted my arm, then suddenly looked up at my mother and asked an unrelated question: “Do you remember Li Jing?” My mother’s wailing stopped dead. Li Jing was her first daughter, who had supposedly died in an “accident” many years ago. The man stood up, his eyes cold as a blade. “I was the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy back then. I’ve been looking for you for ten years.”