One late-autumn day, when she was four, her mother cooked one last meal in the kitchen. She fried all three eggs the family had and put them in an enamel bowl, which she set in front of Su Nian.
“Finish them.”
Su Nian remembered that her mother’s hands had been trembling. It was the last time she ever saw her. The next morning, her mother was gone. Her grandfather squatted on the threshold, smoking his pipe for half the night. Her grandmother held her close, her eyes red all night, but not a single tear fell.
Later, Su Nian pieced together the truth from village gossip: Her father, Su Jianguo, had met a woman who owned a clothing shop while working in Shenzhen. He came home and divorced her mother. Her mother neither argued nor fought. She left Su Nian behind in Qingshi’ao, boarded a long-distance bus to Zhejiang, and was never heard from again.
As for Su Jianguo, he tucked the divorce certificate into his pocket and left. Before he went, he glanced at Su Nian and said, “Once your dad gets settled over there, I’ll come back for you.”
Su Nian waited fourteen years for those words to come true. They never did.
The writing is delicate and uses the simplest words to express the most profound feelings!
It is true that flowers of hope grow in the land of suffering. The little girl uses real writing to record the world, record life, and give birth to hope. Life should be kind to such outstanding children.