From Now On, Walk Toward the Light

In late autumn when I was four years old, my mother cooked her last meal in the kitchen house. She scrambled the only three eggs at home, put them in an enamel bowl, and brought them to Su Nian. "After eating." Su Nian remembered that her mother's hands were shaking all the time. That was the last time she saw her mother. The next morning, my mother disappeared. Grandpa squatted on the threshold and smoked dry cigarettes for half the night. Grandma hugged her, her eyes were red all night, but she didn't shed a single tear. Later, she pieced together the truth from villagers' gossip: When her father, Su Jianguo, was working in Shenzhen, he met a woman who owned a clothing store and divorced his mother when he came back. The mother did not argue or quarrel. She left her in Qingshi'ao and took a long-distance bus to Zhejiang. She was never heard from again. Su Jianguo, on the other hand, put the divorce certificate in his pocket and left. Before leaving, he glanced at Su Nian and said, "When dad establishes a firm footing over there, he will come back to pick you up." Su Nian had been waiting for this sentence for fourteen years but had never fulfilled it.