At fifty-one, my husband decided that the 3,200 yuan I earned each month wasn't enough. Behind my back, he spoke to the store manager, planning to make me quit my job and take care of our grandson full-time.
I hauled my suitcase back to my parents' home, only to find my seventy-year-old mother running away from home too.
She scolded me first: "You're old enough to know better. Why are you fighting with a man?"
I looked at the even bigger suitcase by her feet and said nothing.
When we got to my grandmother's house, my younger aunt was already settled in, hugging a pillow.
The three of us couldn't find a single person willing to go back, yet when it came to advising each other, we were all paragons of common sense.
I'd barely started eating a hot meal when my uncle came in carrying a wedding bed. "Clear out the east room. My son is getting married."
Later, my husband came too. He fixed the faucet, the fan, the cupboard door, and the doorbell, but he never took me home.
All I wanted was to keep my 3,200-yuan job and have a bed I wouldn't have to give up to someone else at a moment's notice.
But everyone in this family thinks they've already decided what's best for me.
