Chapter 13
Edward Quan ·
I ended the call and silenced her number.
Zhao Xue messaged afterward.
“Proud of yourself for pushing my brother this far?”
“How are things going for all of you now?”
She didn’t reply.
A few days later, she took her mother to a care home.
In the group, she said she had a daughter to look after and simply couldn’t manage everything.
My former mother-in-law spent the whole night insulting her in the chat.
Zhao Ming paid the deposit. Zhao Xue covered the monthly fees. At last, the two of them began sharing the responsibility according to an agreement.
They stopped coming to me about the apartment.
I changed the lock on the main bedroom.
Both children had rooms of their own.
Zhao Nian put her childhood drawings on the wall.
Zhao Heng moved his desk beside the window.
For the first time, they had spaces that belonged to them.
Before school started, I took them shopping for new schoolbags.
Zhao Ming came too.
He waited outside the mall and asked whether we could have a meal together.
Zhao Nian looked at me uncertainly.
“Go if you want to,” I told them.
“Dad, will you bring us home?” Zhao Heng asked.
“Yes.”
“Then don’t be late.”
He nodded.
He spent two hours choosing schoolbags with them, without making their decisions for them.
Zhao Nian picked a reasonably priced blue bag.
“Don’t you want a more expensive one?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Mom says it only needs to do the job.”
He glanced at me and said no more.
At the meal, he peeled shrimp for the children.
He had never had the patience for that before.
Zhao Nian suddenly asked:
“Dad, why did Grandma always say our home belonged to the Zhao family?”
His hand stopped.
“That’s a matter for adults.”
“But we heard you and Mom arguing about it.”
He was silent for a long time.
“The apartment belongs to your mother. Grandma was wrong.”
Zhao Heng kept his eyes on his food.
“Then why did Auntie say Mom wasn’t doing her duty?”
Zhao Ming put down his chopsticks.
“Because they wanted her to give up the apartment.”
Zhao Nian looked up.
“Did you want that too?”
He didn’t avoid their eyes.
“I did.”
“And then?”
“Then I realized I was wrong.”
She asked no more.
On the way home, he said to me:
“I always thought you had a home and a job, so you could handle anything.”
“So you left all the responsibility to me.”
“I thought you’d never leave.”
“Push someone far enough, and they will.”
He stopped the car downstairs.
“Could I come up for a while?”
“The children can. You can stay here.”
He stood by the car and watched us go inside.
Zhao Nian turned and waved.
He raised a hand but didn’t follow.
11.
Three months after the divorce, I rearranged my daytime work hours and took on some bookkeeping in the evenings.
The children began learning to help around the house.
Zhao Heng took out the rubbish. Zhao Nian cleared the table.
Sometimes they missed their father and spent a night at his place.
I didn’t stop them.
As long as he brought them back on time and didn’t let his mother upset them with her remarks, I would respect their relationship with him.
My former mother-in-law wasn’t finding life at the care home particularly peaceful either.
Every day, she demanded to see Zhao Ming and insisted he bring the children.
He visited several times.
Each time, he came back exhausted.
Once, he asked me:
“Mom says she wants to move near your place.”
“She owns an apartment.”
“She says there’s nobody there to care for her.”
“You can hire a caregiver.”
“She won’t agree.”
“Then look after her yourself.”
He lowered his head and rubbed his forehead.
“She says she’ll only feel secure if she moves into your home.”
“For her to feel secure, I’ve always had to hand over my apartment.”
He said no more.
Later, she fell at the care home and was hospitalized.
Zhao Xue and Zhao Ming took turns staying with her.
After two nights, Zhao Xue went home.
Zhao Ming took a week off work to look after her, and his job suffered.
Only then did he truly understand that caring for an older person was never as simple as saying, “Move in with us.”
His mother needed follow-up appointments, medicine, someone to accompany her for tests.
When she woke at night, someone had to help her up. She needed reminders to eat. After discharge, she still needed rehabilitation.
All of it wore away his patience.
One day, when dropping off the children, he said:
“Mom spent twelve years looking after Xiaoxue’s daughter. I always thought how hard she’d worked.”
“She did put in the work.”
“But she turned all those years of looking after her granddaughter into a reason I had to repay her for the rest of my life.”
I said nothing.
He went on:
“Before she came to your home, I thought we could all get by if you’d just compromise.”
“You were wrong.”
“I know that now.”
“Then stop passing her problems to me.”
“I won’t do it again.”