Chapter 13
Edward Quan ·
Zhao Ming looked at me.
“I can.”
“You no longer have the right to ask me to keep trusting you.”
He lowered his head.
“Wanqing, I know I was wrong.”
“Whether you know you were wrong is your business.”
I turned and walked toward the parking lot.
That evening, my mother-in-law called.
“You and Mingming are divorced now. The children must return to the Zhao family to be raised.”
“The court order is very clear.”
“What kind of woman are you, raising two children on your own? How will you ever remarry?”
“I don’t plan to rely on remarriage to live.”
“Don’t talk so big. When you’re old, you’ll regret it.”
“Just take good care of yourself.”
“I’m still your mother-in-law!”
“We no longer have a legal relationship.”
I hung up and set her number to Do Not Disturb.
Then Zhao Xue sent me a message.
“You’ve driven my brother to this. Are you happy now?”
“How are you all doing?”
She didn’t answer.
A few days later, Zhao Xue moved my mother-in-law into a nursing home.
She wrote in the family group that she still had to care for her daughter and truly had no energy left.
My mother-in-law scolded her in the group all evening.
Zhao Ming paid the nursing home’s deposit, and Zhao Xue agreed to cover the monthly expenses. At last, the siblings began to fulfill their responsibilities according to their agreement.
They stopped coming to me to discuss the house.
I replaced the lock on the main bedroom.
The children each had their own room.
Zhao Nian hung her childhood drawings on the wall.
Zhao Hang moved his desk beside the window.
For the first time, they had a space that truly belonged to them.
Before school started, I took them to buy new backpacks.
Zhao Ming came too.
He stood at the entrance to the shopping center and asked if he could have a meal with us.
Zhao Nian looked at me.
I said, “If you want to go, you can.”
Zhao Hang asked, “Dad, will you bring us back afterward?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t be late.”
Zhao Ming nodded.
He spent two hours with the children picking out backpacks, but he didn’t choose for them.
Zhao Nian chose a reasonably priced blue backpack.
Zhao Ming asked, “Don’t you want a more expensive one?”
She shook her head.
“Mom says things only need to be good enough to use.”
Zhao Ming glanced at me but said nothing more.
At dinner, Zhao Ming peeled shrimp for the children.
Before, he had never had the patience to do things like that.
Zhao Nian suddenly asked, “Dad, why did Grandma keep saying our home belonged to the Zhao family?”
Zhao Ming’s hand stopped.
“That’s an adult matter.”
“But we heard everyone arguing about the house.”
Zhao Ming was silent for a long time.
“The house belongs to your mother. Grandma was wrong.”
Zhao Hang lowered his head and ate.
“Then why did Aunt say Mom was unfilial?”
Zhao Ming put down his chopsticks.
“Because they wanted your mother to give up the house.”
Zhao Nian looked up.
“Did you think that too, Dad?”
Zhao Ming did not avoid her gaze.
“I did.”
“And then?”
“Then I realized I was wrong.”
Zhao Nian did not ask anything more.
On the drive home, Zhao Ming said to me:
“I used to think that because you had a house and a job, you could handle anything.”
“So I left all the responsibility to you.”
“I thought you’d never leave.”
“When someone is pushed until there’s no way out, she may choose to leave.”
Zhao Ming stopped the car downstairs.
“Can I come up and see the place?”
“The children can. You don’t need to.”
He stood beside the car, watching me and the twins go inside.
Zhao Nian turned and waved to her father.
Zhao Ming raised a hand but did not follow us.
Three months after the divorce, I adjusted my work hours to daytime and took on extra evening work organizing academic records.
The children started helping with chores.
Zhao Hang took out the trash, and Zhao Nian cleared the table.
Sometimes they missed their father and stayed overnight at Zhao Ming’s place.
I did not stop them.
As long as Zhao Ming picked them up and brought them back on time, and did not let my mother-in-law manipulate them with her words, I respected the relationship between father and children.
My mother-in-law was not very happy at the nursing home.
Every day she demanded to see Zhao Ming and asked him to bring the children to visit.
He went a few times.
Each time he returned, he looked exhausted.
Once, he asked me, “Mom says she wants to move somewhere near our home.”
“She owns a house.”
“She says there’s no one there to take care of her.”
“You can hire a caregiver.”
“She refuses.”
“Then take care of her yourself.”
Zhao Ming lowered his head and rubbed the space between his brows.
“Mom says she’ll only feel safe if she can move into your home.”
“From beginning to end, the condition for her feeling safe is still that I give up my house.”
Zhao Ming said nothing more.
Later, my mother-in-law fell at the nursing home and had to be hospitalized.
Zhao Xue and Zhao Ming took turns caring for her.
Zhao Xue stayed two days, then went home.
Zhao Ming took a week off work to care for her, and it affected his job.