Someone Is Waiting for Me at Home — Chapter 4

I knelt beside him and placed the osmanthus cakes before the tombstone.

“Elder Sister Shen,” I said, “A Yan now knows how to say what he dislikes, how to ask when he's hungry, and how to defend himself when he is wronged. He's clever and kind. If you could see him, I'm sure you'd be at ease.”

Tears immediately spilled from Xie Yan's eyes. He did not sob aloud; he only kept wiping them with his sleeves until his little face turned red.

Xie Huaichuan stood behind us, a closed umbrella held tightly in his hand. There was no rain on the mountain, but he still did not put it down.

As we descended the mountain, Xie Yan asked me, “Mother, if I miss my birth mother, does that mean I won't like you anymore?”

I stopped and looked at him seriously.

“Missing one person and loving another are not in conflict. Your birth mother gave you the love that brought you into this world. I will walk with you through the road ahead. A Yan has a very big place in his heart. There's room for your birth mother and for me.”

He seemed to understand and not understand at the same time. He nodded and took my hand.

Xie Huaichuan walked on my other side. “She would have liked you.”

I turned my head.

He looked down the mountain path, his voice very soft. “Madam Shen was gentle, but not weak. If she were alive, she would protect A Yan just as you do.”

I did not say anything like “I'm not as good as she was.” People do not need to be compared. The living should live well; those who have left should be remembered with kindness. That is enough.

On the carriage ride home, Xie Yan cried until he was exhausted and fell asleep against me. Xie Huaichuan covered him with his cloak, then asked softly, “Wen Zhi, would you like to see your mother?”

I was stunned.

The Court of Judicial Review had discovered in the Qian family's old records that a fisherman had secretly collected my mother's remains and buried them on an unnamed hill west of the city. Xie Huaichuan had sent people to find the place. He was only waiting to see if I wanted to go.

I nodded. Only then did tears slowly fall.

The unnamed hill west of the city was covered in wild grass. There was no marker before the grave, only a stone rounded smooth by rain. The fisherman had died long ago. His grandson told me that every year at Qingming, his grandfather added a handful of earth there, saying a good person was buried in that place.

I sat in the grass and took the longevity lock from inside my sleeve.

“Mother, I'm married,” I said.

The wind swept over the grass. In the distance, a shepherd boy played a flute.

“The man I married isn't very talkative. The child is very good. The people in the household sometimes make me angry. But don't worry, Mother. I've learned how to make my own decisions.”

After a while, I could not help laughing. Xie Yan placed a little bunch of white flowers he had picked beside the stone, then solemnly bowed three times.

“Grandmother, I will take care of Mother.”

Xie Huaichuan did not come closer. He stood at a respectful distance and gave us a quiet moment. He never took away my grief or forced me to get better immediately. He simply waited. Whenever I turned around, his hand was still there, reaching for mine.

12.

In the hottest part of summer, an unwelcome visitor arrived at the Xie residence.

It was my father.

After the Qian case, investigators discovered he had helped his wife's family conceal an old debt. His official post was minor, but he was still dismissed. He wore a faded long gown and stood in the main hall. The moment he saw me, he started to kneel.

I told the maid to take away the tea and did not help him up.

“Did you come today to plead for my stepmother, or to find a way to save yourself?”

His lips moved. “A Zhi, I was foolish before. Your stepmother said your mother took her own life, and I believed her. Later, she used the debt to threaten me. I didn't dare investigate…”

“So you sent me to become another man's second wife.”

He lowered his head.

There was a time I had desperately wanted to ask him: We were both your daughters, so how could you let your wife cut my allowance, punish me by making me copy scriptures, and treat me like an object to pay off a debt? But now, looking at his completely white hair, I no longer wanted to ask.

Some people are not unaware that they have done wrong. They simply value their own peace more than the suffering of their family. To admit their mistakes, they would have to acknowledge all the weakness and cowardice of the past. So they would rather believe a lie.

“I won't plead for you,” I said. “The law will decide how to handle your mistakes. As for me, I will not return to the Wen family.”

My father lifted his head, panic filling his eyes. “You can't forgive me?”

“Forgiveness is something I decide. It isn't a reward for you.”

With that, I called the steward to see him out.

As he was escorted through the gate, Xie Yan returned from school with a small book chest on his back. He looked at my father, then at me, and asked quietly, “Mother, are you sad?”

I thought for a moment. “A little. But being sad doesn't mean we have to pretend nothing bad ever happened.”

Xie Yan nodded and took a picture from his book chest. It showed three crooked figures standing in front of a large house. He pointed at the small person in the middle wearing a red skirt. “This is Mother. This is Father, and this is me.”

“Why isn't Grandmother in it?”

He looked a little embarrassed. “Grandmother said she doesn't want to be drawn as a tiny person. She wants to embroider one herself.”

I laughed and put the picture up on the study wall.

That evening, Xie Huaichuan returned from the office and spent a long time looking at it. In the picture, his head was enormous and his arms were very short. Beside Xie Yan was a line of writing: Father should smile more.

Xie Huaichuan asked, “Do I usually smile so little?”

Xie Yan and I both nodded.

He was silent for a long while, then reluctantly raised the corners of his mouth.

His smile was truly stiff, but Xie Yan clapped and cheered, then ran over to hug his legs.

I watched them beneath the lamplight. Much of the past was like the summer heat in the courtyard: stifling, almost impossible to breathe through, yet it would fade after a rain. What remained was new grass and a crooked but earnest picture of a family drawn by a child.

13.

On Xie Yan's eighth birthday, I did not invite guests from across the capital. I only set two small tables in the residence.

At first, he did not dare mention his birthday. After Madam Shen died, Old Madam Xie had said children should not be too playful. At most, they could have a bowl of longevity noodles on their birthday. Xie Yan had always thought celebrating it would only trouble other people.

I asked him what he wanted. He thought for three days before finally saying, “I want the whole family to eat together.”

So I asked the kitchen to make chestnut chicken, crab-roe tofu, and sweet-and-sour ribs. I made a bowl of noodles myself. The strands were uneven, and Xie Huaichuan approached his first bite with great caution.

I asked, “Does it taste bad?”

He shook his head. “It's delicious.”

Xie Yan immediately exposed him. “Father frowned just now.”

Xie Huaichuan looked at his son. “Xie Yan.”

“Mother says we have to tell the truth.”

I turned away to laugh and gave Xie Yan a large piece of rib. Xie Huaichuan reluctantly ate the whole bowl of noodles and even said I could make them again next year.

After the meal, Xie Yan opened his gifts. Old Madam Xie gave him a new set of brushes. The handle was engraved with the words, “You don't have to be strong about everything.” I gave him a small wooden box, with a new copy of A Yan's Survival Guide inside. Xie Huaichuan gave him a pony.

Xie Yan circled the pony several times, his eyes shining, but his first question was, “Can Mother ride too?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Then when I learn, I'll take Mother outside the city to see the gardenias.”

He ran over to Xie Huaichuan and asked quietly, “Father, do you want to come too?”

Xie Huaichuan stroked his head. “Yes.”

That night, Xie Yan fell asleep hugging the wooden box. I opened the new notebook and saw that he had already written a line on the first page:

“Rule One: I don't always have to be so sensible.”

Below it, in crooked writing, was another line:

“Rule Two: Mother doesn't always have to be so sensible either. Father and I will take care of her.”

I stood beside the bed for a long time, then gently tucked the quilt around him.

Outside the window, the moonlight was like water. The first gardenia had bloomed in the courtyard. Its fragrance drifted through the window—faint and delicate, but lingering in my heart.

14.

After autumn arrived, Xie Huaichuan fell ill.

He had stayed awake three nights in a row at the Court of Judicial Review. When he returned, he insisted he was fine. But the moment he sat down in his study, his face was so pale it frightened me. I felt his forehead. He was burning with fever. I immediately called for the physician and ordered all the memorials on his desk to be taken away.

Even in a feverish haze, he frowned and asked, “The transport memorial…”

I put the bowl of medicine in his hand. “Memorials don't grow legs and run off. If you don't take your medicine, I'll put them all in storage, and you can find them yourself when you get better.”

Perhaps no one had ever managed Xie Huaichuan like that before. He obediently fell silent and drank the medicine one sip at a time.

Xie Yan kept watch beside the bed. He imitated me, holding a cloth to wipe his father's sweat. His movements were clumsy but very earnest.

Xie Huaichuan woke once in the night and saw me dozing at the edge of the bed. He reached out to cover me with the quilt.

When I noticed, he immediately withdrew his hand, like a child who had been caught doing something wrong.

I did not open my eyes. “My lord, if you still have the strength, then sleep properly.”

He was silent for a moment. “Wen Zhi, I'm sorry.”

Only then did I open my eyes. “What are you apologizing for?”

“I always make you wait.”

He meant our dinners. He meant the time he had promised to practice writing with Xie Yan but was suddenly summoned to the palace. He had clearly promised not to carry everything on his shoulders, yet repeatedly exhausted himself until he collapsed. He was not good at explaining himself, so he put all his guilt into one quiet sentence.

I set the medicine bowl aside.

“Xie Huaichuan, you are Grand Secretary. The court can't do without you. I understand. But there is also a lamp left burning for you at the Xie residence. You can't treat this place as nothing more than an inn where you stop for a rest.”

He looked at me, his gaze deep.

“I've never thought of this place as an inn.”

“Then what is it?”

Outside the window, autumn rain tapped against the banana leaves, a scatter of little sounds coming through the curtains. He reached out to take my hand. His palm was still hot from the fever.

“It's where someone I want to return to is waiting.”

Most of the resentment in my heart melted away, but I still tried to keep a stern face. “You can say that after you recover. Now sleep.”

He chuckled softly and closed his eyes.

The next day, when Xie Yan learned his father was feeling better, he ran over with A Yan's Survival Guide and solemnly added a new rule for him.

“Rule Seventeen: Father isn't allowed to skip sleep. If you don't listen, we'll confiscate your memorials.”

Xie Huaichuan leaned against the pillow, looked at him for a long moment, and finally nodded in resignation.

After he recovered, he really did begin leaving his work in the front courtyard. He no longer sat staring blankly at the fish in his food box during dinner. On his days off, he took us to see the lantern festival in the south of the city. Xie Yan rode on his shoulders, holding a skewer of candied hawthorn and pointing out everything he saw.

At a mask stall, Xie Yan chose a fierce tiger mask for me.

I asked, “Why this one?”

He answered matter-of-factly, “Mother is the strongest. If she wears this, she can scare away bad people.”

Xie Huaichuan stood nearby and put on a smiling fox mask.

I could not help laughing until I bent over.

He removed the mask, the tips of his ears slightly red. “A Yan said Father should smile more.”

The night-market lanterns flowed like a river. I stood among the crowd, holding the child's hand with my left hand and his with my right. The days that used to keep me awake at night remained in my memory, but they could no longer decide where I would go.

15.

When winter came, we planted a patch of gardenias in the back garden of the Xie residence.

The garden had originally been full of willows. Liu Yanjing liked them and used to say the branches looked like a beauty weeping whenever the wind blew. I had them all moved and planted gardenias instead. The gardener asked what we would do if they failed to take root in winter. I told him we would plant them again next year. Life did not end with a single year.

When the first snow fell, Xie Yan ran into the garden in a fox-fur coat. He had grown taller and filled out a little. He held a small umbrella and insisted on shielding the gardenia seedlings from the snow.

I stood beneath the corridor watching him fuss over them. Xie Huaichuan came up behind me and draped a cloak over my shoulders.

“Are you cold?”

“No.”

He did not let go. He drew the cloak closer around me.

Xie Yan ran back, his nose red from the cold. He held out an intact snowflake in his palm. “Mother, look. It looks like a little star.”

I accepted that bit of cold. The snowflake quickly melted, leaving a drop of water in my hand.

Outside the garden, a street vendor called out in the lane. Lanterns lit one by one in the courtyard. The scent of chestnut-roasted chicken drifted from the kitchen. Old Madam Xie called us to dinner from the warm room, still stern as ever, but with laughter at the end of her voice.

I lowered my eyes to the longevity lock and jade pendant at my waist. They tapped together with a faint sound.

The truths once buried in an old well had come to light. The rules that had once frightened me had been changed one by one into a fence that protected people.

I held Xie Yan's hand, while Xie Huaichuan held my other one. Snow fell upon our joined hands and quickly melted into warm water.

I suddenly realized that twelve years of learning the rules of how to be a stepmother had taught me only one thing in the end: When a child calls you Mother, you must stand firm and accept that call.

Xie Yan rolled snow into a ball, then mysteriously pulled a sheet of paper from inside his coat. He said he and Grandmother had written some household rules together, and that Xie Huaichuan and I both had to stamp our fingerprints on them.

The first rule read: If anyone in the family has a problem, they must say it plainly. No one may hide away and feel sad alone.

The second said: Once a month, we must have a day without official business and only do things we like.

The third was written in the crookedest handwriting. He had written it himself: “Mother is always right.”

After reading it, Xie Huaichuan raised an eyebrow. “Who taught you that third rule?”

Xie Yan answered honestly, “No one. Mother is just the best at explaining things.”

I took the brush and stamped my fingerprint without hesitation. Xie Huaichuan pressed his finger down as well. Old Madam Xie heard the commotion from the warm room and called through the window that she did not agree with the third rule. At least when they were making dim sum, she wanted the final say.

Xie Yan laughed and ran inside to argue with her. Their voices grew louder and louder. Xie Huaichuan stood beside me and brushed the snow from my shoulder.

I looked at him and felt very glad I had never lived by that old book, The Proper Way to Train a Stepson. If I had really treated the child as an enemy and locked myself away in suspicion and schemes, I might never have seen the lively days in front of me.

Books could teach people to be wary; they could also teach people to hurt one another. Rules could bend a child's back, or they could shield him from wind and rain. The path we chose was ultimately in our own hands.

After dinner, I took out the old copy of The Proper Way to Train a Stepson. I tore out, page by page, the rules that had once frightened me and used them to line flowerpots. With the blank pages left over, I bound a new book and wrote four characters on the cover: The Xie Family's Book of Letters.

On the first page, I wrote for Xie Yan: You don't have to be brave all the time. When you're afraid, you can come to Mother.

On the second page, I wrote for Xie Huaichuan: No matter how heavy the official business is, remember to come home for dinner.

I left the third page for myself: Wen Zhi, from now on, laugh when you want to laugh and cry when you want to cry. You don't need to imitate anyone else.

When I had finished writing, the ink was still wet. Xie Yan lay across my shoulder and added his name, one stroke at a time. Xie Huaichuan took the brush and wrote a neat “Agreed” beside it.

Lamplight fell upon three shadows as they slowly drew together. Snow drifted quietly outside. Tea smoke curled through the room. No one had to fear the long winter nights anymore.

The wind beneath the corridor stirred the newly hung red lantern. Its warm light fell across the white snow.

I turned to look at the brightly lit room, and a thought quietly blossomed in my heart: From now on, every winter, someone would be waiting for me to come home.

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