Chapter 5

“Turn her every two hours, supporting her shoulder and hip together. Don’t pull on her arm; her shoulder has been dislocated before. Raise the head of the bed to forty-five degrees when you feed her. Cook the porridge until it’s soft, strain the steamed egg until smooth, and if she chokes, pat her back right away and roll her onto her side. Check her sacrum and tailbone every morning and evening. Redness is an early warning sign—don’t wait until a sore develops before taking her to the hospital. This time, it’s already cost too much.”

“The third handover notebook I wrote is in the drawer of your mother’s bedside table. Wang Cuilan never bothered to read it. If you won’t read it either, no one can save your mother.”

## Chapter 7: Keeping My Promise, Reaping the Rewards

The next half month was the worst of Li Mei’s life.

Mrs. Zhang’s pneumonia was brought under control, but the necrotic tissue from her pressure ulcers had to be cut away. She underwent three surgeries, each costing eighteen thousand yuan.

When the doctor spoke to the family, he was blunt.

“Your elderly family member developed these sores from lying in one position. You didn’t turn her for three months, did you? The pressure ulcers have reached the bone. If you’d brought her in half a month earlier, she wouldn’t have had to go through three rounds of surgery.”

Li Mei sat in the doctor’s office and, for once, didn’t argue back—not once. She used to be the one who always had an answer.

The medical bills poured in. The hospital deposit had to be replenished again and again. She maxed out two credit cards.

Her husband called and scolded her, saying she was “so stingy she’d gotten herself a bottomless pit.”

Li Mei wiped away her tears and sat alone in the hospital hallway until midnight.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried to find help.

The hospital aides charged three hundred yuan a day. The first one quit after three days.

They complained that turning Mrs. Zhang was too tiring and that old people smelled.

Li Mei called Wang Cuilan dozens of times, but her phone was always off. When she went to the old apartment building to confront her, the lock on the opposite door had been changed.

Other caregivers either thought the pay was too low or the work was too hard.

In the group chat, people stopped saying “Sister Wang is so capable” and started calling her “a heartless bitch.”

With nowhere else to turn, Li Mei took a week off and stayed by her mother’s bed day and night.

By the third day, she could no longer stay awake. She nodded off beside the bed. When a nurse woke her, half her face was stamped with marks from the mattress.

Sitting on the hospital bench, she sent me a WeChat message.

“Xiaowan, Mom called your name all night.”

I saw it.

I didn’t reply.

I admit it didn’t feel good.

Mrs. Zhang was an old woman I’d cared for for six months. Hearing that she was calling for me hurt.

But I could feel for her without going back.

I was at Professor Chen’s house. He was in a critical stage of recovery after surgery. He couldn’t miss a single dose of medicine or a day of rehabilitation.

If I abandoned my responsibility now, how would I be any different from Wang Cuilan?

You can’t take a higher-paying job here and abandon the person who depends on you there.

That was the principle I’d set for myself from the first day I entered this profession.

Professor Chen’s blood sugar and blood pressure were stable. He could already walk three laps around the complex on his own with his cane.

Mr. Chen’s attitude toward me had changed too. I was no longer “a nanny we’ll try out,” but someone he genuinely respected.

One night, Professor Chen got up to use the bathroom. I heard him and got up to help. He patted my hand.

“Xiao Song, you’ve been better to me than my own children. They hired three nannies for me, but you’re the only one who hears me get up in the middle of the night.”

Mr. Chen came home that night and sat in his study for a long time after hearing that.

The next day, he called me into the living room and slid an envelope across the table.

“Ms. Song, I heard something happened at your old employer’s place. Is Li Mei trying to get you to go back?”

“Mr. Chen, I’m doing well here. I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“I know you don’t. I just want you to feel secure.”

He said, “Your salary is going up to fifteen thousand a month. Holiday pay will be triple instead of double, and you’ll get an extra month’s pay as a year-end bonus.”

“You really don’t need to do that.”

“Of course I do. Ms. Song, everyone wants to hire someone like you. I can’t let another family snatch you away.”

My eyes stung. I didn’t refuse again.

“Then I’ll take even better care of Professor Chen.”

## Chapter 8: Begging Me to Come Back

Li Mei still wouldn’t give up.

After Mrs. Zhang came home from the hospital, Li Mei hired three caregivers over the next three days. None of them worked out. The fourth lasted half a day. When she saw the unhealed wound on Mrs. Zhang’s tailbone, she quit at once.

“I can’t do this. You need a specialist.”

Li Mei stood in the empty living room, looking at her elderly mother lying unconscious in bed. At last, she broke down in tears.

After crying, she called me.

I didn’t answer the first time.

I picked up the second call.

She sobbed into the phone. “Xiaowan… please come back… I’ll pay you twenty thousand… Twenty thousand, all right? I really can’t keep this up anymore…”

I sighed.