01
Liu Meiqi did not expect to see her mother again.
Twenty years of resentment and longing once weighed heavily in my heart like a boulder, but I didn't expect that when we really met, it was like a drizzle outside the house, leaving only some inexplicable emotions.
She staggered her gaze toward her stepfather. The stepfather sat on a stool and smoked a dry cigarette, his eyes slightly drooping, and his dark face flickered behind the smoke, looking unreal.
Maggie's heart seemed to have been hammered by a hammer, some pain, some sadness, and some inexplicable trepidation. She hugged her stepfather, and the panic slowly subsided.
"Maggie, I am my mother, and I had no choice but to leave you, and I have been thinking about you all these years." Seeing that you are grown up and healthy, I have some comfort in my heart..."
The woman raised her hand to wipe her eyes, and the choked words sounded to Maggie, how ironic it was!
What is a last resort? But any mother with a little conscience will not throw her own daughter to a man who has no blood relationship and run away.
What is always on your mind? If you really want to, can you not show your face for twenty years? Where was she when she curled up in the cupboard in fear of her menarche?
What does it mean to have some comfort? Her stepfather raised her from an early age and had nothing to do with her cheap mother.
Now that she's an adult, what is she looking for? Make up for it? She doesn't need to.
"You go, my dad and I are doing well, please don't bother us again." Maggie opened her mouth coldly, disappointed to a certain extent, there was no longer hope, along with those resentments and thoughts disappeared little by little.
The stepfather didn't speak, just tapped Maggie's shoulder twice, looking complicated.
The woman stood silently for a while, saw that no one paid attention to her, sucked her nose and turned away.
Maggie hugged her stepfather and refused to let go, she inexplicably wanted to cry, and her thoughts fell into her memories.
02
The neighbors said that her mother was pregnant with her to marry her stepfather. At that time, my stepfather's family was poor, and she had not yet married her daughter-in-law in her thirties, and as soon as the two families said peace, the marriage became, and she was born four months later.
Maggie was born prematurely. It was late autumn, and my stepfather had described her as a kitten-like mess, so weak that she seemed to cry. The people at the village health center thought that she could not live, so they only wrapped a small blanket and put it into a cardboard box with old quilts, and threw it away when they ran out of breath.
Her mother looked at her a few times and ignored her, and her stepfather took pity on her and carefully took her out and carried her into his arms to warm her.
Unexpectedly, this speculation can no longer be put down.
Although the stepfather is poor, but he has strength, the cold family has a wife and children, and life has a head start. The nearly forty-year-old man was like a strong green cow, full of energy.
However, the green cow pulled the cart in front, and the woman in the car rolled up all the money in the family and ran away with the people, only to throw him a who was waiting to be fed.
Maggie remembers her stepfather not saying a word, his cigarette butt scattered under his feet, messy like her heartbeat. She timidly grabbed the corner of her stepfather's clothes, tears welling up her eyes, and the little she knew was that the man in front of her was her only dependence.
The stepfather sighed heavily, picked her up and put her on his lap, and wrapped his arms around her small body.
From then on, the stepfather became her mountain, all her light.
She washed her stepfather's clothes, dried them neatly, cooked her stepfather's favorite meals, cleaned up the house...
The unspeakable stepfather touched Maggie's head and smiled, and pulled out a colorful rubber band with tied hair from his pocket.
During development, he asked his neighbor's aunt to tell Maggie how to take care of himself. In those days, Maggie would always wake up with a steaming cup of brown sugar water on the table.
When she was in junior high school, she broke her leg in physical education class, and her stepfather carried her to and from school four times a day, giving her stewed rib soup to supplement her body, and he was reluctant to eat a bite. Since then, she has vowed to be good to her stepfather when she grows up.
Maggie seems to be infected with her stepfather's temperament and does not like to express it, but the hearts of the two people are like the grapes in the yard that have been married, and they have long been connected by blood and have produced green fruits the size of soybeans. Maggie expects those fruits to ripen and seep the sweet juice into life.
After graduating from high school, she entered the normal school, and now she has just graduated, and she is taking the teacher's qualification certificate while practicing. She had to work early and start repaying her stepfather early.
Life seemed to be bitter, but at this time, her mother found it back.
03
The mother wanted to remarry her stepfather, but the stepfather did not agree.
But she still came over when she had nothing to do, sweeping the floor, cleaning up the house, and cooking.
The stepfather refused a few times, but to no avail, he went with her. A few times when she was there, she called Maggie to come back and have dinner together.
Maggie muttered in her heart, I don't know what happened to her stepfather, why should such a woman pay attention to her? It is clear that it is impossible to mix outside and come back to find a place to retire.
The stepfather quietly pressed his stomach, frowned, and said, "She is your mother." ”
However, Maggie's heart is still not solid, always hanging a heart, she can't believe this woman who once abandoned herself, but she can't be sure of her stepfather's attitude.
Did the stepfather have been single for a long time and remembered the good of having a wife? But this woman obviously had bad intentions, didn't he really see it?
Maggie was called to the hospital by a neighbor's phone, and as she swirled into the ward like a gust of wind, she saw her stepfather calmly drinking water. After a little relief, when I saw the examination report, my heart mentioned the throat eye again.
Advanced liver cancer!
Maggie could hardly control her roller coaster-like heartbeat, and tears rushed out like a flood that opened the floodgates.
"Dad, isn't that true?" How can it be liver cancer? Must have been wrong! Let's go to another hospital for a check-up..."
Maggie spoke incoherently and panicked to help her stepfather get her clothes. The stepfather took her trembling hand and said he already knew. Maggie was stunned, she already knew, why didn't she do the treatment earlier?
"It's already late, there's no point in treatment, and we don't have the money to treat it." The stepfather said it lightly.
Maggie felt all her strength being sucked away, like a large hand grabbing her heart and trying to uproot it, and a dark bottomless void was already exposed below.
She hugged her stepfather tightly in panic, trying to suppress the force.
Tears dripped on his father's shoulders, and even the air became damp, mixed with the thick sorrow that could not be dissolved, and it felt that his breathing was not smooth.
The stepfather refused to do treatment, and only took some painkillers and strongly demanded to be discharged. Maggie couldn't help him, so she took him home.
The next day, my mother came in with a bag and said that she would serve her stepfather.
04
Maggie wondered, she had disappeared for twenty years, and now that she was old, she wanted to remarry her stepfather and live a new life, which was understandable. But now that her stepfather has liver cancer, there is not much time left, and she has to come to serve her again, is it really a conscience discovery or another intention?
Maggie carefully observed for a few days and found no clues.
Life is devastated, but the stepfather's words are more, he told Maggie about her childhood funny things, about her mother, said that they are mother and daughter after all, there is no deep hatred, the relationship is a little more relaxed, in the future she will have a good thing to rely on.
Maggie then understood that her stepfather knew that he would not live long, so he would agree to her mother's frequent visits, and would try to create an opportunity for her to meet her mother. Just so that she will not be alone in the future.
Her heart was like a knife, and her stepfather was still thinking about herself at this time, and she could only watch her stepfather suffer from illness, but she couldn't do anything.
Maggie lay on her stepfather's chest and listened to the powerful heartbeat, she wanted to carve that sound into her soul, that would be the comfort and courage to move forward for the rest of her life.
The stepfather's medicine was finished, and Maggie was going to the hospital to get some more. Her mother patted her chest and assured her that she would take a good look at her stepfather. Maggie's heart was a little looser, maybe she could try to get along with her.
When she returned with the medicine, Maggie only saw her father frowning and sleeping quietly, not her mother.
She heard movement in the back room, quietly passed, and saw her mother rummaging through boxes and cabinets, not knowing what she was looking for.
When the mother saw Maggie, she looked flustered and said that there were rats in the house, and she was afraid of biting something. The look that wanted to cover up made Maggie feel sick in her heart.
It seems that she did not really want to make up for anything, but came with a certain purpose.
However, what is it that her stepfather has that will make her worry for more than twenty years, and she will not hesitate to put down her body to steal?
05
Maggie told her stepfather about her mother's search for something, and he was stunned for a while, sighed and said, Let her go.
His eyes were dim, like an old tree that was about to die trying to grow some branches and vines, trying to continue to protect Maggie, but encountered an ice-cold spring cold.
The stepfather's illness worsened rapidly, and finally his stomach swelled like a leather ball, and the pain was so great that he could not sleep all night.
He took Maggie's hand and said quietly, "I left something for you, it's in the house, and when I'm dead, you'll get it again." How to deal with it, you can see for yourself. ”
Maggie knew that it must be something her mother was looking for, and her stepfather hoped that her mother would treat her sincerely, and she was not at ease with her mother, so she would hide it, and finally gave the decision-making power to herself.
She felt that she must have saved the galaxy in her previous life, and God would give her such a good stepfather, and the tears rolled down.
In the evening, Maggie goes to the neighbor's shovel and sees her mother standing in the shadows, along with a young man.
"Wait, wait, wait for my leg to be someone else's!" If you can't do this well, what else can you do? With such a big house, where else could he hide? You look carefully, I go first. ”
The man's low voice was angry, with disgust and fierceness, and when he finished, he sat in the back seat of the motorcycle next to him and disappeared.
The mother reached forward, as if to grasp something, and finally could only put it down in vain.
Maggie leaned against the wall, sad? If you haven't touched your heart, why be sad? But the dull feeling is so real. It turned out that the mother had come for the man, and the stepfather and himself had thought too much.
The stepfather entered the dying, and he took one last look at Maggie, planted his head on the pillow, and stopped breathing, and before he could close his eyes, a cloudy old tear flowed out.
The mountain that supported Maggie collapsed, and all her internal organs hurt, and the large and small stones rolled through the heart, and the heart was broken.
The stepfather's funeral was very simple, except for Maggie, he had no close relatives, and the neighbors helped with the burial.
Maggie knelt in front of her stepfather's grave and grabbed a handful of yellow soil and held it up.
Later, in this vast world, she stood tall and had no one to rely on. In fact, twenty years ago, she should have been alone, and it was the nurturing companionship of her stepfather that supported her fragile childhood, the teenager with inferiority, and the confused youth.
Unfortunately, she not only did not have time to honor her stepfather, but also let him walk in a stagnant and uneasy heart.
Maggie's heart was thick with longing, like the whiskers of a vine reaching out to the sky, and finally she didn't catch anything.
06
The mother came over and asked if her stepfather had ever talked about a jade pendant.
Maggie turned her head to look at her mother and smiled coldly, "That's the purpose of your coming back, right?" What a pain! Don't be delusional, don't say no, even if there is I will not give it to you. ”
"How could it not be, I have seen, a piece of white jade with intricate patterns carved on it, and I don't know where he was hiding, and he said at the time, 'Leave it for you as a dowry.'" Now that he's dead, how can it not be given to you? Mother grabbed Maggie's arm and raised her voice and said anxiously.
"I'm not his own child, how his stuff is handled is his freedom, he didn't give it to me, I haven't seen it." Maggie continued to fill the new grave, and her heart was cold.
When her stepfather is gone, she must wear her own armor in order to survive in this complex world.
"Maggie, you save your brother, he owes seventy or eighty thousand gambling debts, and if he doesn't pay them back, he will die, you are good brothers and sisters, you can't ignore him!"
Looking at her mother's weeping face, Liu Meiqi was so sad that she wanted to laugh.
She was born without raising, and she couldn't help but think of her ex-husband and her daughter. She coveted her ex-husband's things, afraid that if he did not give them, she would steal them; if she could not find them, she would morally kidnap her own daughter. How could she be so selfish?
In Maggie's mind, the few thoughts that remained disappeared without a trace.
In the early hours of the morning, Maggie sat on the train, and the sky outside the window changed from pitch black to gray, to bright, and then the sun shone brightly with a smiling face.
Maggie clutched the jade pendant on her chest through her clothes, the only thing her stepfather had left her, with blessings and expectations.
She walked in a hurry, and by the time she learned that the so-called brother was in a gambling debt, she had already made up her mind to leave. A gambler can do anything, and she doesn't want to put herself in it.
If her mother could be well, she was willing to give her some alimony every month to repay her for her fertility, but she could not forgive her in this way, and she just wanted to leave far away.
The road under one's feet is self-propelled, and what cause and effect is sown, and in this regard, God is fair.
In this life, she carried the love of her stepfather, which was enough to go on.