Give your mother a foot

The fire in the brazier gradually weakened, and the cold air revived, pressing down little by little under the moonlight that broke into the crack in the door.

It's not early, go to bed!

Mother dusted the charcoal ash on shan, pressed one hand to the knee, the other to support the chair to stand up, and staggered to the room to prepare to clean the bed for me.

Mom, I sleep in your bed at night and give you a hard time.

My mother is 85 years old, and her ears are not very good, and sometimes she has to speak in front of her face and have to be loud to hear clearly. But this time, more than three meters away, she heard me clearly. The footsteps that had already reached the bedroom door stopped and turned to look at me. After leaning against the door of the room for half a minute, the mother answered and walked toward her room.

Then I'll get a quilt. My mother's voice was so loud that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hear it.

After extinguishing the charcoal fire, I went into my mother's bedroom and found two quilts flat on the bed, one new and one old. The new ones were next to the wall inside, the old ones were outside the bed. As soon as I reached out, I obviously felt that the new quilt was much thicker and softer than the outside, and I could even smell the fragrance of cotton wool. I took off my cotton jacket and prepared to slip into the quilt outside.

You sleep inside, and the quilt outside is mine. My mother, who was taking off her cotton jacket, suddenly stopped moving and came to the bedside to stop me.

You sleep inside, I'm not afraid of the cold. In response to his mother's words, he lifted his legs and slipped into the cold bed.

This quilt is so cold, the one inside is made specifically for you. Who made you sleep on this?

My mother shouted at me, and the sound echoed through the window along the cold moonlight in the quiet village. I waved at her and pointed outside. The mother paused and lowered her voice: Otherwise, we will just build the new quilt, which is so big anyway.

I obeyed my mother's words, got up from the bed, folded the old quilt, put it on a chair next to me, and spread out the new quilt.

Oh, you don't have to stack it so neatly, just put it there. Hurry into the bed, and get cold for a while. My mother whispered next to me, reached out and touched the autumn coat on my body, urging me to move faster.

I slipped into the bed again, and I obviously felt that the quilt on my body was lighter and warmer. At the other end, my mother also slipped into the bed, and instead of curling up her legs, she stretched her legs straight, but kept a distance from my body. I could feel her deliberately avoiding me, afraid of touching me.

When I was a child, in the winter, as soon as I got into the bed, I would shrink my body into a ball and press half of my body onto my mother. Unlike her mother, as soon as she gets into the bed, she will stretch her legs very straight. I asked my mother why she didn't shrink her legs to warm up like I did, and she said every time that she wasn't afraid of the cold, and that the bed would warm up quickly when her legs were straightened. Sure enough, it wasn't long before I could feel the heat in the bed.

Mom, you stretch your legs over and I'll warm you up. I reached out and looked for my mother's legs in the duvet.

No, just finished roasting, not cold on the body. My hand touched my mother's foot, and she hurried. I told her it wasn't cold, and then my mother leaned her legs toward me.

Baby (my nipple name), anyway, the feet are not cold, you can sleep. Mother proposed.

I came out of the bed again, folded the quilt on this side, pressed it tightly, and climbed to the end of the bed with the pillow. Like countless scenes from my childhood, my mother had already lifted the corner of the quilt and was waiting for me to go inside. It's just that now I can't get into the little quilt horn that my mother lifted with her arm, so I took the quilt horn that my mother picked up with her hand and fell asleep on my side.

After seeing that I slept soundly, my mother began to talk to me, whose family has added another grandson, whose land is also deserted... I listened with my eyes open, responding from time to time. My mother had already said these words to me in the afternoon, and again at dinner in the evening, and when I said them now, I still pretended to be surprised and leaned over to ask her what had happened. Mother was serious, reminiscing hard, sometimes a minute delay in a single detail. There were two places she couldn't think of for minutes, and time froze in that moment. I held my head in one hand and looked at my mother, who was thinking about it, and tried to remind her several times, but I resisted. In the end, the mother still did not remember. She sighed and said one after another that she was old, old...

The moon's shadow moved past the window and swept to the west. The mother's topic ended a paragraph and began to quiet down, and I heard her heavy breathing, like the sound of pulling a bellows, and felt something in her throat blocking, so I leaned up and asked her if she was unwell.

Nothing, elderly tracheitis committed. Does it affect your sleep?

My mother's rhetorical question made me feel guilty. When she had finished speaking, she sat up, draped her jacket over her body, and then took out a player from the pillow, unscrewed the button, and the white light suddenly struck, scurrying around the room, piercing her eyes.

You go to sleep first, and I'll watch the opera.

My mother said to me. Seeing that I had my eyes closed, I lowered my voice a little more. Turn your head back and stare at the screen.

After getting used to the light in the room, I slowly opened my eyes and leaned over to the screen. Probably sensing my subtle movements, my mother looked back and saw that I was looking at the screen, so she twisted her body, adjusted the angle of the player, and put the screen facing me.

It's a great play, and I have to watch it every night. I'll give you a pat on the back (and tell me) the story...

My mother began to tell me the content of this play, and I heard the story countless times from childhood to adulthood. I don't know if my mother remembers that she has told us countless times, maybe she can't remember, otherwise she wouldn't be so engrossed and colorful; Maybe she remembered, or else the twists and turns of the story, the complicated characters seemed to live in her heart, and they opened their mouths.

When my mother told me about the play, the hand holding the player adjusted its posture back and forth to ensure that the screen was always facing me. The other hand, reaching over the top of my head, clutched the corners of the quilt and didn't let my shoulder slip out of the quilt.

The mother's voice became smaller and smaller, the sound of the opera became louder and louder, and the heavy breathing like pulling a bellows spread out again.

Mom, don't look at it, I want to sleep. I gently pushed my mother down.

The sound of heavy breathing stopped. The mother sat up straight, picked up the player that had slipped onto the quilt, and screwed down the button, and the room suddenly fell silent.

Tonight's quilt is really warm. After lying in the bed, the mother sighed. Soon, the "bellows" pulled heavily again.

After my mother lay down, a chill entered the original warm bed, and I couldn't help but shiver. I gently stretched out my arm, went around the top of my mother's head, pulled the quilt horn hard, and retracted my hand, feeling that the quilt was much warmer.

A crescent moon hung obliquely on the window ledge, and the sound of mother's heavy breathing filled the room, and the quilt became warmer and warmer.

Source: Hubei Daily (Author: Duan Jixiong)