The morning I got my university acceptance letter, I woke up early and made Mom some toast and coffee. She seemed surprised, then smiled, wrinkles crinkling at the corners of her eyes. “Your acceptance letter arrived, didn’t it? It’s much more stable to stay close to home. I heard it’s a big, wild world out there, easy for someone young like you to get led astray. Besides, wouldn’t it be better to stay close? You could still have my home-cooked meals every night.” “Oh, and I already canceled your plane tickets. It’s too dangerous for a bunch of young guys your age to travel alone. If you really want to go, Mom will take some time off and go with you later.” “What’s with that expression? Everything Mom does is for your own good.” She hadn’t even finished speaking, taking a few bites, when she suddenly frowned. “This coffee… it tastes a little off?” I looked at her, and for the first time in months, I truly smiled. “Yeah, I added some of that rat poison you bought yesterday.” Maybe it was my expression, but Mom froze, her gaze immediately shifting to the rat poison on the shoe cabinet, which had been opened at some point. She’d just bought it and hadn’t gotten around to opening it yet. “Just because Mom changed your major, you’re going to kill Mom?” I looked at the disbelief on her face, barely suppressing the chilling sense of impending release, and picked up the glass of milk next to me, taking a sip. The bitter taste of the rat poison shot through my throat, making me gag and want to throw up. Just like every day since I received that community college acceptance letter. “I’m kidding.” Mom paused, then breathed a sigh of relief, and continued her lecture. “Mom knows you wanted to study medicine, but everyone says being a medical student is incredibly tough, a real grind. It’s not like being a teacher, which is much more chill and you get long breaks. Plus, you have a good grasp of the humanities, you should become an English teacher.” “Worst case, you can just marry a doctor, right? That way you won’t have to study so hard, and you can spend more time at home with Mom. By the time you’re thirty, you’ll definitely thank Mom for changing your major.” My hands, hanging by my sides, clenched tightly and trembled slightly, but Mom didn’t notice a thing. Actually, the poison was in my cup. I drank the last mouthful. “Mom, remember, you killed me with your own hands.” … Everyone said my mom loved me very much. When I was five, she divorced my dad, citing incompatible values, without hesitation. Mom didn’t take a dime in child support. She worked nine-hour shifts during the day and then set up a stall at the night market in the evenings. While she stir-fried noodles for customers, she’d supervise my homework. Whenever customers saw this, they’d feel for her, praising her as the most responsible mother in the world. She worked tirelessly, raising me all by herself. In first grade, my essay, “My Mom,” won the city’s gold prize. The principal, a friend of my mother’s, presented the award to me. After handing me the certificate, she patted my shoulder meaningfully. “You’re a boy, you need to learn to be good to your mom. She’s had such a hard life, and you’re all she has.” I nodded hard and said loudly. “I’ll definitely be good to Mom!” Mom stood below the stage, tears streaming down her face, applauding for me. For my eighteenth birthday party, Mom spent half a month taking a class and personally made my favorite chocolate mousse cake. She smiled and asked what I wished for. From her expectant gaze, I could tell she hoped my wish involved her, something like a dutiful child wishing for her health or safety. But I didn’t say anything, blowing out the candles in one breath. My wish actually *was* about my mom. Except it was to hope my mom would die soon. Or that I would.
I never liked milk since I was little. Because I’m lactose intolerant, every time I drank milk, I’d throw up and have diarrhea. The doctor said you don’t necessarily need milk to get calcium. But Mom believed milk was the most natural and purest high-calcium food, and that kids absolutely had to drink it. She didn’t have much money to buy branded milk from the supermarket, so she worked for a dairy delivery service in our apartment complex, waking up at four every morning to deliver milk to nearly two hundred households. By the time she finished at seven in the morning, she’d bring a few leftover bottles from the station for me to drink. Every time I saw Mom’s face, drenched in sweat after working for half the day, I’d feel a pang of pity. “Mom, our teacher said mustard greens and spinach also have calcium. I’ll just eat more at school. Can you please stop delivering milk?” Mom smiled and waved her hand. “Mom’s not tired. Hurry up and drink it, then Mom will take you to school.” Under Mom’s expectant gaze, I could only endure the discomfort and drink an entire bottle of milk. The way to school included a muddy, bumpy dirt path. I sat on the back of Mom’s scooter, my stomach acid surging up my throat several times, which I forcefully swallowed back down. But as soon as we reached the school gate, while greeting the teacher on duty, I couldn’t hold it in anymore and threw up in front of everyone. There were a few classmates and their parents around. Feeling embarrassed and mortified, I burst into tears. “Mom, I don’t want to drink milk anymore! Every time I drink it, I want to throw up!” Mom’s eyes instantly reddened, and she declared loudly. “You’re the shortest boy in your class! I wake up early and go to bed late, only sleeping four hours a night. Isn’t it all to save money to help you grow? Otherwise, why would I work so hard delivering milk?” “If it weren’t for you, Mom wouldn’t have gotten divorced. I wouldn’t be working this hard!” She cried to everyone around her, recounting the difficulties of raising a child alone after her divorce. Because Mom came to school every day to bring me lunch and pick me up, many parents and teachers knew her. Everyone’s gaze towards me changed subtly. Finally, Mom swayed, looking like she might faint at any moment. The teacher immediately rushed over to support her. The teacher frowned at me. “Alex, your mom loves you, that’s why she sacrifices so much for you and wants you to grow up strong. You need to understand how hard it is for her. If you act like this with your mom, I’ll have to give you a serious warning. Now, come apologize to your mom.” I was somewhat dazed, not understanding why feeling sick from drinking milk meant I wasn’t being understanding towards Mom. But out of respect for the teacher and guilt towards my mom, I still timidly apologized. Mom wiped away the moisture from the corners of her eyes while stroking my head. I heard my classmates whispering nearby. “Alex made his mom get divorced! So mean. I definitely don’t want my parents to divorce.” “I love drinking milk! My mom won’t even buy it for me. I wish Alex’s mom was my mom.” “My mom said if you don’t listen to your parents, you’re an ungrateful brat.” “Alex is an ungrateful brat!” In elementary school, the concepts of bullying and emotional blackmail weren’t yet defined. I only knew that from that day on, classmates seemed to slowly stop playing with me. They’d whisper behind my back that I was an ungrateful brat, heartless, and even said I had bad breath. Actually, that was the smell of stomach acid coming up, and fermented milk. The teachers also always looked at me meaningfully when teaching lessons about family. “Only your mother in this world would never harm you.” “Mothers are the greatest people in the world. Children, you must always listen to your mothers, only bad children don’t listen to their mothers.” “Mothers are the greatest people in the world.” I held that thought in my heart and wrote it into my essay. Later, the essay won an award, and I once again became the “good child” the teachers talked about. The teacher specifically printed out my essay and posted it on the classroom wall, for classmates to study and learn from. The teacher asked me, “Alex, tell us, what kind of person is your mother to you?” I thought for a moment. “Mom is… the hardest working person in the world, and the person who loves me most in the world.” I gave the rote answer, and the teacher was very satisfied. She nodded, smiling as she looked behind me. I abruptly turned to look out the window. My mom, in her work uniform, was peering in through the window.
Ever since I started elementary school, Mom quit her decent editing job at the newspaper and became a cashier at a supermarket near the school. Editing required long hours, from eight to six, and was very demanding, making it hard to focus on anything else. As a cashier, she only had to work six-hour shifts, giving her more time to be around the school and “supervise” my studies. I wrote that essay for three whole days. When I first wrote it, Mom wasn’t happy. So she sat beside me, watching me rewrite it. Perhaps due to her background as an editor, the grammatical errors and inappropriate similes in my essay infuriated Mom. She snatched the pen from my hand, correcting it while scolding me in my ear. “Why are you so stupid, don’t you have a brain? Can’t you just make things easier for Mom and give her less to worry about?!” If I accidentally made a mistake, she would immediately hit the back of my hand hard. She never used any tools to hit me. Mom said it was her way of sharing the pain with me, so I would remember and correct my mistakes. If I made too many mistakes, Mom would suddenly hit her own face, slapping herself. “Don’t you feel bad for Mom? Otherwise, why aren’t you studying properly?!” “I do, I feel bad for Mom, Mom, please stop hitting yourself!” As soon as I cried, Mom would rush into the kitchen, grab a kitchen knife, hold it to her wrist, and yell at me. “Mom is trying so hard to teach you, even hitting herself like this, why do you still make mistakes? Are you not even trying to study? Are you trying to kill Mom?!” In the end, Mom practically wrote two-thirds of the essay herself. No one noticed how mature the vocabulary and sentence structure were, far beyond what a first grader could write. I wasn’t good at writing at all. The one who was good at writing was Mom, the former editor. To me. Mom was the woman holding a knife. … As the years passed, people gradually forgot about the milk incident. But because Mom was always at school, whenever I got close to a classmate and she saw it, she would immediately interrogate them about their family background and grades, insisting on chatting with us. During these chats, Mom couldn’t talk about anything but me. “Hey, don’t pat Alex’s shoulder, he has homework tonight. What if you hurt him?” “Did you just sneeze? Are you catching a cold? Don’t sneeze towards Alex, that’s intentionally trying to infect him. If Alex gets sick, I’ll have to talk to your parents tomorrow!” Seeing a classmate from a less privileged family with some dirt under their fingernails, Mom frowned and said in front of them. “Alex, be careful who you make friends with. Some people just carry that ‘poor’ vibe, and you need to keep your distance. Those people won’t amount to anything later, you’re different from them.” At ten years old, kids already have self-respect. The classmate’s face turned bright red, and they quietly tucked their hands into their sleeves. Then, they grabbed their backpack, hastily said, “Ma’am, I have to go,” and ran off without looking back. Throughout elementary school, I didn’t have many friends, but Mom was very happy, because then no one would lead her precious son astray. Whenever I watched classmates walking arm-in-arm with envy, Mom would pull me forward. She pursed her lips. “What kind of friendship do kids have? Once you move up a grade, you’ll never see them again. Your main goal right now is to study, not make friends.” “Besides, you can tell Mom anything, Mom is your best friend.” I looked at Mom, saying nothing, and wrote all my teenage worries in my diary, painstakingly getting through six years of elementary school. In junior high, during the second semester of eighth grade, a transfer student joined our class. Because our school had a special fast-track admission program for prestigious high schools before the state-wide middle school exams each year, good students could get into the gifted class. So, during this critical period before the exams, transfer students from other areas would often come, hoping for a better opportunity. The transfer student had excellent grades. When the teacher assigned seats based on grades, she specifically told her to sit next to me. “Hi there, I’m Sarah.” The girl smiled and pulled out the chair next to me. “Where did you go this summer? My parents and I went to Macau, their Portuguese tarts were especially delicious. Here, try one!” Sarah was friendly with everyone. She took out a box of tarts from her backpack and shared them with the classmates around her. I quietly read my book, and she didn’t disturb me, instead quietly placing the last tart on the corner of my desk. Even so, Mom, who was peering in to check on us, noticed it. There was no teacher in the classroom, so she rushed over to us and loudly told Sarah: “Hey, kid! My Alex has a sensitive stomach and can’t eat unsanitary food from outside. Don’t make him get diarrhea!” I hunched my head even lower. But to my surprise, Sarah showed no embarrassment or fear. Instead, she smiled at my mom and said. “Don’t worry, Ma’am, I washed my hands, they’re not dirty. Plus, these are from an old, famous shop in Macau! My mom and I waited in line for a long time to get them.” Mom froze, as if she hadn’t expected a child to respond to her harshness so gracefully. She was silent for a few seconds, then her voice grew shriller. “Your parents work hard to earn money and take you out to see the world, and all you know is to show off to your classmates. You don’t think about how to study hard to repay your parents’ kindness, you don’t understand their good intentions, you don’t appreciate how hard they work for money!” “I will absolutely not let my son sit next to a child like you. You’ll lead my son astray!”
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