Xiaolan is my childhood friend, and our two families are only separated by an alley two or three meters wide. She has two sisters on top and two younger brothers on bottom. She is in the middle, which is the position where her father doesn’t love her mother.
We are all in the same class as our primary and junior high school students. We often go to and from school together, and go to mow grass and pick up firewood on weekends and holidays. On the road, people I knew or didn’t know surrounded her and praised her for her beauty without restraint, regardless of the embarrassment and embarrassment of me beside me. Whenever this is the case, Xiaolan always smiles shyly. She is not as arrogant or ostentatious as a beautiful girl. On the contrary, she is weak in nature.
After graduating from junior high school, Xiaolan did farm work at home. Later, someone introduced her to her. She was from Beitou Village, Shangjie, Town, more than 10 miles away from our village, with her surname Zhang and name Baozhu. Baozhu is not only 8 years older than Xiaolan, but her face is as bumpy as the bark of an old tree, so she looks even more old-fashioned.
Xiaolan doesn't want this marriage and has a quarrel with her parents. But Baozhu was sweet-mouthed, and she kept calling her father and grandma at Xiaolan's house (at that time, no one in rural areas called her parents, but they were all called her mother and Da. Only staff and families who ate commercial grain were called her parents), which made Xiaolan's parents very happy.
's parents forced her to force her, and even her grandmother in her 70s scolded Xiaolan and said, "You are not willing? You are the only one who takes advantage of others' quality (not as good as others)."
couldn't resist it. Xiaolan, who had just turned 18, got married. The next year she gave birth to a fat boy. The whole family was so happy that Baozhu smiled so hard that the bumps on her face squeezed into a pile.
Before marriage, I thought Baozhu's house was close to the town, and he could do business with his own way, so his family should be good. In fact, his family is also very poor, with two old houses and no door in the bedroom. He used an iron stick as thick as a little finger to wear a piece of blue flower cloth, and placed both ends on iron nails to make a door curtain to separate the inside and outside rooms.
The son has grown to 3 or 4 months old and is fat and fat. He is very cute every day. Baozhu is also good and treats Xiaolan well. He relies on collecting grain from village to village to household and earning the price difference and earning money to support the family. Although his life is not prosperous, he is also stable.
However, the peaceful days were broken inadvertently, and there was no sign of the arrival of disaster. It was a summer afternoon, and Zen sang chorus on the high treetops, one after another, and suddenly in the quiet gap, a gust of wind blew over the rustling sound of leaves, and a cool breeze was also brought. Xiaolan was sorting food in the yard, her face covered in sweat. My son who was taking a nap in the room woke up and started crying.
Xiaolan put down the work in her hand, went into the house to pick up her son, coaxed her, lifted up the door curtain and went out. Unexpectedly, the curtain drove the iron rod that was penetrated through the curtain and fell off. One end of the iron rod was just pounded on the child's unfinished Tianling cover, and the child suddenly burst into tears.
A bag was raised on her son's head. Xiaolan felt that it was just a little skin trauma and didn't think much about it. Unexpectedly, a few days later, I found that the child who was originally dancing and dancing had become soft and unable to lift his arms and legs, like soft noodles. He would cry and laugh, but his eyes became dull and silent.
The couple panicked and went to the hospital to see it but found no results. They thought that they might get better as they grew older.
But as time goes by, the children have not improved at all. Children of the same age can crawl, walk, run or jump, but the child is still lying on the bed, and he can't hold his neck even if he picks it up. The doctor concluded that the child had cerebral palsy and was difficult to cure.
"I would have tied both ends of the iron rod to the nails with a rope..." Xiaolan recalled that moment countless times, which made her feel heartbroken.
Afterwards, the door curtain of the moving event and the iron stick were thrown away by her angrily, "It was all you broken iron stick that hit my son on the head." Whenever you think of such serious consequences from a small mistake, Xiaolan and his wife regretted it, but it was irreversible. A good child became a vegetable.
I was going to school outside. I went home and passed by the town during the holidays. Sometimes I walked to her house to rest. I saw the child lying on the bed, silently, just staring at one direction with no eyes, long, fat, and clean.
"He doesn't eat or grow, he just can't move, like a cartilage disease, alas, just raise it as a pig." Xiaolan smiled, and that smile hid a lot of helplessness. She was only in her early 20s. I was still in school at the same age, so she was carrying such a heavy pressure of life.
There is no car for more than 10 miles from the town to home, Baozhu or Xiaolan always takes the time to ride a bicycle to take me to the entrance of the village.
They have never stopped treating their eldest son. When they heard that the treatment of cerebral palsy is effective, they took their children over and even used the method of seeking immortality and asking for Taoism, but the child showed no sign of improvement.
In the difficult situation, the child was 5 years old. Although Xiaolan was carefully caring for her, the child was still the same. The couple was worried. Raising this way was a burden to adults and children, and they began to lose confidence.
After all, it is the flesh that fell from my body. I have been pulling my shit and urine for so many years, and I really can't bear to give up. She saw in the newspaper that there was a hospital in Hebei that specializes in treating children with cerebral palsy. The two discussed and decided to make a final attempt. They went all the way to find her son with cerebral palsy and went there for several months. They spent all the borrowed money, but there was no effect.
Now they were completely desperate. They had no hope to raise such a child, and there were two young people who were hungry. How could they take care of them in the future? When will this day end?
On a dark and windy night, Xiaolan held her well-dressed son and Baozhu carried her simple luggage. The two quietly walked out of the ward, walked through the dimly lit corridor, left the hospital gate, and came under a sycamore tree next to the gate. The lush leaves appear ink black under the dim street lights.
"Let it be here." Baozhu said in a low voice. In the past two days, he has already made a look. This place is close to the hospital gate and people come and go during the day, and it is easy to be discovered.
Xiaolan looked at the child's face. His face was as white as wax, and his eyes were half closed as usual. The child was lying horizontally in her arms, one meter long and heavy.
Xiaolan put him down against the root of the tree.
They walked a long way, and an old man sat on the ground under the street lights, with a gossip picture in front of him.
"You two will beg for food in the future." Xiaolan's heart sank.
That night, facing the sparse stars in the sky, she remembered the nights when she was young, when the moonlight was as bright as water. The children in the village often played games in the courtyard in front of the door. Most of the projects were hide and seek, wolf eating sheep, throwing handkerchiefs, and swaying (everyone sat on the ground, stretched his legs and his feet together, one person held a branch, tapped each person's feet one by one, pronounced a set of words in his mouth, and finally, Whoever typed a word, would get up and sing, like the current drumming and passing flowers). Sometimes it was Xiaolan's turn, she would stand up shyly and sing a popular local folk song, using the tone of local Sizhou opera:
Bagan seedlings, how to raise moss, raising moss, raising moss
I gave it to the Zhang family, I gave it to the Zhang family, I took the child
Zhang family thinks I get it slowly
I cook porridge for that Zhang family
Zhang family thinks I cook it thin
I cook the thick
Zhang family thinks I cook it thick
Zhang family thinks I cook it thick
I cook it thick
I cook it big
Zhang family thinks I cook it big
I quarreled with that Zhang family
...
The song was melodious and melodious, and the lingering sound rose to the moon.
(To be continued)
