Downstairs, inside the black SUV, Lu Sihan was wiping the dust off his knees with a wet wipe.
When he had gotten out of the car earlier, his legs had indeed gone weak for a moment, and his knee had hit the car door, making him grit his teeth in pain.
But he didn’t want to show it in front of that child.
He folded the packaging of the Winnie the Pooh band-aid into a tiny square and placed it in his suit pocket. The left pocket held the rabbit plushie, the right pocket held the band-aid wrapper, and his phone’s memo recorded the words the child had spoken.
He looked down at himself and felt like a ragpicker, but everything he collected was a treasure.
“President Lu,” the driver turned around from the front seat, “are you sure you don’t want to eat something? There’s a convenience store right over there…”
“I said no.”
“But your stomach isn’t good…”
“I said no! Can’t you understand?”
The driver suddenly fell silent.
Lu Sihan closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
The driver glanced at him in surprise.
Having worked for Lu Sihan for eight years, this was the first time he had ever heard him say “I’m sorry.”
“Go buy some breakfast.”
Lu Sihan said, “Two portions, one for me, and one…”
He looked up at the window on the sixth floor.
“Never mind, one portion is enough.”
He wouldn’t deliver it upstairs now.
He wouldn’t, because he had promised not to cause any more trouble.
The driver got out of the car and jogged toward the convenience store at the end of the alley.
Lu Sihan leaned back in his seat, holding the rabbit up to his eyes, examining its crookedly sewn ears and its mismatched eyes.
“Is your mom amazing?”
He said to the rabbit, “Raising you all by herself like this.”
The rabbit didn’t answer.
But Lu Sihan felt that in its two mismatched eyes, he could see Shen Luning’s reflection.
It was Shen Luning from many years ago.
With her hair tied in a ponytail, wearing a white T-shirt, squatting by the flower bed at the orphanage, sketching designs.
He had watched her from the second-floor window for a long time, so long that when the orphanage director came to call him for dinner, he realized he had been standing there the entire afternoon.
Back then, he didn’t know what love was.
He thought it was a passing whim, a momentary attraction, something he would forget in a few days.
But after many days, many months, many years, he never forgot that scene.
Lu Sihan pressed the rabbit against his chest and closed his eyes.
The smell of fried eggs wafted from the sixth-floor window, and even from this distance, he felt he could catch a whiff.
It was the breakfast he most wanted to eat in his entire life.
The next morning, by the time breakfast was finished, it was almost nine o’clock.
Shen Luning placed the bowls and chopsticks into the sink, turned on the faucet, and the water heater hummed a few times before the water slowly warmed up.
That’s how it was in this neighborhood—the water heater was old, so you had to wait.
You had to wait for everything.
Wait for the water to heat up, wait for the elevator…
Actually, there was no elevator; what she waited for was the motion-sensor light in the stairwell to turn off and then back on.
Wait for the delivery person to arrive… delivery workers never wanted to climb six floors, so she always had to call and urge them.
Wait for the electric drill noise from the renovations downstairs to stop during the designated hours.
Wait for her monthly salary to arrive, pay off her credit card and Huabei, with just enough money left to get by.
She waited for many things, but she didn’t wait for Lu Sihan.
She had stopped waiting for him five years ago.
“Mom,” Xiao Niangao brought over a small stool, stepped onto it, and reached for the dishwashing sponge next to the faucet, “let me help you.”
Shen Luning moved aside to make room for him.
He stood on the stool, just tall enough to reach the sink. His small hands held a sponge as he scrubbed the plates one by one, soap suds splashing onto his face. He wrinkled his nose and wiped them away with the back of his hand.
“Mom.”
“Hmm.”
“Is Uncle still downstairs?”
Shen Luning didn’t answer.
She didn’t want to pull back the curtains to look, but she could sense he was there.
Not see—sense.
A strange feeling, perhaps a lingering instinctual awareness of that person still within her body.
Or maybe it was just a wishful illusion.
“Why don’t you go take a look?” Xiao Niangao said.
“No.”
“Go on, take a look.”
“Lu Xingye.”
“Fine, fine.”
Xiao Niangao rinsed the plates clean and placed them on the drying rack, his movements already quite practiced…
He knew the plates had to be tilted so the water could drain properly—this was something Shen Luning had taught him.
A five-year-old child, already developing muscle memory for washing dishes.
Shen Luning leaned against the kitchen counter, watching his small back.
He wore blue-and-white striped pajamas, the sleeves rolled up twice just to free his fingers. The crown of his hair was tilted to the right, and the shape of his earlobes was exactly like hers.
“Xiao Niangao.”
“Hmm.”
“Do you… want to invite him up for a while?”
Xiao Niangao turned around, still holding the dishwashing sponge. Soap bubbles squeezed out from between his fingers, falling to the floor with a soft plop as they burst.
“Mom,” he tilted his head, “didn’t you say you wouldn’t let him in?”
“I was just asking.”
“Do you want him to come up?”
“I didn’t say I wanted to.”
“But you’re asking.”
“Lu Xingye.”
“Alright, alright, I won’t say anymore.”
Xiao Niangao turned back to continue washing the dishes, but his shoulders trembled slightly.
It took Shen Luning a moment to realize he was laughing—holding back laughter, the kind that took great effort to suppress.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Xiao Niangao’s voice trembled, “I just think Mom is really cute.”
Shen Luning: “…”
A woman nearly thirty years old, called “cute” by a five-year-old.
She reached out and flicked the back of Xiao Niangao’s head.
The touch was light, but the sound was sharp.
“Wash the dishes.”
“Okay.”
The dishes were done, the kitchen tidied up.
Shen Luning wrung out the cloth and wiped down the counter, then placed the plates and bowls from the drying rack one by one into the sterilizer.
She did these things once a day, sometimes twice, slowly and carefully.
She thought after five years, those things should have yellowed like old newspapers, forgotten.
“Mom,” Xiao Niangao hugged her leg from behind, “are you thinking about things again?”
“No.”
“Your hand stopped.”
Xiao Niangao poked her hand holding the cloth. “You’ve been standing here holding the cloth for a long time.”
Shen Luning looked down—it was true.
The cloth in her hand was almost dry.
She tossed it into the sink, turned on the faucet to wet it, wrung it out, and continued wiping the counter.
“Mom,” Xiao Niangao said, “do you want to watch cartoons?”
“Not really.”
“Then can you turn it on for me? I want to watch.”
Shen Luning put down the cloth, wiped her hands, picked up the remote, and turned on the TV.
Xiao Niangao was quiet while watching cartoons, sitting on the sofa, hugging a spare stuffed toy…
The original rabbit had been taken away by Lu Sihan. This one was a proper stuffed toy bought from the supermarket—the kind sold in shopping malls, with equally large eyes, equally tall ears, neat stitching, and the price tag still hanging from its ear: thirty-nine yuan and ninety cents. Though not expensive, he liked it very much.
Xiao Niangao held it in his arms, but his eyes kept glancing toward the door from time to time, as if waiting for someone to return the original one.