Chapter 8
Later, I got some news about them one
after another.
Kevin couldn’t pay back the loan sharks, so the creditors came to his house and forced his parents to use their house as collateral. The old couple was homeless and had to live in a small hotel.
Ivory was harassed by the creditors and had no choice but to tell Kevin‘ s hiding place. As a result, Kevin was arrested by those people and came back with a lame leg and became crazy.
When he was sober, he ran to find Ivory and saw her flirting with other men. In anger, he stabbed her several times. Ivory lay in the ICU for three days. Her parents had no money to treat her injuries and forced her to be discharged from the hospital.
The family of three lived in a small
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bungalow in the village in the city. They had no food to eat every day and were harassed by creditors.
***
57
Two years later, the research project that my supervisor gave me to complete independently made a breakthrough and caused a strong response at home and abroad.
I was invited to return to Oremond to participate in an academic exchange meeting.
During the exchange period, I happened to catch up with my good friend’s wedding.
Returning to the familiar city again, I felt that the world had changed.
Things before I left seemed so far away, as if they happened in the last century.
While waiting for the red light, I looked out the window casually and my eyes fell on an old couple not far away.
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I couldn’t help but feel shocked.
It was my parents!
How could they have aged so much after not seeing each other for two years?
With gray hair, ragged clothes and hunched backs, they pulled a welded cart together, on which were many cartons and plastic bottles placed in a mess.
I didn’t know why they suddenly got angry after a disagreement and even fought in the street.
The car started slowly and I calmly looked
away.
During my good friend‘ s wedding, I met a few classmates I hadn’t seen for a long time. From them, I learned that Ivory‘ s injury had not healed completely and sometimes she needed painkillers to fall asleep. Now her parents basically supported her by picking up scraps.
She lost her temper every day, scolding her
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parents for being old and making her live such a poor life. Her parents would beat her up when they were very angry. She would be quiet for a while and then find an opportunity to lose her temper again.
Kevin was sent to a mental hospital by his family. Occasionally, when he was sober, he would mention me and say that I was the person he felt most sorry for in his life.
I felt no ripples in my heart about his
confession.
My parents, sister and Kevin had already been left deep in my memory and sooner or later they would become blurred beyond recognition.
The exchange activities I participated in were on the local news and my parents happened to see them.
They found me after many twists and turns, held my hand and cried and kept saying sorry.
“Emily, give us a chance, we will definitely
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2020
love you well and compensate you well, okay? We will never be partial to your sister again, please come back to us, okay?”
“We are your parents, after all, we are living such a bad life now, you can’t ignore us! We are a family and we are still connected even if our bones are broken.”
I pulled my hand back calmly.
When I needed love the most, they were not willing to give it to me at all.
Now, it was too late.
I met their expectant eyes and said lightly,
“I will pay you alimony every month according to the market standard. Sorry, I can’t do anything else!”
They stared at me blankly, their lips trembling, unable to speak.
At this moment, they were like me back then, with despair in their eyes.
But I wouldn’t be soft–hearted at all.
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I turned and left, without stopping because of their crying.
We said we would sever ties and we really
did.
No matter how rich they were, it had nothing to do with me and no matter how poor they were, it had nothing to do with
- me.
Although I had figured everything out, I
still felt a little sad.
Some pains, whether deep or shallow, would be engraved in the bones and blood for a lifetime. But as long as you were willing to let go of the past and lived a good life, I believed the future would definitely get better and better.
(The End)
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