My father lost sleep that night because of his mood swings in the family, and when he went to the town the next day to be late, he was severely criticized by the leader of the construction team, and then went to work in the gendarmerie and was scolded again.

The gendarmerie hospital did not allow Chinese to be hospitalized, so they called the family and asked the mother to pick up the father. If my father hadn't been part of the construction team, an ordinary laborer would have been thrown straight into the street with an incurable injury.

My father spent a lot of medical expenses on lying at home for half a month, all of which my mother borrowed from the villagers in Sanlitun.

At that time, the medical and health care was not good, and it was not uncommon for ordinary small injuries and illnesses to kill people, and my mother invited many doctors to see my father's leg, and after all, he saved his life, but since then he has become a cripple.

My mother once secretly took me to the town to ask my grandfather for money, but my grandfather was knocked out of the house, and I didn't ask for a penny to find my uncle.

My father lost his job in the gendarmerie because of his disability, and at that time, it was almost impossible for a crippled man to find a job to do it.

Zhao Fugui knew some of the owners of the factory in the town, he wanted to help his father introduce him to the factory, but his father refused, because of the leg of the factory did not give his father the assembly line, he could only arrange to watch the gate or the warehouse, fifteen yuan a month, once he encountered an emergency, he could not deal with it, which was equivalent to an ornament.

My father is a good-looking person, except for my mother's affairs, he has never lost face.

My father never smiled from that day, and he always kept a straight face, and his eyes were full of disgust when he saw his mother, and they were in the same bed at night without pillows, and even the bed was separated.

My father used to say to my mother, "Are you satisfied?" ”

My mother never refuted my father, and even when my father sometimes yelled at her hysterically, he pretended not to hear it, he took care of my father's daily life, and still got up at five o'clock every day, cleaned the yard, cleaned up the housework, and started cooking when Jiang Sheng and I were about to get up.

My father also wanted to find some capable manual work to make money, but he was used to working on the construction site, his hands were rough and inflexible, and he couldn't weave cloaks and fish cages well, so he was dismissed.

My father also learned the craft from the carpenter in the tunzi for a few days, and finally returned in a huff.

Every time my father passed by Tunzikou on crutches, he would always hurry up and not look up, for fear that others would see him, and for fear that he would see others. Once, when he was walking in a hurry, he accidentally fell to the ground, and when the villagers came to help him, he shouted for others to get out of the way, and his eyes were red, as if he was going to kill someone.

It was from that time that my father began to drink heavily, and he drank himself to the point of dizziness every day, and would often ridicule his mother and Jiang Sheng, sometimes drunk like mud and vomited everywhere.

Once Jiang Sheng was angry with his father, and ran to the yard aggrieved and said to his mother, who was cooking on the fire, "Mom, why don't we leave when he's like this?" ”

The mother slapped Jiang Sheng in the face, and he said, "Jiang Sheng, you remember it for me, I don't want to hear such words in the future, that person is your father!" ”

Jiang Sheng covered his face, looked at his mother, who was a stranger in front of him, and looked at me, who was sitting on a small bench doing homework, and he ran out of the door crying, saying that we had all changed.

Since there is no economic income, Jiang Sheng and I are too young to work, and my father is an alcoholic all day long, so whether it is farming or making money to support the family, it falls on my mother.

At first, my mother found a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant in the town, but she didn't think much money, but the family's expenses, and my father's legs often hurt, and the leg bones did not grow well, and once they got wet or cloudy, it would hurt terribly, so my mother quit her job as a dishwasher.

At that time, my mother took me to the town, and I saw her going door to door asking if there was a shortage of people, and people saw that her salary as a woman was not high at all, and my mother was not satisfied, and finally went to a rickshaw rental company.

I was standing outside the company and heard my mother say to a middle-aged man: "I have a lot of strength, there is no problem with pulling a car, my man is sick and needs money." ”

The middle-aged man said: "Eldest sister, this is a job for us to show up, and what we sell is not only strength, but it is impossible to recruit women." ”

The mother said, "There is a special case to everything, and maybe I am no worse than a man." ”

"Hurry up, don't delay here." The middle-aged man was a little impatient and waved his hand to let his mother out.

My mother went out and said to me with a smile on her face, "Jiang Rong, I thought of a good job, so I went to weave a cloak." ”

At that time, there were several stalls selling cloaks in Beiping City, a cloak sold for five cents, and weaving a cloak could get a dime and a half for manual fees, and my mother had always been skillful, and it was no problem to weave twenty a day, so that I could have an income of three yuan a day, which was higher than my father's income from working on the construction site.

When the women in the tunzi heard that their mother was making money by weaving cloaks, they were all eager to knit them, but they couldn't make five of them after a day of hard work, and they often had a few bloody cuts on their hands, and they didn't dare to do it anymore after it was hot for a while.

My mother's fingers were often wrapped in cloths, and once when she was chopping vegetables, she splashed peppers on her hands and she soaked them in well water for a long time, and I saw that there was not a single piece of skin on her hands, and it looked like it had been blown by the wind with a knife.

During that time, the life at home was particularly difficult, not only in terms of life, but also in spirit.

Sometimes I would suddenly be woken up by Jiang Sheng, and I saw Jiang Sheng sweating profusely, or shivering, I don't know what nightmare he had, he used to sleep quietly, and he woke up like he woke up when he slept, and the curved arc of his eyebrows and eyes was like a crescent moon.

The family had not eaten meat for two months, and his mother sometimes came back late from work in the town, so he asked Jiang Sheng to cook by himself, Jiang Sheng did not like the smell of oil smoke, and he did not want me to be stained with oil, and he was not even allowed to be in front of him when the fire was burning. He often wiped his little face with dust everywhere, and he also washed the clothes in the house.

Jiang Sheng and I lost a lot of weight during that time, and Shen A-Niang was very distressed when she saw Jiang Sheng lose weight, so she took Jiang Sheng and me to his house for dinner a few times.

Sometimes his father slept until the afternoon and didn't get up, and Jiang Sheng had to cook for his father when he came home from school.

Jiang Sheng no longer has the same vigor as before, and sometimes he looks listless when greeting others, Xiao Wu is distressed, and sometimes he is reluctant to eat the snacks given to him by Wang Hu at the same table, and he will quietly stuff them in Jiang Sheng's table belly after class.

I don't know who passed on the matter of our family to the class, and some people noticed that Jiang Sheng used to be spotless when he was dressed, and his hair was always neat, but now Jiang Sheng's clothes will have a little stain, and his hair will occasionally be curled up.

He still looks so good-looking, but not as unattainable as he used to be.

When Jiang Sheng went to the toilet after class and came back, there would often be some small snacks and fruits in the belly of the table, and some little girls would copy some small love poems for Jiang Sheng, if Jiang Sheng looked at them more, they would be so excited that they would blush all day.

The winter of that year was very cold, because my mother went to the town to earn money to support the family, and my father drank heavily all day long, so no one burned the kang at all.

Mother and father talked a few times and were scolded by the father bloody, the mother sometimes didn't want to listen to the father's nagging will go out of the door, if Niu Aihua saw it, he would taunt the mother twice.

Once Niu Aihua pointed to her mother and said: "Yo, Zhang Xiumei, look at your grievances, your man is now scolding people more than his mother, this is your own sin!" ”

Mother was angry all day long, scolded by her father and ridiculed by Niu Aihua, so she replied with two words, she used to be afraid that her father would blame her for being a bastard like Niu Aihua, and never quarreled with any neighbors, but now he is tired outside, angry at home, and when he goes out, he will be scolded by Niu Aihua naturally can't stand it, so he quarreled with her.

The two quickly turned from a quarrel to a fight, and the mother's face was scratched by Niu Aihua several pieces of skin, Niu Aihua said: "Even your mother scolded you for being a cheap woman, you took out your own money to others, and you also gave money to my man, what are your intentions?" You are to blame for harming your man like this! It's called retribution! ”

The conflict between the mother and Niu Aihua soon spread throughout Sanlitun, and after Xiao Wu came home from school, Niu Aihua was forbidden to play with Jiang Sheng in the future.

Xiao Wu naturally didn't let him, put down his schoolbag and still went to find Jiang Sheng.

At that time, I was standing at the door of the house, and when I saw Xiao Wu coming over, I said, "Xiao Wu, don't come to my brother in the future, your mother beats my mother." ”

Xiao Wu said: "The affairs of adults have nothing to do with us children. ”

The mother cleaned up her things in the yard and called Jiang Sheng's name with a warning in her tone.

I looked at Jiang Sheng, Jiang Sheng raised his head and said aggrievedly, "You, don't come to me in the future." ”

"Oh." Xiao Wu answered, turned his head and left, he kept wiping his tears behind our backs, silently, as if nothing had happened.

In the next few days of school, Xiao Wu never walked with us, he seemed to be deliberately avoiding us, sleeping on the table in and out of class, if a classmate in the class was bullied by the senior students and asked him for help, he would go and beat people very badly.

Zhao Dahai is difficult at both ends, sometimes he walks with Jiang Sheng, sometimes he walks with Xiao Wu, and he doesn't know how to persuade peace when the child has conflicts.

Later, on a snowy day, Qin Changqing came to the school to invite Mr. Zhang to a banquet at Guanghe Restaurant, and specially asked Mr. Zhang to take Jiang Sheng with him, and Jiang Sheng was taken away by Qin Changqing at noon and went to the banquet in a rickshaw together.

Jiang Sheng didn't come back after school that day, Zhao Dahai and I were left behind to clean up, and it was already evening when we left the school gate.

Jiang Sheng was personally sent back to Sanlitun by Qin Changqing, when his mother was still in the town and did not come back, Jiang Sheng made a fire and cooked while asking me to clean up the ** that my father vomited all over the floor in the house.

I looked at the fluttering snow in the yard and asked, "Brother, do you know what day it is?" ”

Jiang Sheng frowned and said, "Forget." ”

"Today is Xiao Nian." I said with a twist.

Jiang Sheng sighed, and then continued to make a fire to cook.

When I turned around, I burst into tears, and my heart was indescribably sour.

I remembered that last year, Jiang Sheng said that my brother will celebrate your birthday every year in the future.