(21)

It had snowed outside overnight, and the snow was silent and silent. In the morning, the sky cleared, the sparrows chirped and cheered on the branches, and the falling snow on the branches was trampled and fell, shining in the sun.

Sunlight shone through the glass windows into the Zhong family's house. Zhong Shulin rubbed his sleepy eyes, sat up from the bed, habitually glanced at the wall clock on the wall, and suddenly woke up, he didn't have to be busy going to work. According to the city's regulations, bureau-level cadres will reach the age of retirement at the age of 58, and yesterday, he has completed all the formalities for internal retirement, and he will no longer have to go to work from today.

In the cupboard, it was the familiar sound of his wife's busyness, although the footsteps and the sound of holding the basin were very soft, he still felt his wife's presence, and at this time, breakfast should have been made early.

It seems that in the past two or three years, the wife is obviously old, her sideburns have turned gray, her eyes are a little cloudy, and her original round face and cheeks are not so full, and there are two obvious wrinkles. For the aging wife, I don't know from which day, Zhong Shulin suddenly had a feeling of pity, and his title was changed from "Shanzi Mother" to "Old Wife". Did this emotion come out of nowhere after they had lived together for thirty years? Of course not, but little by little, the seed was planted from the moment she knew he was nodding her head resolutely at noon eight years ago for an ulterior motive to get her to cooperate.

She's not a sound woman, but it's not her fault. Over the years, this woman has conscientiously kept a home spotless and orderly, and has borne everything silently without complaining.

I can't remember when Zhong Shulin looked at his wife with more tenderness in his eyes, and when he came back from a business trip, in addition to buying snacks and sweets for his son, he didn't forget to buy some things that women love for his wife, sometimes it was a fashionable Shanghai really good flower shirt, sometimes it was a pair of old Beijing cloth shoes with his feet, and sometimes he walked in a hurry, only buying a small colored plastic hairpin at the kiosk at the train station, in short, it was a rare thing to see in this small northern city.

Li Chunhua didn't say anything, of course she tasted the sweetness of the love of husband and wife in her heart, and she also felt that she owed this man too much in her life, and it was not enough to repay her by doing housework. When she was quiet alone, she often thought that if Zhong Shulin really had that kind of relationship with some woman outside, it would be fair to him, and she would feel more at ease. However, over the years, he couldn't see any signs of a woman outside, but spent all his thoughts on her and his son.

Zhong Shan grew taller, half a head longer than his father, his voice became simple, and he grew a small beard. The son grew up, but the relationship with his father became estranged day by day. Zhong Shan rarely had a verbal communication with his father, and he only told his mother about any things, such as paying books and tuition, customizing clothes for joining the choir, buying an acoustic guitar for a guitar training class, and buying a bicycle for a long way to school.

Zhong Shan's coldness towards his father also began at noon in the autumn when two adults lied to him in front of him when he was 12 years old, and as he grew older, he understood more and more things, and his resentment towards his father became deeper and deeper.

For as long as he can remember, his father and mother slept separately, living in a small room when he was young, his mother sleeping in a small house with his arms in his arms, and his father living alone in a big house. After moving into a three-bedroom building, my father had an exclusive one, a bedroom and a study. He began to be sensible and thought that this was not a normal married life. He vaguely felt that there might be another woman in his father's life, although she did not openly occupy the position of Quanzi's mother like Nurse Ma, but like a shadow, she appeared in Zhong Shan's mind from time to time and lingered. What puzzled him was that his mother didn't seem to know anything about this, and she didn't complain, but instead of complaining, she took care of her father in every way, as if all this was extremely normal. So he felt that his mother was even more pitiful, treated coldly and bullied, but he did not have the slightest spirit of resistance, and he felt that his father was even more hateful, and regarded his mother's patience as weakness. He hasn't figured out how to defend his mother's dignity and rights, and now, he can only keep everything in his heart.