In March 2016, spring arrived in New Jersey. The leaves outside the building sprouted new branches, the ground was covered with delicate flowers, and the purple-red triangular plum blossomed one after another, enchanting.

The cleaning lady came to the room to pick up the garbage bags, and she always liked to sneak a sneak peek at me, probably because I was one of the few Asians here, and she was like a visitor to the zoo, setting her eyes on the animals that made her curious. She was slow and loud, and I was always uncomfortable with her.

I was quietly reading a few of Sernuda's poems, and she kept making noises of colliding with objects, which annoyed me, so I threw down my book and put on my slippers and went out.

"Xie Yihua?"

A male voice fell above my head, and he called me by my full name, which was very nice, and the words were round, and there was a little hesitation in his tone.

I looked up and saw a male face, familiar and unfamiliar, it was Mr. Hu. He had long hair and was wearing a black suit, as if he had just gotten off work.

"Why you?"

He pointed to the clothes on my body that had the name of the nursing home on them.

I didn't speak, he stared at me up and down several times. He closed his mouth, opened his mouth again, and said, "Are you all right?" ”

I lowered my head, my eyes fell on his shiny leather shoes, and I replied coldly: "Can't you?" ”

"No, no, no."

He was in a hurry to argue, but I just gave him a cold look, picked up my steps and continued in the direction of the restaurant.

I made a seafood noodle at a white aunt's place, and I often eat it, but I still can't get used to it, and I think it's far worse than Yummy's seafood noodles. But I can't remember what Yummy's seafood noodles tasted like.

"Finally found you."

As soon as I sat down and finished my first bite of noodles, Mr. Hu came over and sat down in front of me with a cup of coffee.

I was eating by myself, but he saw that I didn't speak, and wanted to tease me, saying, "I didn't expect to see you again, I thought you had jumped into the river." ”

But the joke wasn't funny at all, and I ignored him and continued to bite into the noodles a few more times.

He sat still for a long time, until I was almost done eating, and I finally spoke, "You're locked up too?" ”

"I'm coming to see a friend."

"Aren't you afraid of affecting your work?"

"Are you still angry?"

"What am I angry about?" I'm playing dumb.

"As for the last time we met, we broke up unhappily, don't say you forgot."

I smiled nonchalantly, "I really remember." ”

I picked up the plate and left the table, Mr. Hu didn't follow me, maybe he left, just as his ears were clear again.

I turned on my phone, put on my headphones and listened to a song, a very old song, and then went back to my room and sat on the small sofa to continue reading the poem. He said: There was no sleepiness that night, and he was tired of counting the waves, and there were so many waves, and there would be people there who would understand his bitterness.

Will there be?

I laughed and flipped the book to the last page, with only the translator's name at the end, and left most of the blank space.

I'm tired again.

I lay back in bed and didn't wake up until about three o'clock in the afternoon. Standing at the window looking out at the trees and the scattered crowd walking back and forth on the path.

I'm going to report to Smith's office at half past three in the afternoon, and although I don't like him, I promise Brooks to listen to him.

"Good afternoon, how are you feeling today?" Opening remarks as always.

"That's all." The answer is the same as always.

"Hua, take it easy, let's play a game." Brooks took me to the corner of his office, only a curtain away, about five or six square meters, covered by a gauze curtain, and the walls around him were snow-white, like a small place to rest.

"I'll put on a piece of music for you, you just have to close your eyes, inhale and exhale."

Smith said it would allow me to relax, and after ten minutes I was really not so nervous, and even a little sleepy.

He took me back to his office desk, and I sat in the soft chair, and he asked me, "Did you write a diary today?" ”

"Not yet."

He took out a small paper bag from the drawer and said, "This is a cookie made by my daughter, it tastes good, you can try it." ”

"Thank you."

But I didn't take it.

"Very normal biscuits, no additives."

I shook my head at him and signaled that I didn't like cookies.

For an hour, half an hour I listened to him talk about his daughter. He said he would drive from New Jersey to a ballet school in Brooklyn on Saturday mornings, and that his daughter would stay at a nearby restaurant for a three-hour ballet meal. After eating, he took his daughter to dinner, and then the two rested in the car for a while, and he had to send his daughter to the other side to learn the violin.

"I think it's enough to have one child, and if I give birth to two, I will completely return to the family." Smith sighed sweetly, "It's beautiful and free when you're single, but marriage is ...... Uh, my baby daughter has made me a happy home. Brooks said, grabbing the bag of small cookies in one hand. His eyes were immersed in the happiness of his family.

"Grief." I spit out the word softly.

I still haven't made any progress when I go back, and I find that I have basically finished reading this poetry collection, and I can memorize some of my favorite poems.

A week later, I met Mr. Hu again outside my room.

"So you really live on this floor." He said.

I ignored him and walked straight away to fill the water.

"Have you eaten?"

"Do you need my help?"

He asked me a barrage. I wondered, we obviously don't owe each other, which one is he singing?

"Next time, bring me a book of Sernuda's poems." I said to him after filling the water and got off the elevator.

A week later, Mr. Hu came from New York. He really brought it for me, and he brought two Chinese translations, all of which were Sernuda's poetry by the same translator.

"How much?"

"I asked a friend in China to send the Chinese version, the relationship is good, and he confiscated my money."

"Okay then."

I left the two unopened books on the couch in my room.

He sat down in a black chair next to me, looked at me, and asked me, "Do you like to read?" ”

I looked at him and didn't answer.

"I still like Bach." He said again.

"I'm not familiar with Bach, but I've heard it a few times in a while."

"Really? I didn't know Mozart well, I hadn't met him. ”

For the first time in all my time in the nursing home, I laughed.

"Would you like to see me jump into the river or off the building?"

"Nope. I haven't seen you for a long time, just looking for something to talk about......"

My fingers, which were about to turn the page, stopped, and I sneered and said, "If one day I do jump, remember to help me pray to the Lord for him to forgive me." ”

"Say something unpleasant."

My serious face suddenly smiled, and I told him, "I'm kidding you." ”

Shortly after Mr. Hu left, Brooks came to see me. We hadn't seen each other in a long time, and we sat down at a wooden table in the dining room to eat.

"I didn't expect there to be dumplings here." He laughed and took a bite, the corners of his mouth covered with soup, "It tastes similar to what you made." ”

I pulled the corners of my mouth and smiled, "Very rarely, you caught up." ”

"That's my luck!"

Brooks smiled so happily that he ate thirty dumplings, and after the meal his stomach was so swollen that we walked outside by the flower beds. New Jersey dusk is golden, not as radiant as New York, and has an earthy beauty.

The first time we met here, he exchanged a few words with me and asked me if I was used to it, and I said it was okay.

"Mr. Brooks, I want to go back, and the longer I stay here, the more I question myself."

Brooks was silent for a moment, and then we circled around twice and walked into a small pavilion in the center of the flower bed, where he sat down and said, "Before I came to see you, I went to Smith for a cup of coffee, and he said you didn't want to talk to him. ”

"I... I need a little time. ”

I looked down, and my eyes quickly turned red.

I don't want to strip myself naked in front of outsiders, and mental nudity is just as humiliating as physical exposure, isn't it?

"If you don't care about me, then ......"

“Hua。”

Brooks immediately interrupted me so that I couldn't go any further.

"You are willing to come here, I believe that your heart longs to be protected and healed. Trust Smith and believe in yourself. ”

I nodded vigorously, tears streaming down my face.

Summer is too hot, winter is too cold, and autumn is too depressed, and only spring is the only season of hope. When we were children, we studied texts, and the people in the textbooks always said that spring is the season of revival of all things, the time when spring returns to the earth and the ice and snow melt.

Can I, like nature, return to the earth, melt my indifference, and be reborn into a new self?