Chapter 33 thirty

At the alley of our house in Lane 28, Longjiang Street, I called a taxi to stop. There was no one in the alley, and the doors and windows of each house were closed. It turned out that those tattered diaper briefs had probably been taken away long ago.On the left, one of the gates of Staff Officer Qin's house was still missing, and the other one was babbling back and forth in the wind.The garbage dumps in the alley were still there, towering yellow, yellow and black.The gutters were filled with rainwater, and the turbid dirt rushed to the road, making it muddy.The wind blew into the alley and made a whining sound, making our dilapidated dead-end alley look even more desolate and chaotic.I hugged my mother's ashes urn tightly to my chest, my palms were sweating, the urn with a round belly was a bit slippery, and it was not easy to hold it firmly.The wind was strong, and my feet were not very stable. I took one step at a time and worked conscientiously. I escorted my mother's ashes home.

The black oilcloth on the corner of the eaves of our house is still covered there, and many red bricks are pressed on it, and the bricks are black and moldy.Typhoon Daisy passed through the country the year before last and knocked off a corner of our roof.The next day, my father led me and my younger brother, and the three of us, father and son, worked together to cover up the hole with an oilcloth.I climbed up to the roof, my father stood on the ladder, and my brother passed the bricks below.But Amelie is much stronger than Daisy. I don't know if this hole can withstand the storm tonight.From the crack of the gate, I saw that the doors and windows of the house inside were closed, and the lights were not turned on. It was not yet six o'clock, and my father probably hadn't come back from get off work.I held my mother's ashes and stood at the gate of our house. In an instant, I almost forgot that I had been away from home for four months, and that my father had driven me out of the house.I put my mother's ashes on the ground, climbed over the wall to the house, opened the door, and welcomed my mother's remains into the house.In our damp and low living room, in the dark, I could also smell the pungent musty smell that has been emitted from the walls and floors for a long time. I suddenly felt that I was really home again.I turned on the dim chandelier in the hall, and placed my mother's ashes on our dark dining table.Everything in the living room remains the same, even the position of father's shiny bamboo armchair has not been moved, it is sitting upright under the chandelier in the hall, on a small table next to the chair, resting his father's presbyopic eyes mirror.On summer evenings, when the heat in the house was still hot, we all went to the door to enjoy the cool air. My father stayed in the house alone, shirtless, sitting on the bamboo armchair, wearing reading glasses, under the dim chandelier. , Concentrating on reading his book "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" published by Shanghai Guangyi Bookstore.Only when the mosquito bit him, he slapped his thigh, raised his head suddenly, his face full of anger and displeasure.Suddenly, I recalled my father's extremely sad face. On the night when my mother left, my father was drunk, his face was full of tears, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was admonishing us. After a night of drunken talk, I will never forget his sad, almost terrifying face for the rest of my life.Suddenly I felt that I could no longer face the sad face of my father.I believe that if my father saw me escorting my mother's remains home, he might accept us.Although the father hated his mother for her depravity and infidelity, he did not forget his love for her.The only photo with his mother hanging on the wall in his room was once taken down, and after many years, it was quietly hung back to its original place.If my mother repented and returned before she was alive, I believe that my father might let her go home, and I was the last ray of hope in my father's bleak old age: he always hoped that one day I would become an excellent officer and fight for him , To wash away the humiliation of his capture and dismissal.I was expelled from school in such a dishonorable way, but broke his lifelong dream of me.His anger and sorrow at that time can be imagined.Sometimes I can't help but wonder whether my father still has a glimmer of hope for me, hoping that I will change my past and go home to be a new man.After all, my father valued me so much once, and his father-son relationship with me will not be completely broken.However, I felt that I would never be able to face my father's heartbroken face again.In an instant, I realized why my mother was wandering and depraved everywhere before she was alive, and she never dared to return. She must have thought of returning home when she was in a desperate situation many times.She didn't dare to go home until after she died.When my mother died, she was still afraid, afraid that she would be left outside and become a lonely ghost. Her body full of sins was burned to ashes, and she still asked me to escort her home to her final destination. This shows how mother treats us. This dilapidated home is still very attached.

I took out a piece of paper from my trouser pocket. It was a piece of Jinghua Hotel letterhead, with 779741 written on the back of the letterhead. That was the phone number that the guest of Jinghua Hotel had left for me last time.I wrote two lines of words to my father on the front of the letterhead, and placed it next to my mother's ashes on the dinner table: My Father: My mother passed away the day after Hungry Ghost Festival.This is my mother's ashes.The mother left a message on her deathbed, asking her son to escort her body home and bury it next to his younger brother's tomb.

Qingerliu I had to leave before my father came back so as not to meet him.Before I left, I went to the room where my brother and I used to play for a while.The younger brother's bedding was taken away, leaving only an empty bamboo bed.On my bed, the straw mat pillows are all there.My uniform, clothes, shoes and socks, stationery and books were stacked on the pillow, none of which had been moved.But the whole room is covered with a thick layer of gray sand, and no one has cleaned it in months.I didn't take anything, I closed the door and walked out of the house.The wind from the alley swept towards him head-on, and with the torrent of rain, it hit his face with numbness.Against the wind, I walked out of the alley, faster and faster, and finally ran like last time, ran to the entrance of the alley, and looked back, I suddenly felt a sore nose, and finally a lot of tears came out.This time, I really tasted the desolation of leaving home.