Please Be Our Third Person - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Three days later, I went to the nursing home to visit my mother.

The young girl at the nurse’s station greeted me with a smile, mentioning that Auntie Lin had been in a good mood lately because a Miss Shen had been coming by frequently to keep her company.

I stopped in my tracks.

“Which Miss Shen?”

“She’s tall, very fair, with long hair.”

The girl thought for a moment.

“She said she’s a reader of yours. She even brought Auntie some of those oranges she likes.”

My grip tightened on the bag of fruit I was carrying.

The ward door was open.

My mother was sitting by the window, so thin she was nothing but skin and bones. A light blue blanket covered her knees as she stared blankly into space.

She had been a very beautiful woman in her youth.

Beautiful enough that even after being sick for so many years, her face still bore the soft traces of someone who had once been cherished by life.

But that softness eventually became a weight that fell entirely on me.

I walked over and called out to her.

She looked up at me, her eyes vacant at first. After a few seconds, she suddenly asked, “Xiao Qiu, where is that girl from today?”

“Which girl?”

“The one who mimics the way I talk.”

She smiled briefly, then quickly frowned, as if suddenly frightened by her own words.

“She asked me what you were most afraid of when you were little.”

“I told her you weren’t afraid of the dark-you were afraid of me crying.”

My throat tightened instantly.

“Mom.”

I tried my best to keep my voice steady.

“What else did she ask?”

My mother gazed at me, a thin veil of mist clouding her eyes.

“She also asked if you’ve always been good at taking care of people.”

“I said yes, my Xiao Qiu is the best at taking care of people. Whatever others don’t want-the broken things, the shattered things-she picks them all up.”

As she spoke, she suddenly reached out and grabbed my wrist.

Her fingertips were icy.

“But you should stop being the mother now.”

I froze.

It had been many years since anyone had said those words to me.

Ever since I was sixteen, everyone assumed I should be the stable one, the one who could shoulder the burden, the one who knew how to handle people who had lost control of their emotions.

I studied psychology in college, continued with clinical studies in grad school, and later opened my own studio, appeared on shows, and published books. Everyone said I was a natural for this profession.

Only I knew it wasn’t natural.

It was forced out of me.

When I left the nursing home, a light rain was falling outside.

A paper bag had been left on my car door handle, unsigned.

I opened it. Inside was a faded strawberry hair clip and a photocopy of an award certificate from the third grade.

The hair clip was one I had lost when I was eleven.

I’d lost it by the kitchen door of our old house.

On the back of the certificate, a line of text was written:

*When you were little, you used to bite your lower lip right before you cried.*

I stared at those words, standing in the rain for a long time, unable to bring myself to throw the bag away.

During their regular Thursday slot, they arrived on time.

Xu Mingche was wearing a gray cashmere coat today.

The style was very similar to the one I often wore, even down to the color of the buttons.

When he sat down, he casually pushed his glasses up. The movement was identical to mine-touching the left temple first, then the bridge of the nose.

To take mimicry to this extent was no longer a coincidence.

“You went to the nursing home.”

I got straight to the point.

Shen Yanxi didn’t deny it.

She was wearing a very subtle lipstick today, a dusty rose shade that happened to be the one I used most this season.

“I wanted to get to know you a little better,” she said.

“If you’re going to treat us, you ought to know which side you’re standing on.”

“I am not a party to your marriage.”

“But you will be soon.”

She said this softly, then curled her lips into a smile as if afraid of startling me.

“At least to me, you are.”

Xu Mingche didn’t stop her.

He just looked at me with a steady gaze, as if waiting for me to admit to a fact that had existed for a long time.

“You’ve crossed the line.”

I placed the paper bag on the table.

“If it happens again, I will terminate all contact.”

When Shen Yanxi saw the hair clip, a glint of something bordering on delight flashed in her eyes.

“So you really do remember.”

“Of course I remember.”

“That’s good then.”

She lowered her head, her voice as soft as a child acting spoiled.

“My biggest fear was that I’d spend all that time learning, only for you not to care at all.”