Zhang Quan returned from Hopewell Academy's literacy class, clutching a brush, eager to show Liu Xian the new …
Zhang Quan returned from Hopewell Academy's literacy class, clutching a brush, eager to show Liu Xian the new character he'd learned that day.
Liu Xian couldn't read. Zhang Quan jumped down from his slightly-too-high stool, tossed the brush aside, grabbed her hand, and traced the character onto her palm: "Mother, Master said this is the character for 'home'."
Liu Xian smiled, rubbing her tingling palm. The character had many strokes, so the tingling lingered.
Zhang Quan chattered about his day at school: "Mother, Master told us to think about what 'home' means. Isn't home just where Father and Mother are?"
But when both parents had been present, Liu Xian had no home.
Her only home in this life began at nineteen, on that rainy night when she huddled at the entrance of Zhang's Eatery. What was a home like? She learned from Zhang Ankang, who had learned from his own mother.
So Liu Xian learned: "Home is where someone waits to eat with you." "The food on the table stays warm for those who return late."
One lesson after another.
Then she would learn many, many more.
After Liquan was born, she added one more.
"Home is where Zhang Ankang and Liquan are. Home is where our Quan can thrive."
That was what he taught her.
Yet why did those lessons stop applying years later, as Liu Xian stared at their burning shop, at the rioters, picking up bricks, shattered tiles, scattered ingredients?
They still applied, only he had two homes. The first one is his home with his mother. The second is his home with her.
She only ever had one.
Liu Xian knew she couldn't stop him.
She'd known long ago that those with one steamed bun must bow to those with two. Was that the only reason she yielded?
Her gaze fixed on a smudged corner of the recipe book, the one Zhang Ankang's mother had left behind.
Zhang Ankang had once cooked from that book. Now, an outsider in the jianghu studied it for clues about the "Cai" character.
Liu Xian's fingers absently brushed the stain, a mother's final tear.
A drop of grief from the past.