Today I passed by Starbucks and went in to buy a cup of coffee.
The cafe was full of people and it was hard to find an empty seat. After sitting down, I found an old lady sitting next to me on the sofa seat, and the table was empty. She had rested one leg on a paper bag and was knitting a sweater.
I thought to myself, “I don’t even order a cup of coffee, not only occupying the seat, but also such an indecent posture.
But I thought about it, but I thought about it in a sullen voice, and I drank my coffee.
After sitting for a while, the old lady suddenly said to me: “Little sister, you help me see, how is this sweater?”
I looked up, she put on the half-finished sweater, the sleeves have not finished knitting, wool needles hanging horizontally and vertically on the arm, looks very funny.
I went over and took a closer look at it, it was the cheapest and cheapest kind of wool, not wool and not cashmere, and the stitching was not very detailed. But I said from the bottom of my heart, “Auntie, you’ve knitted very well, and it looks like a good fit!”
“Really?” She turned around, “Look at the collar here, is it flat at the back?”
“It’s flat, it’s fine.” I said, “You must have been knitting for a long Time, right?”
Her eyes were small, so small that you couldn’t even see the eyeballs, and they were sick eyes.
She said, “Yes, it took me six months to knit it. I’ve knitted it to wear for the New Year!”
She showed a lot of interest in talking, so I simply sat down on the sofa opposite her: “Auntie, would you like some coffee? Can I buy you a cup?”
She waved her hand: “No, I can’t drink, I can’t sleep at night, and if I drink another cup of coffee, I can’t.”
“You have insomnia?”
“Yes, I have to take sleeping pills, I have insomnia for more than ten years. Sometimes I watch TV alone in the middle of the night, it’s very sad.”
“Alone? Is your partner gone?”
“She’s been gone for years, alone. My legs and feet are not good, my knees are broken, the cartilage is worn out, and it hurts a lot. I see that there is air conditioning here, so I came to sit for a while, playing sweater.”
Only then did I understand why she had to put one leg on hold.
She rambled on and on, telling me about a daughter, raising a child for her, a grandson, sent to her for three months, raised to school, the old lady picks up the child every day, cooks for him, and is now in her third year of junior high school, doing well, about to take the high school entrance exam.
“My daughter bought a house, asked me for 200,000, a new house with an elevator. I want to see it, not to me, do not want to live with me. I helped her raise her child, and I’m useless.” She wiped her eyes, “I’m okay now, live on the second floor, go to the grocery store once a week, buy good Food. I can’t walk more, my knees hurt, and it still hurts to use an electric blanket at night. Today it is rare to come out for a walk, sit here for a while, it is warm here.”
“Auntie, the heart is very bitter oh.” I said.
“I don’t dare to tell the neighbors, my daughter is like this, it’s embarrassing to talk about it and be looked down upon.”
“Then tell me about it, we are strangers, it’s okay.”
“Yes oh yes oh. My grandson is now in his third year of school, I think, now can not disturb his study, not good for him to distract. Wait a few more years, he is in college, I am also relieved, I will go to the lawsuit, I have a note written by my daughter in my hand, to get the 200,000 yuan back, I live in a nursing Home to go. Now I can not say, can not delay the child’s study.”
I looked at her furrowed face and remembered the fairy tale of the mother, the heartless child who wanted his mother’s heart to offer it to the princess, and the mother gave it to him. He ran and ran with the heart in his hand, and accidentally, he fell and the heart fell to the ground. The heart asked the child, “Child, did you fall and hurt?”
Even though that heart was bruised and battered, it was still thinking of the child.
As a stranger, after listening to her tell all this, nothing could be done, she still had to face the pain in her old age, and I would never meet her again. I could only listen to her in silence.
When I was leaving, I shook her hand: “Auntie, be good to yourself and take care of yourself!”
She smiled and said, “Yes, yes, yes!”
I felt that the hands I was holding in my heart were old and dry.
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