【小说】The Orchard

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Writing &Photo       By Huilan

It was on Saturday morning in autumn, and Liu didn’t know her daughter Susan who’s back home. Susan worked far away from her parents in St. Louis/>/> and prepared to spend her weekend at her parents’ house that day. For some unknown reasons, Susan loved her parents’ house very much. The house had a huge back yard that they all used to call “ orchard”, and sometimes Susan thought perhaps this was the whole reason why she loved to go home often. In fact, when Susan drove home that day, she regretted immediately because she didn’t want to meet her father, and so she didn’t go into the house but stepped into the orchard instead.  

It was a nice autumn day. Blue sky. Clouds were like horses running on the prairie. Across the road in the orchard, Susan could see a patch of green gardenias on either side of the walk that led up to the back door. Four new automobile tires were put near the door and it smelled strange. Behind the orchard was the green grass field, and perhaps it’s somebody’s orchard. The orchard had many fruit trees in it: apple trees, peach trees, pear trees, apricot trees, and plum trees. Somewhere across the field Susan could hear the sound of a beautiful song. Then she watched a yellow moth with dark specks like ink dots on its wings, flying about the trees and down into her parents’ house; she watched it until she could not see it anymore.

The sky was clear, and there was a smell of fragrant apple in the air. The apple trees were covered with multicolored apples: green, yellow, and red. Susan picked up a red apple and tasted first; it was sweet and sour. Then she tasted a green one, found it was totally sour. When she was enjoying all of this, her mother Liu was walking toward her.

Liu was quite tall, five six, five seven. She wore a white wool sweater and a white and black skirt, and both fit her very well. She had soft light yellow skin and high cheekbones and dark-black eyes, and her face and lips showed some smiling, but not much. Her hair was long and black, and she kept it twisted into a bun and pinned at the black of her head. In fact Liu was a beautiful woman, and Susan was just like her mother. 

“I stay here almost whole morning, and I’ll drive back now.” Susan said to her mother.

“Don’t rush like this. You can come in and drink tea with your father or we can eat lunch together before you leave.”  Liu put her right hand on Susan’s shoulder.

“No, Mom, there are some letters. Please hand it to Papa at right time. I don’t want to argue with him today.” Susan was talking with Liu for a while before she left.

Liu didn’t give the letters to her husband that day. The next afternoon, when she saw her husband Zhang was in a good mood, she took the three letters from the cabinet of her book-table and handed them to Zhang. Zhang was surprised but read them several times over and finally with an oath threw them on the floor.

“Great, she said she would not change her mind again. Oh my gosh, she’s going to marry that black man. I can’t imagine what that will be. An Africa-American black man, not a Chinese!” Zhang said loudly with anger.

Liu didn’t reply at once. For years Liu had been worried about her daughter Susan, for she was always loved the foreigners. First, she fell in love with an American white man, her university classmate, and Zhang was angry enough to stop their relationship between father and daughter. Susan quit the man at last. A year later, Susan fell in love again, this time was a Mexican man, and she dared not to let her father know about it. Unfortunately by accident, Zhang knew the whole thing from seeing Liu’s letters, which were sent from Susan. Then Susan quit again.

“Hei, hei, this time is a black man, and she said she’s not quit him again even who wants to stop any relationship between father and daughter. Hear, what she said, where she put me on, and how disorder she is!”

At last Liu spoke: “ But she already got her MBA master degree and has a good job now. In my eyes, she’s totally an adult and should get married in such an age.”

“ Who’s talking of marriage age? I was speaking about the man who she’s going to married with. A black man. I ever, never agree with her about a marriage like this. What a shame!”  

“There’s no shame at all. I just feel proud of her. I saw him once. He’s an excellent graduated student and a lovely young man. I’m glad that Susan chose him as her husband someday. ”

“What are you talking about? There are always some very wrong ideas in both you and your daughter’s mind.”

“Is the idea of freedom and equal rights for a woman wrong?”

“Now my wife, you must stop talking like that. I thought Susan should get married with a Chinese was quite right because the foreigners no good at our culture, especially a black man. I am not going to allow a marriage like that.”

“But you know very well that the world changes fast, and all cultures are intertwined now!”

“In my opinion my idea was quite right. I must warn you, Liu, that your support for our daughter is going a little too far. I’ll send for Susan and you must tell her our decision about her marriage.”

“No, it’s not our decision. It’s just your decision, yours. And you’ll see that your decision is not going to work. Who cares! Remember Susan is an adult now, and she’s not your private girl anymore.”  

“What drove you speak like that? You must forget what is our Chinese Root. You must go crazy. I don’t want to say anymore to you and your good daughter, and I just warn you that if you don’t change your mind, then I will get divorced with you!”

This was too much for Liu. She burst into tears, laying her head on the seat of the chair that standing near the book-table. At the same time, Zhang left the room, went into kitchen and drank a half bottle of wine, put on his jacket and a baseball-hat, and then went out of the house.

Everything was changed from that day. As a result at the quarrel, Zhang didn’t go back home for months and even didn’t give Liu a phone call, and such a thing never had happened during their 35 years marriage. In fact, they had argued over things during the years, but they always made peace again a few days later. But this time was unusual. Liu didn’t know what to do. She tried to call Zhang at once, but he didn’t even give her a word and then hung up the phone immediately. Liu realized that things never as simple and easy as she thought. She wanted to do something to change Zhang’s mind sometimes, but then she knew well that it wouldn’t work at all. “ What am I going to do the next?” she asked herself many times and figured out that the only way was to change Susan’s mind. She decided to tell Susan the truth.

“Susan, I’ll tell you something which I didn’t tell you over the months. Your father didn’t came home for half of year now.” Liu told Susan with a sadly voice.

“Really? I’m very sorry to hear you said that. Did he give you a phone call or write a letter or something else?”

“No, no, the whole thing is even more worse than you can imagine. You know me well, and you know that I have never been against your decision at anytime, but you know what, you father said if you dare to get married with that black guy or any foreign guy, he’ll get divorced with me.”

“What! He said he’d get divorced with you? I can’t believe this. You know the whole thing is mine, not yours, and you have no mistake at all. I don’t understand what he’s talking about.”

“But you do know you father. He’ll do what he said.”

“So, what we should do right now?”

“I want to ask you the same question.”

“I don’t know, Mom, but I won’t change my mind this time as I promised.”

“Oh, I see. I see. You won’t change your mind indeed, and your father won’t change his mind, of course. Now just I can change my mind and to agree to be divorced with your father, and then you both can get what you want.”

“I didn’t mean that, really. Mom, I just love him and can’t break my words to him.”

Liu didn’t say one more word to her daughter. When she hung up the phone, she just wanted to cry or yell loudly, but she couldn’t. She felt over exhausted from the battle between her husband and her daughter, and she really didn’t know where to put herself.

Liu saw the family picture put on the wall with three happy faces, and she was thinking that the happy time would never be again in this family. The happiness was over. Everything was over. She thought it deeply and she knew it deeply. She got tired with the family problem, and felt she had nothing to do with the situation. She turned around in front of the mirror slowly and saw her white hair was waving with the wind from the window. “Well, well, I can go nowhere. Maybe I just can go Mom’s home for a while.” She said to herself and then smiled, “right, this is the best way to spend time.”

From that point, Liu decided to go back to China/>/> with her old Mom. And how longed she wanted to see her Mom at that moment. She felt she’s never left her Mom even though she was living in the United States/>/>. She was a real Mom, but she needed her own Mom, too. Only Mom was the person who all kids needed over all of their lifetime. When Liu thought of her Mom, her pain was suddenly relieved. Two days later, Susan and Zhang received the same email message from Liu from China/>/>. It said:

I know you both don’t need me anymore, but I’ve done my best to you both of what a woman should be done during the years. I worked hard and earned enough money for my husband during his university years and saved his life once from the lion, which we met on the mountains, and I gave my daughter the best of every day’s life and education and now she’s growing up. Theses two people were my heart, and were always more important than my own life, but now all things have changed and I feel I don’t need them, too. Life is a dream for me and when I wake up now, I figure out that I have to live my own life and so I’ll have it at last.   

   Zhang and Susan were surprised when they checked the email. For knowing each other well for many years in the family, they both were unable to believe their eyes, but it happened. They both made many phone calls to China/>/>, but nobody knew where was Liu. Liu even not sent a word or made a phone call to them after sending the email. Zhang moved out from the rent apartment and went back to home, but the house was empty. Susan visited her parents’ house on every Saturday, but there was always just a parent, her father there, and each week, their conversation was only fighting from each other.

Time flied. Another nice autumn day was coming. Blue sky. Clouds were like horses running on the prairie. Across the road in the orchard, Susan could see a patch of green gardenias on either side of the walk that led up to the back door. Four new automobile tires were still put near the door and it was no strange smell now. Behind the orchard was the green grass field. The orchard had many fruit trees in it: apple trees, peach trees, pear trees, apricot trees, and plum trees. Somewhere across the field Susan could hear the sound of shouting from an old man. Then she was surprised to see a yellow moth with dark specks like ink dots on its wings, just like the one she saw last year, flying about the trees and down into her parents’ house; she still watched it until she could not see it anymore. Susan was standing under the apple trees and thinking that everything was same as the last autumn except her Mom was not here. Now Susan hoped her Mom was here and she wanted tell her that she would be married with that black man, Jefferson, next month. Susan wanted the support from Liu, which was always the strongest support of her life.

“You are here to miss you Mom or that black man?” her father appeared suddenly.

“Both, but not you!” Susan answered.

“I know. I don’t expect any thing from you.”

“I think you expect too many from me and it made Mom go away.”

“That’s all your fault.”

“I don’t think it’s my fault, and I know it’s just your fault.”

They were fighting each other again in such a nice “last-autumn” like day. They didn’t notice a golden Infiniti passing the house and stopped. A handsome black young man got out of the car and held a beautiful wedding-ring box in his hand. It was Jefferson/>. He stepped near the door and knocked on it, but nobody answered. Then he turned back and went toward the back yard and heard the quarrel immediately.

“I’ll tell you again. I won’t allow you be married with that black man.” 

“And I’ll tell you again, too. It’s none of your business. I’ll do what I told you.”

“You got your Mom away from us and I’ll never forgive you.”

“It’s your entire fault. If you weren’t threaten Mom that you would get divorced with her, she would never leave us.”

“If you didn’t love that black guy, I would not say that.”

“Hear, I want to get married with Jefferson/>. That’s my own idea, not Mom’s, ok? She’s no fault at all. I really don’t know what’s wrong with you. I can’t imagine what you did to her, and I feel that you just go crazy. You hurt Mom and me.”

“I’m not hurt anybody. As the family head, I must stop the wrong direction of the marriage that your Mom gave to you. Anyway, you should be married with a Chinese, and I’ll say that again: our family never can hold a foreigner. Never!”

“Then we’ll see who wins the last!”

“I hate that guy!”

“But I love him!”

“That black man hurt all of us.”

…

The quarrel was continuing, and Jefferson/> heard more and more words from Zhang and Susan, and now he knew suddenly that what was the reason Susan had not allowed him to go to see her parents and why Susan’s mother left home. Jefferson/> was really shocked.  He knew that the reason why Susan’s father doesn’t like him, not because he was a black man. The real reason was that he was not a Chinese!

Jefferson/> put back the box into his jacket package, and then got into his car quietly. He put the key into the ignition switch.

Behind the beautiful golden Infiniti, a few birds were flying about in the sky.