I can still remember that particular night, it was so cold and glum, my room was filled in darkness as I sat on my bed with nothing but haunting thoughts.
I was fourteen that year, it was a haunting memory, something that I couldn't wait to wipe off my head.
My parents were a couple before they were married, it seems like my father was a player like me and had flings the moment he broke up with my mother. Then she found out that she was pregnant and had me, my father was feeling guilty at that time and married my mother.
They were praised for their marriage, blessed with conjugal bliss and wishes were thrown for the newlyweds.
They stayed for fourteen years, pretending to be pigs and tiger as they show a blissful marriage life. But it was just a facade, they were broken and unable to be mended.
My father fell in love with a woman when he was still married to my mother. My mother knew about it but didn't said anything until she proposed a divorce to my father.
If small holes aren't fixed, then big holes will bring hardship.
I see the signs, heard the cries and sighs and felt the cold walls surrounding the four walls of our house.
That sleeping in different bedroom were normal, that my father is a busy man and my mother is an introvert, that a single crack could shatter the glass.
I think I knew that we aren't a normal family, I just ignored it and leave the matters to the adults.
I was still fourteen, a person whose half adult and half kid, I was immature about feelings and life. I didn't know the reason for their separation, I was too busy with my life that I didn't know that a family wasn't supposed to be like us.
My mother loved me, I knew it, I saw the look in her eyes. The love that simmers in her forlorn eyes as she caress my head, sweetly singing a lullaby everytime I cried due to nightmares.
But her love for my father was much bigger and stronger than her love for me.
Months after the separation, my father brought a woman, telling me that she's his wife.
A woman that is not my mother.
My new mother.
I rebelled, I fought with him until he screamed for me to get out of this house, and I did.
For I couldn't live under the same sky as this woman he now called his wife.
My mother found out, she went out when a storm was about to hit our city. I didn't know, all I remembered was the cold and shabby place, the moon was nowhere to be seen and the people looking at me with both disgust and pity.
I was soon found by the police, I was sleeping in a park and I was soon whisked in my place and was sent to my father's house.
There I saw him, his hunched back as he blankly nodded at the police, the woman looking at me with pity as she caressed my father's back repeatedly in comfort and I, I was just staring at them.
She was dead.
My mother was dead and it was all my fault.
Before she left this house I call prison, she told me something, an advice that I defy all my life until I found her.
My redemption.
My Feng-er.
...
"Ming Chen.... when... just when will you forgive me?"
I can hear the pain in his voice, the trembling hands he hid beneath his tough exterior and the disappointment and pride that continues to battle in his eyes.
I can't forgive him.
Because if I did, then my mother's unfair death, then my guilt, all of it will be gone.
I wouldn't have someone to take the blame for, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for blaming him, an innocent man who was just a human like me.
I couldn't face myself because I am as guilty as him, I have sinned too.
"I can't" I whispered hoarsed, my heart constricting painfully.
"Forgive yourself son, she wouldn't-"
"She is dead and it's because of me and you!" I erupted in anger, my chest heaving painfully as I glared at him.
He looked at me, he actually looked at my lost soul and in that time, I think he already understood the pain that he had caused on me, on us and on himself.
"I know"
The silence was constricting the air I breathe, I felt conflicted and trapped but I think in my heart, I had finally come into terms that we have sinned.
Then my phone buzzed, I opened it and saw Feng Mian's message. It shows her concern and a threat from her. Imagining the fear and anger in her eyes soften my looks, I sighed and look behind me.
"I'll be going" in informed my father before he murmured take care.
As I watch the moon shining alone in the sky, I feel grateful that I had finally found my sun. I take a peek behind me and saw the remorseful expression on my father.
He too was hurting, all of us are but I was just too selfish to admit it. To admit that I was wrong, that I wanted to forget the past too because I felt guilty for doing that.
It feels like I have to be angry for him so that my mother would be in peace.
I was about to walk to Feng Mian's side when I saw her talking to Shu Jian and to her. She looks so ethereal in the lamps shade, wisps of her hair fell in her smooth forehead as she smiled with that beautiful lips of hers.
She turned around and met my gaze, then she gave me a heart stopping smile. I watch her wave goodbye and then I look at the moon, the words of my mother mixing with the wind.
"Find a woman to love and cherish her. Don't be like me, don't be a coward and be foolish, search for her and give her the love she deserves"
In that night, I had finally received my redemption, I had finally came into terms that we are both in the wrong. It doesn't matter who wronged my mother more, what matters is that we should move forward and forgive ourselves.
As I look at Feng Mian, I saw a future, a family with her. I will build a family with the person I treasure, a family that would be different from what I experienced, a family that is built in love and affection.
My home is whenever Feng Mian is, that's what home means.
I texted my dad with a simple sentence saying:
I forgive you.
Notes:
• Pretended to be pigs and tiger, metaphor for trickery
• If small holes aren't fixed, then big holes will bring hardship, this proverb tells us that if a trivial problem is not solved in time, it will become a serious and knotty one. Similar to: "A stitch in time saves nine."
• Cannot live under the same sky, meaning irreconcilable enmity.