After my sister passed away, my mother’s behavior was both normal and eerie.
She seemed too normal, not like a mother who had just lost her daughter.
1
My sister and I were twins. During a family trip in the summer when we were 16, there was a car accident.
Only my sister sitting in the passenger seat died on the spot because the airbag didn’t deploy.
I had a moderate head injury and was in a coma for several days before waking up.
My father, who was driving, and my mother, who was sitting behind my father, both had multiple fractures.
In my coma, I vaguely saw my mother crying with red eyes beside me, and then I saw my sister coming to see me, and even seemed to see my sister grown up.
When I woke up, I found my mother, with her arm still in a sling, sitting by my bedside. Seeing me awake, my mother shouted with great joy to the doctor, “Doctor, my daughter Xiaoxiao is awake.”
I heard the doctor tell my father that after waking up from the car accident, my mother immediately looked for me and insisted on staying by my side until I woke up, regardless of her own injuries.
After I woke up, I saw my parents were there, but my sister was missing.
As if by the telepathy of twins, at that moment, I suddenly couldn’t feel the beating of the other heart.
I knew my sister was gone, grief welled up in me and I fell into a coma again. In my dream, I saw my sister.
The sister in my dream was not a 16 – year – old girl. She had become a mature and beautiful woman.
She touched my face with red eyes and said to me, “Xiaoxiao, take good care of mom. Mom misses you very much.”
This sentence might be my sister’s last entrustment to me, but something felt strange.
I didn’t have the strength to think deeply. I muttered my sister’s entrustment in my consciousness and woke up in a daze.
When I woke up, I found my mother sitting by my bedside again.
I didn’t make a sound, just looked at my mother with half – closed eyes.
My mother also had red eyes. She touched my face and looked at me as if she hadn’t seen me for a long time.
Then she murmured to herself, “Xiaoxiao, it’s you. You’re finally back. Mom misses you very much.”
“Mom misses you very much.”
This sentence made me feel more puzzled than touched. I felt my mother’s love for me, but I also felt an indescribable strangeness.
Why would she miss me? I had always been here and never left.
My sister was gone, and my father became increasingly haggard, with red eyes all day long.
But my mother was so normal that she didn’t seem like a mother who had just lost a daughter at all.
She was very happy to see me getting better day by day. It seemed that my sister’s death didn’t bring her any harm. She never mentioned my sister to me either. She only cared about my health.
However, my mother often called me by my sister’s name. Then I realized that my mother missed my sister very much, but just didn’t dare to say it.
Every time this happened, I would accompany my mother and act as my sister.
I like to eat apples, while my sister liked to eat pears. My mother often brought back pears, then peeled one and called to me, “Xixi (my sister’s name), come and eat the pear. Mom has peeled it for you.”
At first, I would be stunned for a moment. Seeing my father winking at me, I would then naturally take the pear that mom peeled for my sister and eat it properly.
Then after a while, my mother would pat her head self – reproachfully and say, “Oh, I made a mistake. Mom bought the wrong thing. My little sister Xiaoxiao likes apples.”
I comforted my mom and said, “It’s okay. From now on, I’m both Xixi and Xiaoxiao.”
Although we took my mother to the hospital for an examination and the doctor said there was nothing wrong, my father and I both knew that my mother was ill. She couldn’t tell me and my sister Xixi apart.
To cooperate with my mother, I often imitated my sister’s tone of speaking and did things the way my sister did. Over time, I myself was a little confused about who I was.
Because my sister and I were twins, people around us often couldn’t tell us apart.
Some called me Xixi, and some called me Xiaoxiao, and I would respond to both.
First, I was too lazy to explain.
Second, I often played the role of my sister in front of my mother. Over time, I had a conditioned reflex to the name Xixi.
It was as if my sister had never left, but her soul lived in my body, and we shared this body.
Over the years, my mother was normal in everything except the matter of me and my sister. So we let her be.
My mother loved me very much, perhaps with the love for my sister, she gave me double the love.
On the eve of my marriage, I went to my mother to have a chat.
I saw my mother sitting alone in the room, looking at my wedding photo. The pale moonlight shone on my mother’s face, showing both the joy and reluctance of sending her daughter off to get married.
I watched this warm scene silently, touched by the maternal love I had received over the years, and didn’t want to disturb my mother.
But what my mother said next made my hair stand on end.
She stroked my wedding photo and said, “Xixi, your sister is getting married. Mom is so happy. I can send both of you off to get married.”
My scalp tingled for a moment. Over the years, my mother was often confused and called me by my sister’s name.
But she would immediately admit her mistake and apologize to me. She knew she had called me wrong.
But today, she said she was happy to send both of us off to get married. That means in my mother’s heart, my sister had always existed, and she was in my body!
I didn’t dare to breathe. I secretly slipped out of the room. Was it that my mother was mentally abnormal, or did my sister really always exist!
In my thoughts, I saw myself in the mirror. This face was both strange and familiar, because it was exactly the same as the face of my sister in middle – age that I saw in my dream.
Although my sister and I were twins and it was normal to look the same, the more I looked at it, the more I felt that this face was clearly my sister’s!
2
My mind was still revolving around my mother’s words, “I’m so happy. I can send both of you off to get married.”
At this time, a neighbor passed by and greeted me with a smile, “Xixi, come back for dinner.”
Clearly calling my sister’s name, I still reflexively replied, “Yes, I’m back to see mom.”
After answering the neighbor, I started looking around. They looked at me as if they hadn’t regarded me as Xiaoxiao for a long time.
I thought of my mother’s creepy words again and decided to go back and ask my mother what she meant. So I turned back.
I opened the door quietly, as if afraid of disturbing something.
Night had fallen. The room was not lit, and only the faint, pale moonlight shone in. The ticking of the clock indicated the silence.
The warm home that was usually there now exuded a coldness that made the back of my head tingle.
My mother’s bedroom door was open a crack, and a faint yellow light seeped out.
I knew my mother was still inside. I stood in front of the door, and my palms began to sweat inexplicably. I didn’t dare to push the door open for a long time. It seemed that there was a cold air coming from behind the door, hitting my face in clusters.
I had to figure this out!
I took a deep breath and pushed the door open a little. The door creaked open.
My mother was still sitting by the window, holding my photo with a small table lamp on, just as she was before.
My mother’s face was reflected in the window, but the expression was not the joy and reluctance I saw just now. It was a face full of tears and sorrow.
Seeing my mother like this, the question that was just on my lips couldn’t come out. I didn’t dare to ask, nor did I dare to disturb my mother at this moment.
I saw my mother touching my photo with her hand while crying.
I understood. My mother was confused again. She was looking at my photo, imagining that if my sister hadn’t left, she should also be walking towards happiness in a wedding dress with her lover.
Rather than asking that question, I now wanted to go forward and comfort my mother more.
I walked gently behind my mother. Just as I was about to speak, the photo in my mother’s hand attracted me. The beautiful bride in the photo had the same face and the same smile as me.
But! But I knew it wasn’t me!! It was my sister!
At this time, my mother choked and said to herself, “Xiaoxiao, mom misses you so much.”
“Xiaoxiao, mom misses you so much.”
“Xiaoxiao, mom misses you so much.”
These words were like a cold wind from hell, piercing through my right ear into my brain, swirling around in my head and freezing my whole brain.
My mind went blank. I just stepped back subconsciously. Then the fear that had been suppressed in my heart could no longer be controlled. I screamed and fled from this home!
“Ah, there’s a ghost!!!”
I looked around with cold sweat on my face and found that everything when I turned back home just now was just a dream.
My husband was holding me, soothing me in confusion.
I trembled and asked him, “Am I Xixi or Xiaoxiao?”
My husband said, “Xiaoxiao, what’s wrong with you? You’re Xiaoxiao.”
“But don’t you think mom has been very strange since my sister died? Clearly, it’s me who’s getting married, but she said she’s happy to send both of us off to get married.
“And I remember when we had a car accident and I just woke up, she said to me: Xiaoxiao, you’re finally back. Mom misses you.
“Also, my sister in the dream said that mom misses me. But I’m the one who’s alive. Mom should miss my sister!”
My husband, however, didn’t take it seriously and comforted me, saying, “You’re thinking too much. Your sister is gone. Mom was hit too hard. Over the years, although she seems normal, she actually hasn’t gotten over it. Seeing you two who look exactly the same, she may have some illusions that your sister is still alive. This is not hard to understand.”
I’m not ignorant of the truth my husband said, but I could no longer convince myself because a terrifying thought had popped up.
If it was actually me who had died all along, then what mom said to me would make sense.
Because it was Xiaoxiao who had died all along, that’s why mom and my sister in the dream would say, “Mom misses you!”
The mom in the dream just now, holding my sister’s photo and crying, because she thought of me who had died!!
But this body is indeed my body. Although Xiaoxiao and Xixi look exactly the same, Xiaoxiao has a birthmark that Xixi doesn’t have.
So this body must be mine, and my soul must also be mine. If I’m normal, then it’s mom who’s abnormal!
In her heart, it was me who died, and it was Xixi who was alive!
But why would she have such an idea!
I said to my husband, “Should we find a Taoist priest to have a look? I think my sister’s soul has never left. It either haunts Mom or haunts me.”
My husband looked at me with an incomprehensible look in his eyes and asked, “I think maybe you should see a doctor. I know about mom. She’s cheerful and capable. Except for occasionally calling you by the wrong name, I really can’t see any problem.”
I knew my idea was too crazy, so I didn’t tell my husband what I was thinking.
What did my mother mean by the words “I can send both of you off to get married”? After seeing my mother, who was busy and happy for my wedding the next day, I still couldn’t ask. One was that I was afraid of hurting my mother, and the other was that I was afraid of something in my heart.
Later, I got married, got pregnant, and life went on in an orderly manner. My mother took care of me meticulously, and that matter gradually faded away.
Four weeks before giving birth, I went for a regular prenatal check – up at the hospital and happened to meet my mother there. I saw a piece of cotton – wool for stopping bleeding on her left hand and asked her what was wrong with concern.
But my mother was evasive and refused to talk about her own business. Then she quickly changed the topic to the baby.
I thought this old lady might be hiding some illness.
After my mother accompanied me for the prenatal check – up, she rushed home to cook soup for me. I went back to the hospital and, in the name of a daughter caring about her mother, got the doctor to talk.
“Your mother is fine. She just came to store her own blood because she has a rare blood type. She said she had a car accident before and knew that this blood type could be a big problem if something happened.”
Both my mother and I have Rh – negative blood. When I had my prenatal check – up, the doctor also suggested that I store my own blood just in case.
This seemed like a normal behavior, but I was confused. It had been so many years since the car accident. Why did my mother only think of storing blood now? And she didn’t need to hide it from me.
I knew that because of pregnancy, my hormones were a bit out of balance. I often had wild thoughts and many dreams. Some of the things I said made my husband think I was being superstitious.
So I regarded a certain platform as my emotional haven and shared the stories between my mother and me in narrative form.
One day, I received a message from an enthusiastic netizen. The conversation with this netizen completely made me afraid of my mother.
3
Netizen: Hello, sister. I’ve read about you and your mother’s story and I’m a bit worried about you. Because my family is in some superstitious – related business, I want to tell you about the situation you might be in based on my experience.
Me: Hello, please go ahead.
Netizen: I’ll tell you a story about a ritual my family did for someone. There were also two sisters. The older sister died accidentally when they were one year old. After that, the mother was a bit too shocked. She always held the older sister’s clothes and talked to herself, and always regarded the younger sister as the older sister. Later, the younger sister grew up and didn’t remember her own name at all. Do you think the one who grew up was the older sister or the younger sister?
Me: It’s a bit scary. But I clearly know that I’m the younger sister. I can tell the difference between me and my sister. In fact, my mom can also tell.
Netizen: Later, the mother really gave birth to another daughter. Then strange things started to happen. The younger sister’s temperament changed greatly. She always hit and pinched this little sister. The family felt that she wanted to kill this little sister and guarded her day and night. Later, they thought the younger sister might be possessed by evil spirits, so they came to us.
Netizen: After we went, we found that the older sister’s soul was indeed in the little sister’s body. But actually, it’s very difficult for a ghost to stay in the mortal world for so long without a host. It’s very likely that the older sister’s soul was attached to the younger sister’s body before. Later, when the mother got pregnant again and gave birth to a daughter, the older sister’s soul left the younger sister’s body and entered the little sister’s body.
After the older sister’s soul left, the original soul in the younger sister’s body returned and had a great grudge against the older sister, so she wanted to kill this little sister.
Me: It’s so scary. But this story seems to have nothing to do with what happened in my family…
Netizen: Sister, what I’m going to say next, I hope it won’t scare you. If you believe it, find a Taoist priest in your area to take a look.
Me: Okay.
Netizen: If I’m not wrong, your sister has always been in your body. Your mother was unconsciously controlled by your sister, making her soul stay in your body. But because you’re an adult, it won’t be like the situation of those two sisters where the body is completely occupied by the older sister. She just exists in your body, and you and her have actually been growing up together. Only your mother knows this.
Netizen: So you sometimes see your grown – up sister. Your mother is not confused. It’s because she knows both daughters are there, and only she knows when it’s the older sister and when it’s the younger sister. You yourself can’t tell anymore. Even when you’re controlled by your sister, you don’t know you’re being controlled.
Me: Sister, whether what you said is true or not, I’m scared! What should I do then? Should I expel my sister?
Netizen: Your sister will leave. She should be waiting for your child to be born.
Me: Do you mean my sister will be reincarnated into my womb? That’s not a bad thing.
Netizen: It’s not reincarnation. It’s rebirth. If it succeeds, the child you give birth to is not your child. She is your sister. But it’s very difficult. It’s not that her soul can smoothly enter any child you give birth to.
First, your child must be a girl.
Second, it needs your mother’s blood.
Because in the cycle of reincarnation, she can only be your mother’s child in this life.
Me: My mom can’t give birth to children anymore.
Netizen: If your mother’s blood enters your body, then the child you give birth to and your sister’s soul can be perfectly integrated.
Me: This is terrifying. But I’m a bit relieved because I’m carrying a baby boy.
After chatting with the netizen, although I felt that there were some differences from what happened in my family, as a modern woman with a high – level education, I don’t really believe in such superstitious things. But I couldn’t stop trembling. Besides the fear of the supernatural, there was also anger at my mother’s favoritism towards my sister.
If my sister could be reincarnated into my womb, it wouldn’t be a bad thing for me. But the netizen told me that if my sister’s soul was reborn in the baby’s body, then the soul originally in the baby’s body would be suppressed by my sister’s soul all the time, or it would have no body to attach to and become a wandering ghost. The netizen suggested that I find a way to expel my sister from my body.
I looked at the face in the window that was exactly the same as my sister’s. It was as if I was looking at my sister. I walked over and reached out to touch the illusory image of my sister in the window. She in the illusory image also reached out to touch my face. At that moment, I seemed to feel the beating of the other heart from the twin again. Fear and reluctance intertwined in my heart. Tears streamed down my face involuntarily.
“Xixi, mom misses you very much.”
“Actually, Xiaoxiao misses you too.”
But Xiaoxiao is Xiaoxiao, and my child is my child. Should I really believe in this superstitious talk and expel you? You are the sister who doted on me so much.
With intense emotional fluctuations, a warm current gushed out from my lower body. I gasped heavily, and then a sharp pain hit my lower abdomen. I knew I was about to give birth. I shouted my husband’s name while staggering out of the bedroom. Unexpectedly, the first person to come to my side when I opened the bedroom door was my mother.
Why was she here! When did she come! Why was she here at such a timely moment! But the sharp pain in my lower abdomen didn’t allow me to think more.
My father and husband called an ambulance in a panic and were at a loss. Only my mother calmly told me to lie down, took a pillow to raise my buttocks, held my hand, and calmly comforted me, “Xiaoxiao, it’s okay. It’s just that the amniotic fluid has broken. The baby is a few days early. Don’t be afraid. Mom is here.”
She was so calm that it was eerie. My mother’s calmness didn’t make me feel at ease, only fear. I gasped and asked in a voice that my father and husband couldn’t hear, “Why are you here!” My mother frowned and looked at me, her eyes full of distress. Before my mother could answer, the ambulance arrived.
Twenty – four hours later, I gave birth to a son with great pain. The pain of childbirth almost shattered my will to survive. In a trance, I heard what the doctor said.
“Retained placenta, abnormal bleeding. Prepare for blood transfusion.”
I don’t know how long it passed, and I heard them shouting again, “Not good. The pregnant woman’s autologous blood reserve is insufficient.”
I thought that if I died, I died. I didn’t want to bear this pain anymore. In a trance of consciousness, a word from the doctor pulled me back from hell to the world.
“Her mother has stored blood. It has been irradiated. Get it ready.”
The piercing fear made me tremble. A cold air seemed to swim around my body. Various pictures appeared alternately in my mind.
I saw my mother coming to the hospital to store blood. Then I saw my husband happily touching my belly and saying, “Let’s have a daughter next time.”
The netizen’s words began to ring in my mind, “If your mother’s blood enters your body, then the child you give birth to and your sister’s soul can be perfectly integrated. Then your child’s soul will have nowhere to go.”
At this moment of trance, my mind was actually the clearest in these days! So you were waiting for me in my next child!
Although I was already exhausted, a force of self – rescue emerged from my body. I shouted frantically, “I don’t want her blood. I don’t want it!”
4
Under the effect of the sedative, I fell into a deep sleep. In my sleep, I seemed to see myself in the operating room, critically ill due to postpartum hemorrhage. The picture then switched to outside the operating room. My mother was wiping her tears, anxiously asking the doctor to draw blood, and signing the “Critical Illness Notice” with a trembling hand.
Was I going to die? I thought so and continued to sleep. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the tired eyes of my family members. Seeing me wake up, they shouted my name excitedly. Everything seemed to be over, but only I knew that everything had just begun.
After a few days, I gradually recovered and could finally hold my son, whom I had risked my life for. I was glad that he was a son. My mother came happily with a pot of soup to see me. She still took good care of me, but I felt that she was so strange. I suspected that all her kindness to me was because of my sister in my body.
“Xiaoxiao, come and drink some pigeon soup. Your father went a long way to get this…”
Before my mother could finish speaking, I coldly replied, “I don’t want to drink it.”
“What’s wrong, child? No appetite? You can try it first. If it doesn’t suit your taste, mom will make something else for you.” She said, bringing the soup in front of me and blowing on the steam.
I shouted sharply, “I said I don’t want to drink it!! Take it away.”
My husband also coaxed me aside, “If you don’t eat, the child has to eat. You won’t be able to breastfeed the child if you don’t get enough nutrition.”
My mother echoed, “Yes, yes.” Then, as she spoke, she brought a spoonful of soup to my mouth. I looked at the soup as if it were arsenic that could kill me, and my mother was the executioner pouring the medicine.
I pushed my mother away and knocked the soup to the ground. I shouted hysterically, “I said I don’t drink it! Get out. I don’t want to see you! Don’t think I don’t know what secrets you’re hiding!”
My son was so frightened by the noise that he burst into tears. Seeing my mother going to see my son, I was like a crazy lioness protecting her cub. I pushed my mother down madly!
“Don’t touch my son!! You poisonous woman! How could there be such a mother in the world!” My husband immediately came over to control my flailing self.
While I was still roaring at my mother, I saw my father rushing over from afar. He came up and gave me a solid slap across the face. He roared at me like a lion, “You ungrateful wretch. I really don’t know how we spoiled you into such an unfilial child! Don’t think that just because you gave birth to a child, you can do whatever you want and ride on our heads. I’m telling you, if you dare to bully your mother, don’t consider yourself my daughter! Even if the King of Heaven comes, I’ll hit him! Try saying one more word!”
I was still dizzy from my father’s slap, but I suddenly became sober. In the chaos, my mother pulled my father to make him shut up. She looked at me with concern, as if she wanted to come over and look at my face, but hesitated. She just asked me worriedly, “Xiaoxiao, are you okay?”
Seeing that I didn’t answer, my mother squatted down to clean up the bowls and chopsticks that had been knocked to the ground. My husband, while coaxing my crying son, said to my parents, “Mom and Dad, don’t be angry. Xiaoxiao has just come back from the brink of death, and her mental state is still not stable. You’d better go back first. I’ll comfort her.”
My mother put away the bowls and chopsticks, and said to my husband with concern and a bit of pleading, “Take good care of Xiaoxiao. If there’s anything, call me.”
Then, after reluctantly looking at my son, she left with my father. I stayed there, not knowing how to react. Looking at the backs of my father pulling my mother away, my eyes were blurred with tears. I cried like a child who had done something wrong but was also wronged.
I didn’t know what was wrong with me, and I didn’t know what to do. After that, my mother never came again. Only my father often came to see me with food. I didn’t have a rift with my father because of that slap. But I still resisted meeting my mother.
Because I refused my mother’s help, my husband was busy with work, and my father could only help me a little. It was really hard for me to take care of the child alone. Later, I resigned from my job to take care of my son wholeheartedly.
The matter of whether my sister’s soul was in my body gradually faded from my mind because of the busyness of taking care of my son. Because I had less contact with my mother, all the abnormal behaviors of my mother before also gradually faded out of my world, and I didn’t bother to pursue it anymore.
Over the years, I only took my child home to have meals with my parents regularly. My mother always prepared a big table of food every time. She still loved me and my child very much. As my son grew up healthily, the hostility I had towards my mother because of believing in the supernatural gradually disappeared. But I still refused to let my mother get too involved in my life.
When I was 40 years old, I divorced my husband. The setback of a mid – life divorce was devastating to me. I even thought about ending my life. It was my parents’ support that kept me from going to extremes.
Especially my mother. She would just stay in the same room with me when I was at my lowest, not saying much. She would read her book with reading glasses on, cook at the right time, and then call me to eat. Although she didn’t communicate much with me, I felt a great deal of comfort in my heart.
It took me two years to get out of the shadow of my failed marriage. When my son was 16 years old, he entered the rebellious period and ran away with some social youths. It took a few days to find him. It was my parents who went to every Internet cafe in the neighboring city to find him and brought him back.
These were some of the major events that happened over the years. Then one day, my mother suddenly told me that the grandson was grown up, and there was nothing major to worry about. She and my father decided to sell the house and travel around the country.
Naturally, I didn’t object. My parents had been busy taking care of me for most of their lives. They should live their own lives. Then the two of them drove an RV to travel around, learned to make short videos and start live – streaming, and even gained a lot of fans on a certain platform. But after two years, they no longer updated their videos.
Because my mother came back and soon suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. She should have gotten sick during the trip. She said she was going to the toilet and then got lost. After calling the police, it took a day and a night to find her. After she came back, my father and I took care of my mother, whose condition was up and down.
My mother knew she was sick. When she was sober, she was always writing something, saying that she was afraid of forgetting important things. The old lady wrote secretly like keeping a diary. After writing, she would hide it, and we couldn’t find it.
Later, my mother was conscious less and less often. She had severe memory impairment and gradually lost her ability to speak. Most of the time, she just sat on the balcony in a daze, with my father accompanying her.
One day, my father went out to buy groceries, and I was cleaning the house at home. I heard my mother in a weak voice calling me from the balcony, “Xiaoxiao, come here.”
I quickly went to see my mother. My mother took out a notebook from her bosom and handed it to me. She pointed at the number 3 with her finger and tried hard to say to me, “Put it away. March, March. Remember, accompany your father on March 12th next year. I’m afraid I can’t accompany him.”
I asked what she meant, but at this time, my mother could hardly speak clearly. She didn’t answer me and just kept repeating “March, March”.
I opened the notebook. It was all written with time and some events.
1995: Laid off.
2000: Promoted at the new job.
2010: Diagnosed with diabetes.
2015: Sprained ankle while walking.
……
2030/3/12: Sudden cerebral hemorrhage.
The last line was particularly eye – catching. It was about next year’s event. I wanted to ask my mother what it meant, but my mother started to be in a daze again.
My mother said to accompany my father on March 12th. Could it be that on this day, as my mother wrote, my father would have a sudden cerebral hemorrhage? But many of the things recorded above didn’t match my father’s past.
For example, my father had diabetes, but before, his blood sugar was just high, and he was diagnosed with diabetes in 2020, not 2010. He didn’t sprain his ankle in 2015 either.
Was my mother too sick and confused? Besides the timeline, it also wrote about what to pay attention to in diet and things to avoid. It also wrote that my father actually wanted to see the great mountains and rivers of the motherland and that I should accompany him well, etc.
Although I didn’t understand, I still remembered the date of 3/12 in my heart.
5
That day, I dragged my father to the hospital. My father shouted, “I’m not sick. What am I going to the hospital for?”
I said, “Don’t ask. Just come with me.”
My father suddenly grabbed me and said, “Did your mother tell you something?”
Seeing that I didn’t answer. My father actually didn’t ask anymore and obediently went to the hospital.
My father and I, two healthy people, just sat in the hospital for a day. The security guard on duty came over and asked us several times what we were doing.
We didn’t register or queue up, nor did we go to see any patient. We just sat there playing with our phones. We played until 12 o’clock at night, and then left after it was 3/13.
On the way, I didn’t know how to explain this to my father. My father suddenly asked me, “Did your mother tell you that something was going to happen to me today?”
Seeing that nothing happened, I thought my mother was confused and wrote randomly. So I gave the notebook my mother gave me to my father.
My father took a look at it, looking thoughtful, and didn’t say anything. He just walked with his hands behind his back, going to pick up my mother, who was temporarily taken care of by relatives.
I had an intuition that he was hiding something from me, but no matter how I asked, my father didn’t say anything.
After that, my mother never woke up again, but my father took good care of her. He would show her the photos of their travels around the country when he had nothing to do and tell her some interesting things that happened to me and my son recently. But because of the complications of diabetes, my father’s health was getting worse and worse.
The night before my father passed away, he insisted on going home from the hospital to accompany my mother. He set up a chair on the balcony, cleaned up the surroundings, changed clothes for himself and my mother, and didn’t let me help at all. He was just busy by himself.
After he was done, he called me over. I squatted beside him and my mother. I knew my father’s end was near, and there was nothing I could do. Helpless and sad, I held my father’s hand and shed silent tears.
My father took out a notebook from his bosom and handed it to me. He said to me slowly, “Dad and mom can’t take care of you anymore. You have to go on by yourself in the future.
“I know you have a lot of questions and want to ask me and your mother.
“Actually, I also have a lot of questions I want to ask your mother, but she doesn’t say anything.
“But I’m her husband. I know that after the day your sister had an accident, although your mother was still your mother, she was also different.
“She has known too much in her life and endured too much alone. It’s all because she missed you so much.”
I flipped through the notebook while listening to my father’s last words. This notebook was the same as the one my mother gave me.
It wrote about what happened in which year, and even wrote about things in the next year and the year after. Judging from the handwriting, I knew it was written by my mother.
Like the notebook my mother gave me, some things coincided with my experiences, but not completely.
For example, although I had a postpartum hemorrhage when giving birth, because both my mother and I had stored blood, I didn’t experience the situation of being issued a critical illness notice. When I got divorced, I thought about committing suicide, but I just thought about it and didn’t actually do it.
At the end of the notebook, it was written crookedly, “Xixi has been through so much in this life. Mom didn’t take good care of you. Mom misses you.”
Xixi?? So these were not my experiences, but my sister’s experiences??
Scenes of my past with my mother played back in my mind. I remembered my mother saying to me, “Xiaoxiao, you’re finally back. Mom misses you.”
I remembered my mother saying on the eve of my marriage, “I’m so happy. I can send both of you off to get married.”
I remembered my mother in the dream holding my sister’s wedding photo and saying, “Xiaoxiao, mom misses you.”
I remembered seeing myself having a postpartum hemorrhage in the dream, and mom signing the “Critical Illness Notice” with a trembling hand. So actually, that wasn’t me, that was my sister!
Suddenly, everything seemed to make sense. My heart was in turmoil, tears streaming down my face, and I choked out a sentence that I could hardly believe myself: “Mom, she’s from another world? And in that world, it was my sister who was alive, right?
“The notebook mom gave me actually recorded the things that happened to you in another world, right?
“She tried her best to avoid the same things from happening in this world based on what she had experienced, didn’t she?”
I was eager to know the answer. My father looked at me, then turned to look at my mother. His eyes became relieved, and he didn’t answer my questions.
He looked at me for a long time, and his voice became even weaker: “Xiaoxiao, dad will miss you too. But right now, dad has to go to another world to find your mom and accompany her. You go.”
Then my father gently let my mother lean on his shoulder and said softly to her: “Xiaoxiao, there probably won’t be any more troubles in the future. Don’t worry anymore.
“I hope I’m also that lucky to be able to go to that world and accompany you and Xixi.”
My mother didn’t respond. She just leaned on my father’s shoulder and blinked her eyes.
Then my father took out the photos of the travels with my mother and flipped through them again and again.
I held the notebook and slowly backed out of the balcony, no longer disturbing the last moments of my parents.
My father passed away.
I continued to take care of my mother who no longer remembered me at all.
Later, as written in the notebook left by my mother, my son successfully got into his dream university.
Guided by my mother’s notebook, I went to the hospital in time when I had a stomachache the next year, and it was diagnosed as appendicitis.
Today, I’m sitting beside my mother, holding the notebook, talking to myself about my sister’s life, combining it with my dreams.
Although my sister in this world stayed forever at the age of 16, through this notebook, it seems that I grew up, got married, had children, and experienced many ups and downs in life with her.
Our almost overlapping lives should have had the same disasters, but because of my mother’s help, I got through them safely.
But this notebook only wrote until this year. From now on, I have to rely on myself.
As I thought about this, I put away the notebook.
Why did this notebook only write until this year? Suddenly, this thought came to my mind.
Could it be…
The notebook recording my father stopped at March 12, 2030, with the record of cerebral hemorrhage. That means in that world, my father passed away on March 12, 2030.
And in this world, because of my mother’s careful care, my father was in better health, and nothing happened on March 12, and he lived for another two years.
And the notebook about my sister only wrote until this year.
Was it because something big was going to happen to my sister in that world this year?
But if something big was going to happen to my sister, mom would definitely write it down. Why didn’t she write it?
I thought about it and looked at my mother. My mother was already a white – haired old woman in her seventies. Suddenly, I understood.
“Is it because you can’t write anymore? Because you can’t see what happens to sister in the future, right?” I squatted in front of my mother, held her withered hand, and let my tears flow freely.
My mother didn’t answer me.
I had the notebooks about my father and my sister in my hands, and these notebooks also incidentally recorded things about my grandson.
Relying on these notebooks, I saved my father, saved myself, and educated my son.
Only there was no notebook about my mother herself.
I knelt beside my mother, my heart broken, and shouted helplessly at my mother: “How can I save you, mom? You’ve protected all of us in your life, but how can I protect you!”
My mother just lowered her head and looked at me like a stranger.
I hugged my mother’s thin shoulders and burst into tears.
“Xi… Xiaoxiao.” I heard my mother’s voice, almost like a breath.
I was shocked. My mother hadn’t spoken for a long time. She looked at me, and her old eyes were full of worry for her daughter.
“Mom, it’s me, Xiaoxiao. Do you recognize me?”
“Xiaoxiao, mom misses you.”
– End –
