Wild Creatures

Chapter 72

Tomorrow, I shall stop whining about how unfair all of this is. I shall be brave and courageous, I promise, a role model for my beautiful son who is still so young.

But today, let me have this, and do not think too badly of me venting on paper.

Never, ever have I wanted to be so wrong about what I'm seeing.

Mama."

It is the solid presence of a strong body that pulls him into a hug, which brings Wei Ying back to himself. Suddenly, there are two more warm bodies, smaller ones hugging him from behind and another who has crawled onto his lap.

Fat, chubby fingers wipe his face, and when his vision clears, Wei Ying sees the chocolate eyes of his son, worriedly looking back at him. He can feel the same amount of concern from JingYi at his back, and the golden eyes of his beloved staring right back at him.

"Baba, why you crying?" A-Yuan asks him bluntly, at a loss to see him so upset.

"Oh, Radish, lots of reasons!" Wei Ying laughs through his tears, and takes the white handkerchief in front of his face, and he tries to explain the torrent of his feelings. "The biggest feeling is happiness."

No one believes him.

Three pairs of eyes show him different levels of calling him out for lying.

So he tries to explain.

"It's just, when my parents left me, I didn't know they weren't coming back. And I thought, well, I tried not to think that they didn't love me. I mean, I knew they did, but then I couldn't be sure." Wei Ying stopped speaking, worried that he was only making it worse.

None of the people here had picket-fence family lives and he didn't want to put different thoughts in their heads, especially their children. He looks around for the book, and finds that Lan Zhan had carefully put it behind them, where it couldn't be crushed because of enthusiastic family members.

First, he picks up JingYi and lets him sit properly in his lap, as A-Yuan is already all over himself and Lan Zhan. Then he smiles his thanks to Lan Zhan and retrieves the precious book.

He opens it to the first message and shows the children this one. His mother liked to switch languages so there are bits of English interspersed with traditional characters of the Yiling dialect.

"My mother, so your grandmother, wrote this for me, and after not having anything of them, to get this in my hands, it makes me happy and sad. More happy than sad, though." Even as he says the words, Wei Ying realises the simple truth of them.

"Sad?" A-Yuan says, finding it easier to believe this part.

"Yes. But the happy part makes it okay."

Neither kid looks convinced.

Wei Ying thinks this might be better explained when they're both a little older. They would both have more scope of understanding how complex human emotions are, and how it was possible to experience the weirdest combinations, but that would come later.

For now, he was well aware that happiness = good and sad = bad, and no matter what he said, it wouldn't change their opinion just yet.

"Now, who's hungry?" Wei Ying says, and laughs because three stomachs, including his own gargle noisily back, then he grabs both kids under each arm to squeals of laughter, as he aeroplanes them to the kitchen.

Lan Zhan picks up the book that Wei Ying had left on their bed, and puts it on the bedside cabinet, thoughtfully.

They were going to talk about that, but preferably when the youngsters weren't around. He knew Wei Ying was holding back on how he was truly feeling, and then the similarities between what had already happened to him, and what was surely going to be repeated for JingYi was too close for comfort.