My Mother

This was written as a group work assignment given by Mr. Sean during one of the marathon-like extra classes.

Inspired by my dear friend and confidante, Cindy, who happened to be my partner for almost every group work in Mr. Sean's class for 3 years.

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Clad in bright green velvet, my mother glided across the courtyard like a butterfly with gossamer wings. Her head bowed, footsteps as light as feather, like a fairy princess. In front of her was my father, portly and exuberant in vermillion red.

My mother was always behind my father. A woman must never walk in front of her husband, her father and her brother.

She married my father at the tender age of fourteen, as bashful as a schoolgirl. Coy, but at the same time vivacious. I could read the pain in her eyes before sunset, I could picture but never able to put myself in her shoes, thus I never understood the story behind her dark grey irises.

We were having important guests that night, my grandmother’s birthday was always a subject of discussion in the town. The mayor, the deputy prime minister, and even the Seventh Prince were invited. From afar, I could make out dots of fuchsia and damask, saffron and amber, silver and gold in a riot of colours in the Grand Dining Hall.

The moment my father reached the Grand Dining Hall, the guests clapped and praises as long as litanies came pouring. With my mother following, my father kneeled down in front of my grandmother, wishing her everlasting health and youth. Grandmother smiled from ear to ear.

Mother kneeled. “Hmph!” Grandmother turned her head away. Cheeks now as red as Father’s suit, tears started to well up in Mother’s eyes. The women whispered, the men snickered. Father looked oblivious to the fact that his wife was disgraced in public. “Forgive me, Mother,” Mother said softly.

Being a woman of great beauty, there were many suitors since she turned twelve. A poet once described her as “the falling petals of plum blossoms, the quintessence of pulchritude”. Rumours of clandestine lovers and broken promises lingered even after Mother married Father, against her will. A feng-shui master predicted that she will give Father nine sons, and each of them will pass the imperial examinations. Grandmother started to shower this new daughter-in-law with jades and silks, bird’s nests and bear paws.

That was Mother’s zenith. Grandmother praised her demure and loyal daughter-in-law whenever she met friends and relatives. Yet Mother was never proud, but always modest and very approachable. People love her excitable personality, servants adore her easy-going persona. Docile like a rabbit, Father once told Mother, “You’re a much better wife than my third one,” which brought Mother to sobs. She cried in front of me that night, being only a child, I neither understood nor know what to do.

“Such a demanding wife, worthless!” Grandmother huffed. The whispers took on a crescendo, the Grand Dining Hall was cacophonous.

All of a sudden, Mother stood up, grabbed me from my nanny. With her back against the clamorous group of people robed in luxury, “I’m leaving this house,” Mother threw it coldly, allowed the words to sink in.

Grandmother shrieked the moment Mother moved a muscle. “My heart! My heart of hearts! My love! Stop her!” Then I saw male servants pulling Mother’s rich robes, her hair a mess, tears still streaming. They came with sticks as thick as a child’s fist, and started beating her back and legs.

Was it her determination, or was she stronger than I thought she was? She did not quiver, her knees did not buckle. She shielded me with her petite body. “Don’t harm my grandson!” Grandmother wailed.

A rough hand grabbed my wrist, tried to haul me away. Mother’s fist drew blood as his nose broke. She hugged me tightly and broke into a run. Call it a miracle, we were out in the unfamiliar wilderness in a blink of an eye.

“Where are we going, Mother?” I asked, naïve. She was taking me to the pavilion by the lake, or the Lotus Gardens, was she not? She smiled at me, then I noticed beyond the bloodshot eyes were indescribable euphoria. I never saw the real colour of her skin, I recalled it was a pearly shade of white last Mid-Autumn Lantern Festival, under the moonlight. Now she looked sallow, her skin a yellow shade of pale.

“To my Father’s house, you are now a member of the Lee family,” she replied when we reached a quaint manor, smaller than Father’s mansion. Mother knocked on the door with all her might. A creak, the door opened, “Mistress! Master! Madam! Mistress is bleeding out here!” a servant girl shouted at the sight of Mother, crimson red in her robes and at the side of her mouth.

She collapsed. A smile graced her face. Though battered yet unusually beautiful. In lieu of the luxuries she might enjoy in Father’s house, she rather raise me herself, to make me a man. “You won’t be like your father, a glutton and a weakling, no facets of him show a trace of noblesse oblige. You are to be a man. With these women in this house you will always be pampered and spoilt. I will take you away, someday,” she promised me that night when Second Aunt told Grandmother a lie, that Mother had asked Father to divorce his concubines. Grandmother started to show dislike towards her. She tried to explain but to no avail.

With her last breath, she told me, “Be a man.”

And she was gone.

Mother was a woman of great beauty with a wonderful heart. She was also an ordinary woman, who wanted her son to be a man.

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Copyright reserved, under Cindy Bong's name.

P/S: Don't be startled, darling. I wrote this for you. Sorry I couldn't keep my promise, but I promise I'll finish it before both of us die. XD