Chapter 19 Nowhere Left to Go
"Qin Ye, I... I don't have anywhere to go.
"Can you... put me up for a while?"
After we went in, Tang Xiaomang's voice carried a careful, timid plea.
Those wet eyes stared at me, hanging on, like he was afraid I would say no.
I poured him a cup of hot water.
"Sit. Talk slow. What happened?
"Didn't your mom come get you?"
A dim look flashed through Tang Xiaomang's eyes. His fingers twisted together, restless.
He hemmed and hawed before he got it clear.
He had been picked up by his mom, all right. She had just taken him to his stepfather's house.
Tang Xiaomang's mom had remarried in his third year inside.
She had been afraid he would take it the wrong way, so she had kept it from him.
Only after he got out did she stumble through the whole thing.
He said his mom had expected him to get angry.
But after he heard it, he just went quiet for a moment. Once he stepped through the door, he even smiled and called the stepfather "Uncle."
The way he told it, no one knew better than him how much his mother had suffered those years.
He cared more about her living steady and happy than about being kept in the dark.
That was how he ended up staying at his stepfather's for a while.
It did not last.
The stepfather's relatives kept talking behind his back.
The exclusion in their words was like a thorn. It dug in and hurt.
Tang Xiaomang did not want his mother stuck in the middle, so he quietly got in touch with Lao Zhang.
Then he packed, used work as an excuse, and came looking for me.
His mom did not stop him. She just wiped her tears before he left and stuffed an extra two thousand into his hands.