As I slowly grew older, I learned that what my father did had a name: domestic violence.

My teacher said I could call the police, that the police would protect me and my mother.

So one night after a beating, once my father had fallen into a deep sleep, I took my mother’s hand.

I was filled with boundless joy and hope, so much that I forgot the pain in my own body.

“Mama, let’s go to the police. Let’s have them take Papa away.”

My mother didn’t look happy the way I’d imagined. Instead she looked at me with shock and anguish.

“Qingqing, he’s your father! How could you even think of doing that!”

The reproach in her voice landed like a slap across my face.

In that instant my face burned red, as though I were some unforgivably unfilial daughter.

But that wasn’t the truth of it at all.

My teacher had said domestic violence was domestic violence, no matter who committed it—it could never be excused.

So I insisted on going to the police.

That was the first time my mother ever hit me.

She broke a wooden stick as thick as a finger, beating me, then made me kneel on the floor to reflect on what I’d done.

For the first time, I learned that it wasn’t only my father’s blows that hurt—my mother’s hurt too.

For the first time, I learned that my mother was also capable of violence. It just hadn’t been aimed at my father.

I hadn’t cried after countless beatings from my father, but the night my mother hit me, I cried until dawn.

The next day, for once, my mother allowed herself to boil an egg, and used it to rub my bruises.

Normally, she always saved the eggs for my father.

I understood this was what they called a slap followed by a sweet date.

Because that was exactly how my father treated her.

But I didn’t like this version of my mother. She felt like a stranger to me.

When I used to get beaten, I looked forward to growing up, because I thought that once I was grown, I could protect my mother.

But as I got older, I realized that growing up was a painful thing.

It slowly destroyed my delusions.

The domestic violence played out again and again.

The forgiveness that followed each time was identical, unchanging.

I couldn’t help but grow numb, watching coldly as my mother wept in despair one moment and then, the very next, fawned carefully to please him again.

I thought I could never be more disappointed than I already was.

But behind disappointment lay something worse: despair.

The year I was eleven, my father beat me until I broke a bone.

No matter what she said, I was determined to go to the police.

She wept and knelt before me, begging, saying that if I called the police, I would be forcing her to die.

A mother kneeling before her daughter.

I was nailed firmly to the pillar of moral shame.

No way forward. No way back.

Did she love me?

I could no longer tell.

Perhaps she did. But her love for my father had hollowed her out almost entirely.

Whatever was left over for me was next to nothing.

Our house had countless cracked bowls, because with money always tight, my mother kept using whatever could still hold food.

She gave the best bowl to my father, the second-best to me, and kept the most chipped, cracked one for herself.

Later on—

the cracked bowls kept multiplying, until she herself could no longer tell which was better or worse.

Everyone held the same broken bowls in their hands.

And lived out the same shattered kind of life.

My father demanded more and more money, came home in worse and worse moods each day, and hit harder and harder.

Then, after a few days, my father suddenly seemed radiant again.

He came home not only with a roast chicken but also bought my mother a new dress.

My mother thought spring had finally arrived.

She never expected that what he said next would plunge her into the depths of winter.

My father took her hand.

“Wanrou, listen—at that gambling den of ours, there’s a big boss. He’s rich, and he’s got connections. He really admires you. What if you put on this dress and have dinner with him tomorrow night?”

My mother had always been beautiful—the town’s famous beauty.

The smile on her face froze. She stared blankly into my father’s eyes.

Slowly, she said, “Just dinner?”

As if trying to confirm something.

My father’s eyes wandered, unable to meet hers.

He said, “Wanrou, please, help me out, just this once. The big boss said he’d bring me in on things afterward. I’ll be able to give you a good life.”

My mother sat there, trembling, unable to speak, like a puppet whose soul had been scooped out. She seemed to age ten years in an instant.

I had never seen her look like that.

As if every last hope had died.

My father, assuming she wouldn’t agree, turned on her and began cursing viciously.

“Weren’t you plenty happy moaning away in my bed? Why can’t you do it with someone else?

“Damn it, you’re not even worth the skin off Zhang Dajiang’s wife’s heel!”

I knew Zhang Dajiang’s wife—she lived at the west end of town.

My classmates said she was a prostitute.

That she supported her husband through it.

My mother was already in tears. She grabbed my father’s sleeve, begging him to stop talking.

“I’ll go. I’ll go!”