I was fourteen the year I met Zhou Haiyan.

Because of long-term malnutrition, I was short and thin, looking much smaller than my peers.

For as long as I could remember, my father had idled away his days doing nothing.

Our family of three lived entirely on the three thousand yuan my mother earned each month at the garment factory.

My father was addicted to gambling, but he lost nine times out of ten.

Whenever he lost money, he was in a bad mood; when he was in a bad mood, he drank; when he was drunk, he started beating his wife and child.

The floor was often littered with broken bowls and leftover food.

The year I was five, he lost a huge sum of money.

That night, reeking of alcohol, he grabbed a fistful of my mother’s hair, slammed her onto the concrete floor, pressed her face down and smashed it against the ground. When he tired of that, he switched to kicking her in the stomach.

“You think I’m useless now, huh? You think you can look down on me?”

“You worthless bitch, you couldn’t even give me a son — I can’t hold my head up anywhere I go!”

“It’s you who ruined my luck. If I hadn’t married you, I’d be rich by now.”

My mother curled up on the floor, beaten.

Dark red blood matted her hair into knots, strand by strand.

She didn’t dodge or fight back. She naively hoped that by enduring it she could awaken whatever conscience the man had left.

Once there wasn’t a single unbruised patch of skin left on her to hit—

he turned his eyes on me.

“And this little bitch too. A whore’s daughter is just a little whore herself.

“What are you looking at me like that for? Huh? You want a beating too?”

A heavy slap landed on my face. After a burst of sharp pain came numbness.

It was as if every sound around me had been sealed inside a glass dome, cut off completely.

The blow ruptured my eardrum.

My mother, crying, pulled me into her arms, using her frail body to shield me from the storm.

The man’s curses and the woman’s screams faded together as the one inflicting the violence finally wore himself out.

Deep in the night, the man’s snoring mixed with the woman’s quiet sobbing.

Eyes red, my mother finished dressing my wounds, then silently cleared away the wreckage scattered across the floor.

We squeezed together on the small bed, and she held me tightly.

I said, “Mama, let’s leave this place. I’ll grow up and earn lots and lots of money to support you.”

She looked out at the moon through the window—a great bite missing from its side.

“No, we’re not leaving. Your father was so good to me when we were young. He used to save up to buy me a gold bracelet. He carried me on his back for miles just to take me to see fireworks. He bought me so many pretty clothes, more than I could ever wear.”

I reached out and tugged at the clothes she was wearing—washed so many times the color had faded and the fabric had lost its shape.

“Mama, you’re lying.”

She stroked my head, her voice stubborn.

“Mama isn’t lying. Your father’s just confused right now. He’ll get better. He promised to be good to me for the rest of my life—he said so himself.”

“Just like the moon outside,” she murmured. “It’ll be full again someday.”

It sounded like she was speaking to me. It sounded like she was speaking to herself.

The next day, my father sobered up and acted as if nothing had happened, laughing and chatting with my mother, asking her for money.

He said, Wanrou, I still love you. I just had too much to drink and lost my head. Once I win some money, I’ll give you a good life.

A few sweet words and my mother was completely won over, handing him her entire salary.

The scene was so familiar it made my heart ache.

I watched the money in my father’s hands, wanting badly to ask my mother—hadn’t she promised that once her pay came in this month, she’d send me to kindergarten?

I was already five, and I had never once gone to kindergarten.

But my mother was smiling, so happy, her eyes only for my father. She’d forgotten me entirely.

So I quietly closed my mouth.

It’s fine. Mama will surely remember me next month.

Not until I started primary school under the national education policy did my mother ever remember. I had missed kindergarten altogether.