wosizw.cc 
作者有話要説：今天是星期五，子情的一個好朋友大概要下週一才會看到更新的了。很高興她有看哦~~~~
I've been thinking about changing to chinese, but finally put my feet down and go on with the english version.Thank you for reading~~
The shop was located in town centre just outside the village. The little front window was placed with a disarray of old-fashioned things; silk handkerchiefs and wooden combs worn in the old times; jade pendant and necklace. Many school girls used to forehead against the glass window, their earnest eyes studied every unseen treasure so as to seal the images in their mind. Sometimes, groups of wealthy, arrogant housewives would swarm in and pick up their tailor-made clothes. My grandmother had good eyes for style and the clothes she made had been hugely popular with the housewives until the day she was too sick to do anything. All the siblings had begged my grandmother to take a break and let my mother take care of things. But she had scoffed at the idea, telling each of them that making clothes was what she ever knew and she wouldn’t let anyone take that away from her. She insisted she was capable of taking care of herself and enjoying bit of fun and turned a deaf ear on every advice her children made. “I’m not a baby.” She had pouted, although all of her children felt that she was very much like one. Despite her irate response, my grandmother felt comforted by her loved ones and their concern. It was the fact that her children kept trying to make decisions for her that she took offense to. “Your father would never have tried to make me stop making clothes, he knew better.” She muttered, a flicker of light passed over her eyes as she thought of her husband. “Thank god he never had to go through this.”
My mother despised those stay-at-home women; they came in and judged everything like they understood and appreciated style or the passion hidden in those clothes, while they couldn’t even make their mind up on what was best for them without my mother’s help. They were used to other people making decisions for them and all they had to do was follow suit.
But when she thought about it now, decision-making involves too much confrontation on the ugly side of the world and it’s painful. Besides, everyday you make thousands of decisions that mean nothing and one day, you sold a necklace, it changes your life.
My father was hunting for a new year present for his mother that day, wandering on the street for hours, but still no luck. Then he saw a string of jade bracelet hanging in the front window of a jewelry shop. He pressed against the glass and examined it earnestly and after a while, he straightened up with a satisfied air and entered my mother’s shop. The shadowy interior of the establishment of the shop wasn’t as glamorous as the show window. Jewelry was not the only things the store sold, shelves were stacked with cloth and textile; the floor was heaped with boxes that consisted of things hard to find a name for; on the far end, an old knitting machine made the store look even gloomy. Behind the counter stood my mother herself, a girl not more than 17 years old. There was a bleak air about her that day as she looked at the boy making his way towards to counter.
“Hello,” he began, “would you please let me look at that string of jade bracelet in the window?” my mother parted the d□□ry and carried it out. The necklace gleamed brightly in her palm, as she handed over to him.
“Perfect,” he smiled, “will you wrap it up for me please?”
She studied her with a stony air: “are you buying it for someone? I can wrap it up for you with a ribbon or something.”
“They are for my mother, I thought the necklace would look good on her, she’s kind of upset with my father being away and all. And I’m going off to college soon; I figure I should give her something to remind me of.”
His mother needed a jade necklace to think about her own son? Maybe she let out a sigh of sympathy without her awareness, he looked over and beamed: “I have four brothers and sisters; my father is always away on business trips, we are left with my mother most of the time.”
“How much is it?” he asked as he dipped his hand into his pocket, searching for money.
“How much money do you have?” he poured out a handful of coins and paper on the counter. “That’s all I have for now, if it’s not enough for, I will bring back more tomorrow. But please, do keep it for me.”
She looked at her thoughtfully, trusting look of his black eyes, the genuine smile on his face stroke her like a cut in the heart. “Just a minute,” she said and turned toward the back of the store. Over his shoulder he called: “Do you live in this town?”
“No, I live in the village. And you?” he looked over expectedly.
“I live in there too! We could’ve been neighbors!” said she cheerfully.
“Yes, we could’ve passed each other by without knowing it!”
When she returned to where he waited, a package lay in her hand, wrapped in crimson paper and tied with a bow of blue cloth-made ribbon. “There you are,” she said softly, “it costs…..” she quickly glance the money on the counter, “eh….it costs a little more than that, so you may have to bring back one more of the coins.”
“Just one more?” before she could answer, “Ok, I will pop in tomorrow.”
She smiled over her shoulder as she walked out the door. Through the window he watched her go, while freshness flooded her thoughts. Something about this boy had stirred the deep grief inside her and which would not stay buried. Maybe she wouldn’t get old and die in this little shop after all. The boy’s hair was ink black, his eyes shined vividly, and her father used to have hair of that same black and with eyes just as vivid. And the jade necklace was to have been hers.
It was a rainy night, a truck skid on to the sidewalk where her father was passing by, and the world was taken away from her. The truck belonged to the Japanese; they just sent somebody over with the dead body, no mention of the cause of death, not a penny of compensation. Their world collapsed and her mother threw herself into work and had lived with grief and solitude ever since. My mother tried to forget and helped her mother to forget the mourning air that’s deepened day by day. But after a while, when everything seemed to go back on track, she’d come to realize the memory was already melted in the air they breathed every single day; it was never going to go away. People moved on after tragedies happened, was just because they had to.
In the happy atmosphere of the up coming New Year, red lanterns everywhere, business strived for the last penny hoping for a New Year’s Eve meal with meat, made her want to cry so badly that her face twisted a little. Just as she prepared herself to hide behind the joy outside, when the day and the year was finally over, but inexplicably, the day didn’t quite finish with her yet.
The door opened and a boy hurried in. She almost immediately recognized him as the boy with the jade necklace.
“Happy New Year! Do you remember me?” he spread his hand before him, there lying in his palm was a coin, his hand was red and she could see cuts that would have come from the freezing world outside. “I bought a jade necklace from you the other day, I promised I would bring the rest the next day, but I didn’t manage to do it because my mother sent me to the city for my father the next morning. I felt terrible and I hope it isn’t too late.” He explained worriedly.
She never doubted what she had seen in him from the first day they met.“Don’t worry, you are here now, it is not too late.” You are here now, talking to me, and that was all I’ve asked for. That was what she actually wanted to say.
“Thank you, that’s very sweet of you. Here it is.” She squinted at him as she put the coin into the drawer on the right. He seemed to be trying to say something but didn’t know how to put it.
“Yes? Is there anything else I can help you?” she decided to give him a hand.
“Well, as you already knew, we live in the same village and maybe in the same block, isn’t it weird that we’ve never met?” he tried to sound causal.
“Yes, it’s true.” She wanted to say more, but got cold feet and started to back off.
“So, I was thinking, maybe I could take you home this afternoon so that I will know where you live and what your name is.” He finished the whole thing like he had bottled it up for a long time and couldn’t wait to burst it out.
They just stared at each other for a while, neither of them moved as if they were trying to see through the pupil into each other’s soul.
Nearly 25 years later, I asked my mother how much she could get from a person who you only met like, ten minutes ago, how she figured out it was love when she’d never been in love before. “To be honest with you, the jade necklace was worth way more than you father could ever afford back then, the jade was real, and it was the only jewelry my father had left with my mother. She had to sell it. For that reason alone, it’s priceless. I don’t believe in love at first sight that sort of thing either, your father and I have met way before that very day in the shop. And you wanna know how I could be so sure? Well, I knew, I just knew.” My mother had been telling me that men looked after you; some of them may guide you to become a better person, so you had to have one like a good bra. As for bras, it’s better to have none than to wear a badly-tailored one.
I guessed she was right, when you fall madly in love with someone, you never know what this “true love” could do for you. Although I didn’t actually concur with my mother’s relationship philosophy, it was already implanted in every fabric of my being. I envied my mother for having this “perfect coincidence” when she first met my father. Even though I very much suspected she’d either exaggerated or flourished the story anyhow, I totally bought the whole thing; so much that I even went to extend of working for the same sort of shop when I did my A-levels, dreaming that one day a perfect guy will turn up.
