Chapter 1: The House That No Longer Felt Like Home

After Aunt Tong’s funeral, Xiao Hang found himself standing in the doorway of the small house where he had grown up. For the first time in many years, he had nowhere else he needed to be.

There were no business calls demanding his attention, no employees waiting for instructions, and no meetings he could not afford to miss. His phone remained silent in his hand, yet his mind was filled with a thousand unanswered questions.

He had returned to the village to bury his mother, believing that the hardest part would be saying goodbye.

He was wrong.

The hardest part began after everyone had left.

The neighbors who had helped arrange the funeral gradually returned to their own homes. The relatives who had come to offer condolences departed one by one. The sounds of conversation faded, leaving Xiao Hang alone

with the woman who had raised him – at least, with the belongings she had left behind.

Her old slippers were still beside the bed.

A faded coat hung behind the door.

On a small table stood a cup she had apparently used only days earlier. Beside it lay a pair of reading glasses and a little notebook filled with handwritten reminders.

Nothing in the room looked extraordinary.

Yet everything hurt.

Xiao Hang picked up the coat and held it against his chest. He remembered how his mother used to wear it when she walked to the market during winter. He remembered her standing outside the house, waving until his car disappeared around the bend.

Back then, he had thought her gestures were ordinary.

He had assumed he would see them again.

Now, he would never see her standing there.

A thought suddenly struck him: When was the last time he

had truly looked at his mother?

Not glanced at her during a hurried visit. Not asked whether she needed money. Not listened to her say that everything was fine before rushing back to work.

When had he last sat beside her without checking his phone?

When had he last asked her what she was afraid of, what made her happy, or what she did on the long afternoons when nobody came to visit?

He searched his memory, but the answers would not come.

He had known his mother’s address, her bank account, and the amount she needed each month.

But he had slowly stopped knowing the details of her life.

And that realization frightened him more than anything else.

 

Chapter 2: The Phone Calls He Could No Longer Return

That evening, Xiao Hang sat on the edge of his mother’s bed and opened their message history.

At first, he

expected to find nothing unusual. Their conversations had always seemed practical and familiar.

Mom, I’ve transferred the money.

Did you receive it?

Yes, son. Thank you.

Do you need anything else?

No, everything is fine. Don’t worry about me.

He read the messages again.

There were hundreds of them, stretching back over several years. Some contained photographs of things he had bought for her. Others were short exchanges about holidays, weather, and household repairs.

Almost every conversation ended with the same reassurance.

Don’t worry about me.

For years, he had accepted those words as proof that his mother was doing well.

Now he wondered whether they had meant something else entirely.

Perhaps she had been trying to protect him from guilt. Perhaps she had known how busy he was and had decided that asking for more of his time would only make his life harder.

Or perhaps she had simply

become accustomed to keeping her sadness to herself.

He could not know for certain.

He scrolled further and discovered several missed calls from months earlier. He remembered some of them. He had been in meetings, traveling between cities, or dealing with problems at the company.

He had promised to call back.

Sometimes he had remembered later that evening. Sometimes he had forgotten.

None of those decisions had seemed important at the time.

After all, his mother had called him many times before. He had always believed there would be another opportunity.

Now, every missed call felt like a door that had closed forever.

He pressed the button to call her number, almost instinctively.

The phone rang once before he remembered.

His mother would never answer.

He lowered the device and stared at the screen until it went dark.

For the first time, Xiao Hang understood that a successful life could

still contain a terrible kind of failure: the failure to notice that someone who loved you was growing older while you were busy becoming successful.

Chapter 3: The Little Notebook Beneath Her Pillow

The following morning, Xiao Hang began sorting through his mother’s belongings.

He wanted to organize the house before returning to the city, but every object seemed to carry a memory that made the work difficult.

Inside a wooden drawer, he found old photographs, utility bills, a few envelopes, and a small notebook with a worn cover.

He recognized his mother’s handwriting immediately.

At first, the pages appeared to contain ordinary household notes: groceries to buy, appointments to remember, and reminders about things that needed repairing.

Then he noticed several entries that made him stop.

Monday: Visit the children.

Wednesday: Buy fruit for the little ones.

Friday: Ask the caretaker whether the children need winter clothes.

There were