Chapter 500 Family Interactions and Emotional Journeys

Mrs. Alana stood up, took out her phone and looked at it, and said, "Cielo, I'm going to meet a friend. She was waiting for me over there. Can drive me?"

  Cielo, "Okay, Mrs. Alana!"

  Mrs. Alana looked to Martin, "I'll pick up Susie later, keep an eye on her, don't wander off! If she bumps or bruises, I'll come after you."

  Martin nodded.

  Susie waved her hand, "Don't worry, Grandma, see you later."

  Jinny looked at her hand and waved it up, "Grandma... Grandma, see you again."

  Mrs. Alana remained silent.

  Grandma spat silently and turned to leave.

  Wade sat on the couch, peeled an orange and gave it to Susie and Jinny.

  At the same time, he said, "You can't call her grandma, grandma is for Susie. You have to call..."

  Jinny stared down at the orange on the table and suddenly reached over and looked at it without blinking.

  Suddenly a mouthful swallowed it whole.

  Wade was shocked and scrambled to pick the orange in her mouth, "Oh, to peel, peel! This is not for you to peel a..."

  Before he finished, he saw Jinny take out the half-chewed orange and hand it to him.

  Wade stared blankly, his mother was... Peeling an orange for him?

  Good, imported peeling skill.

  "No, it's not necessary..." Wade said dumbly.

  Jinny stubbornly stretched out his hand, lips fluttering, and said one word, "Eat...!"

  Wade remained silent.

  With this interruption, he had completely forgotten what he was just about to teach and was pulling at the limits between eating and not eating.

  If he doesn't eat, his mother is watching, and if he does, he can't eat.... Wade was so embarrassed but he was afraid that if he didn't eat. His mother would think he disliked her, and what if she got sad?

  Susie had a bright idea and took Jinny's hand and put the orange back into her mouth, coaxing her like a baby, "Eat it yourself, Aunt! We have things to do, so be a good girl and eat!"

  Jinny's mouth was puffed up and she looked at Susie and then at the fruit on the table.

  There were oranges, grapes, apples, carrots, and bananas.

  She ate.

  After she barfed down the orange in her mouth, she picked up another banana.

  Seeing that she was going to eat it directly, Martin was quick to take the banana from her hand and peeled it before handing it to her.

  "Bananas need to be peeled." He said, "Take it."

  Jinny held up the banana, a flash of realization in her eyes.

  The round ones had to be peeled, and the long ones had to be peeled too.

  She looked at the carrots and apples and grapes on the table.

  Martin seemed to see what she was thinking and emphasized, "You don't need to peel the carrots and grapes. But if you want to eat the apples, I'll ask someone to bring a peeler."

  Jinny stared at the apples.

  Martin got on the intercom and had an apple peeler brought in.

  He put the peeler on the table and added the apples, cranked the lever and the apples were peeled automatically.

  Jinny's eyes widened as she approached the table and sat on her knees in front of it, picking up the apple as Martin had done. Snapping it onto the fixing stick to secure it, simple and brutal.

  Then she carefully cranked the lever and watched as the apple peel swooshed and peeled off.

  Seemingly amused, she immediately took the peeled apple off and put another one on.

  Martin stopped her, "Eat as much as you can, and peel it when you're done."

  Jinny looked up in confusion, and her pretty eyes, though still looking straight, were much better than they had been a month or so ago.

  The face was pale, but the chin was rounded, cute and did not look like a fat goose egg face, small nose, lips and Mitch, like a lightly dyed rose red, good-looking.

  Martin said silently, "Eat up, then peel."

  Jinny understood.

  Finish eating.

  Susie and Wade breathed a sigh of relief when they saw her quietly eating the fruit and not "messing up" anymore.

  Susie looked at the crybaby, "Tell me, how did you die?"

  The crybaby's crying finally stopped and said in a huff, "I was a professional crybaby before I was born..."

  Oh no, is there such a profession?

  Susie and Wade got interested and perked up their ears.

  "Professional crybaby? Is that when someone dies, you go and cry?" Susie asked.

  Crybaby nodded, "Yes..."

  "The natural law of life, sickness and death, most of the time the children and grandchildren were working outside. The old man died when he was more than ninety or hundred years old, children and grandchildren even sad sometimes cannot cry out, cannot cry out will be said unfilial."

  "What to do at such times? Just hire professional crybabies..."

  The crybaby sucked his nose and said, "I was the most professional crybaby in the world so everyone liked to hire me..."

  Wade, "So you died crying?"

  The crybaby wanted to say something but stopped.

  "It started when I was a kid..."

  "I cried when I was a kid, my mom took me shopping and I saw toys I wanted to buy and my mom wouldn't give them to me so I sat on the floor and cried and cried."

  "Sometimes, my mother was annoyed, beat me up, and cried even more..."

  "I can't get a drink of water, I can't get the food I want to eat, I can't win a fight with my siblings... I would cry."

  The parents of the crybaby thought that all children would grow up without crying.

  Who knew that she would cry even more when she grew up.

  If she didn't want to go to school, she cried.

  When she couldn't keep up with school, she cried.

  She cried when she was criticized by the teacher, and cried when she was praised by the teacher.

  Writing a weekly journal, other students' class teachers correct when writing a sentence of comment. Hers only a single 'read' word, she also wanted to cry.

  "And so, I cried from elementary school to middle school, from middle school to high school until I went to college..."

  Wade asked, "You finally stopped crying when you went to college?"

  The crybaby shook her head, "I got a boyfriend in college, and I cried more."

  Susie, Wade and Mitch remained silent.

  Jinny was stuffing fruit into his mouth and gave the crybaby a look in her business.

  Martin sat behind his desk, correcting papers and looked up every now and then to make sure Jinny was eating the orange without peeling it.

  He couldn't see or hear anyway, so he had to guess what the crybaby was saying based on some of Susie and Wade's questions.

  The crybaby continued, "I was happy when I first started having a boyfriend, but the first time I fought was when I had been dating for three days and he went to play basketball and I texted him and he didn't answer me."

  The crybaby and the confused ghost were almost same era, when cell phones were not common. The more common means of communication was the landline phone.

  "After I came back, I quarreled, quarreled and I cried."

  "My boyfriend said a text message for 1 dime, there is something to meet and talk to. There is no need to send so many texts and messages, I think he was cheap and did not love me so I cried and we broke up."

  These trivial matters always lead to arguments, and after the arguments, she would cry.

  Finally, her boyfriend was annoyed and broke up with her.

  "After the breakup, I cried for four years in college."

  Susie, Wade and Mitch remained silent.

  A breakup that can cry for four years?

  "How did you cry?" Wade asked curiously.