Read Spilled Water for Free Online

stopped, to be replaced by a stillness that mimicked death so perfectly that I thought I had lost her.
    ‘Don’t worry, child, she is still fighting,’ whispered Mrs Jin. ‘Go back to bed now. You will need to be strong to help her.’
    I must have fallen into a deep sleep, for when I woke again Uncle had returned and was talking quietly to Mrs Jin.
    ‘Is she all right?’ I asked urgently, leaping from my bed.
    ‘She is sleeping peacefully,’ said Uncle.
    ‘Oh, thank goodness,’ I sobbed, and without even thinking I threw my arms round his waist and held him tight. ‘I was so scared
     she was going to die.’
    Uncle stood briefly, awkwardly, and patted my head, before pulling away and addressing Mrs Jin.
    ‘Are you able to stay longer?’ he asked. ‘Si-yan will make breakfast and I will call by again this evening.’
    For the next five days, I looked after Li-hu and helped Mrs Jin to keep my mother comfortable. Gradually, the fever left her.
     She lay in bed sunken-eyed and exhausted, but peaceful. After ten days, she was able at last to walk around, though not for
     long, and I was shocked by how thin she had become. She was very quiet, and seemed not to be interested in what was happening
     on our farm. Uncle had arranged for two men from the village to keep things going, but I knew that we couldn’t rely on them
     for ever, and that we would have to take charge ourselves again soon.
    There was to be no relief, however, from the misfortune that dogged us. A drought set in, and the village men returned to
     their own farms. The temperatures soared to unbearable heights. The earth began to crack in protest, our vegetables wilted.
     When the well dried up, I brought buckets of water from the river, but I might as well have dropped a teaspoon of water on
     to a desert.
    Only Uncle could provide a lifeline. He sent us boxes of food and called by once a week. He didn’t stay to eat with us, and
     I was glad, for all he did as he wandered over our scorched terraces was to criticise my father for his refusal to take a
     job at his factory. I wished, how I wished, that we didn’t have to be grateful to him, but I began to despair that we would
     ever be free of the support he provided so unwillingly. Mother seemed unable to rediscover the determination that had kept
     her going before, and the memory of my father no longer seemed to inspire her. She would stand in the doorway of our house
     and gaze with utter despair at the wreckage of our crops.
    Uncle was sympathetic at first, but he gradually lost patience at Mother’s inability to make any effort to save at least a
     fraction of our harvest. One evening, he arrived and sent Li-hu and me to fetch fruit from the village. When we came back,
     we found Mother slumped in a chair, her face harrowed. Uncle had gone. I asked Mother what was the matter. She stared at me,
     her eyes shot with pain, but she didn’t reply, and I was scared, so scared, for all of us.

Chapter Twelve
    A Fragile Reed
    It was four o’clock, I saw from the clock on the wall as we entered the apartment. Four o’clock in the morning. All was quiet.
     Mr Chen opened a door into a bedroom.
    ‘This is your room,’ he said. ‘Get some sleep. You will be woken at eight.’
    I nodded and watched the light from the hall squeeze out of the room as he closed the door behind him. Fully clothed, I lay
     down on the bed, which was more comfortable than any bed I had ever slept on, but, whether from hunger or fear or both, I
     could not sleep.
    Mr Chen’s words buffeted my ears relentlessly. ‘ One day, you will marry my son. ’ In my mind I rejected this command over and over again. I was going home. I was going to see my mother again. I wasn’t going
     to stay in this place with people I didn’t know. I wasn’t going to marry someone I had never even met. How could my uncle
     do this to me, how could he?
    I must have dozed eventually, because I was woken by a sense that there was somebody in my