When mom is not home

- Oh, you only get 3 days off, so what's the big deal... Well, I have to accept it, what can I do... If my grandmother was there, why would I say anything? She can't come... I also think it's most convenient to send my child to my grandparents' house, the school is far away so I asked my friend to come pick her up... in the morning, my aunt Hanh will take her to work. I'm just afraid that our child doesn't know how to do anything yet. If she goes to live with her grandparents, she'll definitely be scolded...

That was the conversation between mom and dad on the phone that May overheard last night. This morning, sitting in class, May kept thinking about it.

Illustration: MINH SON

May is the only child in the family. This year, May is nine. May's father is a soldier, stationed in Bien Hoa. May's mother is a journalist. May heard from her grandmother that her mother used to have to go on field trips, but since May was born, she has been given priority to work administrative hours, and no longer has to go collect news or write articles. Her mother spends all her time taking care of May. No matter what, May's parents have been married for nearly ten years, and they spent a lot of effort on medical treatment. They only had May at the age of forty, so how could they not love her and take care of her? Luckily, even though her parents are old and May was born prematurely, May is still a pretty, smart, agile, and healthy little girl. If we don't count the time when all children under three or four years old were sick with fevers and other minor illnesses, from the age of five until now, May has never had to go to the hospital. At only nine years old, May is already over one meter and a half tall and weighs forty kilos. May is understanding, cheerful, humorous, and more mature than her middle school siblings. May also won second prize in a city-level speaking contest. The scores of the subjects were also rarely 9. May's academic achievements were often shown off to the whole family. In the eyes of everyone, May was a wonderful girl, "many people loved her, few people criticized her". Friends and acquaintances all praised her mother for being good at giving birth and raising her. However, May also had an "Achilles' Heel" that people did not know. That is, although May was smart and good at talking, when it came to manual work, May was quite clumsy. At nine years old, May almost did not know how to do anything. When May washed the dishes, the plates broke, the cups were dirty, May folded the clothes for an hour and in the end, her mother still had to fold them.

One time, May heard her mother say to her friend on the phone: “It’s my fault. I’m too busy and don’t have the patience to train her. Teaching her to do housework takes too much time. Watching her fumble and fumble makes me impatient. After teaching her to do one thing, there’s no time or mood left to write or read. Well, adults have clumsy and clever people, let alone children. People have many types of intelligence. When it’s time to force her to do housework, I let her learn English, I do it quickly.” So for a long time, her mother didn’t let May do important things, only letting her sweep the floor or undress. But this time was different. Her mother was on a business trip for ten days. Her father only had a few days off. May would go live with her grandparents. Both grandparents loved their grandchildren. They would save any extra money or delicious food for their grandchildren. But grandparents were still old people; that is, they were difficult, worried about the future, and conservative. My grandparents' house is big, with so many things to sweep and clean. They want their children and grandchildren to gather together to clean, both happily and away from the phone. However, the children prefer to play together rather than work. So in the past, when May and her siblings came to visit, their grandparents would scold them: "You're so grown up and don't know how to do anything. When we were five or seven, we knew how to cook, wash dishes, sweep the house, do laundry, sew, etc. But back then, cooking rice with a straw stove was very difficult, not like today's rice cookers where you just need to wash rice, add water, and turn on the button."

Mom was worried that May would be staying at her grandparents' house for the whole week while she was too busy preparing for the long trip to have time to teach May how to do housework. She knew that her grandparents would not be able to stand May's clumsiness and messiness. So Mom assigned Dad to teach May how to do housework during the days off, at least the basic things.

The first day there were only the two of them at home, when May came home from school, she saw delicious food and sweet soup already laid out. May whined: Dad is really skillful. The dishes he makes are better than Mom's, not worse. Dad bragged about this to Mom. On the phone, Mom burst out laughing: May is just good at flattery! From now on, you two take care of yourself. You don't need Mom to direct you from afar anymore. Actually, May knew very well that Mom had prepared all the food in the refrigerator, Dad just had to take it out and cook, but May still said that to make Dad happy, but who would have thought Dad would bring it up to Mom. If she denies Mom's important role like that, what if Mom gets angry?

That night was also the first night May slept alone. Before, no matter how late her mother worked, if May fell asleep long before her mother entered the room, she was still assured that her mother was next to her. Every night, May snuggled into her mother's arms, inhaling the familiar, indescribable scent emanating from her mother. Now that her mother was away, her father encouraged May to try sleeping alone. May agreed, but all night, May lingered in the living room watching TV, occasionally glancing out the door, hoping that the door would suddenly creak open and her mother would enter the house like the nights when she came home late from work. It was past 10 p.m. when her father reminded her, May returned to her room, climbed into bed, hugged her teddy bear tightly, covered her head with the blanket, and only fell asleep after a long time.

Friday morning, the second day after Mom left. After dinner, Dad had to go out. Dad asked: Do you know how to wash dishes? May said yes! Dad went. May got to work right away. May put on an apron, rolled up her sleeves, filled the sink with water, then poured dishwashing liquid into the bowl like Mom had taught her before. But alas, instead of just pouring a little dishwashing liquid and mixing it with water, dipping the sponge in it, when May saw that the sponge was too dry, she poured in almost half a bottle of concentrated Sunlight dishwashing liquid. Just a few minutes later, the entire sink was filled with soap bubbles, the more she washed, the more bubbles, and the water started to overflow and flow onto the floor. May hurriedly stepped out of the way, but somehow she slipped and fell flat on her face, getting wet and in pain, not to mention the bowl in her hand flew out and fell onto the kitchen floor, scattering dozens of pieces. May struggled to get up, looking at the floor full of broken bowls and soapy water, and almost burst into tears. Luckily, Dad came back in time. He quickly checked to see if May was okay, then said: “Okay, leave her there, I’ll wash her up. Bring me the mop, then go change your clothes. Be careful not to fall!”

Washing dishes seemed a bit difficult, so May switched to mopping the floor. She remembered her mother telling her to wring the mop thoroughly before mopping, but the mop was too heavy, and May didn't have enough strength to wring it out, so the dirty water flowed all over the floor. In no time, the floor was covered in water. Dad had to struggle to get a dry mop to mop again, spending another hour.

In the evening, because Dad had prepared food since noon, when Dad went out to buy vegetables, May took the rice to cook rice by herself! Food is difficult, but cooking rice is like Grandma used to say: just wash the rice, add water and press the rice cooker button and it's done. Seeing Mom cook so many times, May was confident that she could do it too. But it looked easy but actually doing it... May was very careful but still spilled a handful of rice out. Not to mention the meal when Dad opened the lid of the rice cooker, she suddenly became absent-minded; the rice in the pot was as mushy as porridge. That night, May didn't see Dad smiling and teasing Mom: "Even if you're gone for a whole month, my baby will still be fine!" Although Dad had been coaxing May: "It's okay, it's the first time, next time I'll do better!"

The third day. I don't know what my parents were talking about, but that Sunday my father took me to the market. To be exact, to the supermarket. The two of us bought enough fish, chicken, pork, shrimp, and beef, which my mother had told us over and over again. However, when we got home, while we were sorting the meat and fish to divide into freezer boxes, my father suddenly discovered that something was missing from each dish. For example, the boiled fish forgot tomatoes and dill. The braised fish didn't have caramel. The braised pork as May had requested didn't have coconut water and eggs. We bought vegetables, but there was no minced meat. My father said, "We can't let your mother look down on us. Now I'll mince the meat to make soup. Go to Ms. Hong's vegetable stall to buy some tomatoes, green onions, and dill. By the way, buy me a coconut and a dozen duck eggs." Ms. Hong received the money from May and praised her profusely, "Mom is away, but my daughter knows how to go to the market. So good!". May picked up her bag of groceries and ran home. When they opened it, three of the eggs broke. In return, May helped her father peel a few eggs. Although each one was covered in injuries, that afternoon the father and son had a delicious braised duck egg dish.

Then the ten difficult days passed. The day she welcomed her mother home, May hugged her mother tightly, crying with joy. Mother also had tears in her eyes, hugged May tightly, and praised: “I heard everything from Dad and Grandma and Grandpa. My clumsy little girl. As long as you try your best, I am happy. After this time, I will spend time teaching you how to do housework!”

Short story by BUI DE YEN

Source: https://baobariavungtau.com.vn/van-hoa-nghe-thuat/202503/khi-me-vang-nha-1037547/