Chapter 9: Bed Fourteen's Mother

On Thursday evening Tong Yu's mother came up in the east lift with a lunch box in each hand and a third under her arm.

His mother was fifty-four, small and upright, with short permed hair.

She had the voice of a woman who had taught forty children at a time for thirty years.

"You didn't answer my messages," she said, kissing the air next to his ear. "Ten days. I took the early train."

"Ma, I've been on call," said Tong Yu.

"You are thin. Where is the man with the ducks? Your roommate. I made enough for both of you."

"He's in theatre. Ma, you can't just come up to the ward," said Tong Yu.

"I can come up to any ward I like. I was a patient on this floor."

She set the lunch boxes on the nurses' counter, and a night nurse took a step back.

"Fourteen was my bed. Is it still the one by the window?"

Tong Yu opened his mouth to answer, and shut it.

Down the corridor the stairwell door swung open, and Han Zhiyuan came out of it with a file in his left hand.

He saw them and stopped walking.

His mother turned her head. She looked at him for a moment, and her hand went to her collar.

"Doctor Han," she said.

It was not a question.

"Madam Tong," said Han.

He had put the file down on the counter, and he did something Tong Yu had never seen him do in public.

He bowed from the waist, low and slow.

His mother bowed back, deeper, and when she straightened her eyes were full.

"I saw you every morning for nineteen days," she said. "You never remembered to eat."

She shook her head. "You always had cold tea. I thought you were the thinnest doctor in China."

"I was a poor judge of my own lunch."

"And now you're grey." She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her wrist.

"My son never lets me say it. He says it embarrasses him. So I will say it once, here, in front of the nurses."

She looked at him hard. "Thank you, Doctor. I have had eight good years."

"It was a long time ago, Madam Tong."

"For you, perhaps. For me, it was yesterday."

Han's throat moved.

"Then I am very glad," he said, in a voice Tong Yu hardly knew.

His mother picked up the nearest lunch box and held it out in front of her with both hands.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Intern Memorized the Surgeon's Schedule from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.