Mango Allergy: My Mom Abandoned Me

I became my mom's child again.

Dad blackmailed Mom into signing an agreement that he would no longer pay a penny of child support before he agreed to give custody of me to Mom.

Mom signed it.

Since then, I no longer had to eat spicy food that made my nose runny, and I didn't have to have red rashes all over my body every day.

Because of me, my mom had to quit her job at the textile factory. She couldn't take care of me and work at the same time, but life had to go on.

Mom rented a storefront and bought machines with all the property she got from the divorce. She started a cotton business.

Every morning, she would cook me a good meal and then take me to school. The rest of the time, she would be busy in the cotton room.

Picking cotton was a dirty job. Many times, Mom would have cotton fibers all over her body and even on her eyelashes.

When my mom came to pick me up at the school gate wearing an apron, I would walk away from her until all my classmates have dispersed, and then I would go over.

Other moms looked glamorous, but my mom looked tired and dirty. I was afraid my classmates would laugh at me.

At first, my mom just complained about how slow I was. But one day, she saw me lingering at the school gate and she grabbed my ear and pulled me back, saying, "I have so much work to do in the shop. What are you doing here?"

I covered my pulled ear and shouted in protest: "I just came out, I was not dawdling, okay? Mom, couldn't you tidy up a bit before picking me up? Look at other moms, and then look at you."

When I was young, I didn't understand anything. I only followed my most primitive instinct to criticize and despise her. When she heard me say that, she picked up a wooden stick from the ground and hit my butt.

"So you think I lost your face, huh? I found out. All of you in your dad's family are bad seeds, rotten to the core. If it weren't for you, I would have had a steady job at the textile factory and wouldn't have suffered so much."

Back then, I was young and only knew how to poke at her weaknesses: "It's all because you're incapable. If you could earn half as much money as my dad, I wouldn't have to suffer with you."

Her increasingly plump body trembled violently as she dragged me towards the train station: "Go, go find your heartless father now. If you think he's so good, go live with him."

Feeling wronged, I sat on the back of her bicycle, silently vowing to tell my dad in the future that my mom was a shrew, always scolding people, and always dirty.

But I was still young, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find my dad. So I could only endure and bear the burden under the control of my mother.