I am still mourning the death of my father. It's strange to see my mother having fun with this clever ebony bird so soon.

What do you want to sell? He said. I already have car insurance. Carney speaks in a nearly perfect tone sandhi, but he speaks a song to the air, not a dialogue.

You can't pay too much attention to what a bird says, mother warned.

The owner of this family is not here, Carney said. He's dead, dead, dead.

That night, he tore the newspaper in his mansion and tore it into pieces, which smelled like a stable. "Turn off the lights," mom said, throwing an old beach towel and covering it on its cage. Carney suddenly sang the first lyric of Patsy Klein's song "Midnight Walk" loudly, and then he was silent all night. His little moves look fake, and I hate that he won my mother's favor in such a simple way.

After that week, Carney's desire to protect my mother greatly increased. He ran after me on the living room floor and beat me with his wings. When I tried to coax him away from the kitchen counter, he gave me a hard bite on my wrist and finger.

I'm going to take it to the vet, mom said, feeling a little uncomfortable with this parrot. I know she wants a bird that can only make her proud. But I think she was honored by Carney's aggressive behavior.

The vet said, Let me see how you touch the bird.

Carney, slowly move to the left and right of my mother's wrist, tilt your head to one side and look at us. Like a whale, he only gives us one side face at a time.

Mother stroked Carney's chest with her index finger.

I don't know what to tell you, said the vet, but you are making sexual cues to your parrot. Mom blushed.

The vet said, don't caress, keep the parrot for a while.

I called Carney three times-a plumber took over the job of taking care of the bird. He sold the bird to the bird nature reserve, and then the bird moved to the zoo on the roadside. It's warm in the car now, and I'm going to fall asleep, but I don't want to blow the air conditioner with Ike to get sick. He is playing card games on the game machine now.

Did we leave to let others move into our house? Ike asked.

"We are going to Ted Road Zoo now," I said.

What's in the zoo, he asked.

I said, I want to see a bird.

We passed a minibus with a couple inside. The woman was crying, and then put down the sun visor in the car.

Being a single mother is not easy, but it is much easier than being a miserable wife. I know almost nothing about Ike's father; He is what I call a five-night stand. We often have coffee in the same store before going to work. He is a drama director in a local university. He is married, but he still flirts with other women, which makes him notorious. He declared that he and his wife had separated. He sends a little money every month, but he doesn't want to get involved. The advantage of this bad situation is that our arrangement is at least simple.

I stepped on the gas and passed a school bus.

Did I tell you about Louis' mother? Ike asked.

Louis's mother is a Christian who is keen to spread her views. She believes that God can help her start a new life. She has a habit of taking drugs. He is the kind of person I try to avoid contact with on school open days.

On Tuesday afternoon, Ike said that she got on the school bus with her dog and raised her fist to say that Christ had risen. Really, he came back to life.

No way, I said, really?

Really, Ike said. Louis pretended not to know her when she came in, but his mother grabbed the chrome handrail in front of the school bus and said, "God, I'm in a place where people don't sprinkle pepper on eggs." Then she started dancing.

Ike waved his arms and imitated Louis' mother who was in a trance after taking drugs. I saw a rash of eczema on his forearm and wanted to rust. I want to handle everything. I just want him to live a comfortable life. I don't want him to know that people like mother Louis exist. Those people have fallen into the mire of pain and can't climb out anymore.

When Ike was almost one year old, I gave it to my mother to hold, while I was emptying out the expired milk in her refrigerator and scrubbing her toilet. Suddenly, the woman who used to iron tablecloths, polish silver tableware, bleach napkins and roll carpets gave up the etiquette of life.

Can you give Ike a hug while I clean? I said.

Mom is sitting on a couch in brown leather, and Carney is in his high-end cage painted with white paint, only a foot away from her-almost all in her sight. She has lost a lot of weight. I'm afraid she didn't eat well. I bought several boxes of cottage cheese and chicken salad, which my mother never touched. These foods will rot next month.

Are you going to sell the house? She said. Did you give the real estate agent a price? They called me and quoted their offer.

There is a shopping mall next door, I said. This may be your chance to sell the house.

I put Ike in his arms.

It is not difficult for the child to lose weight, said his mother. Look at my waist, if you try.

I decided not to talk back. The argument between us has been fierce and lasting, and I can feel it burning now. Can't we sell dad's tools? Can't she see an ophthalmologist? Who will take care of her damn bird? Don't I know how hard they worked to give me this chance? The argument between us was so sharp and fierce that I began to be afraid of establishing intimate relationships with others. When we began to stop arguing, we seemed lost.

"You are more and more like your father now," she said. You will never get angry, even if you want to.

It's true-it's hard for dad to lose his temper, even after I wasted his hard-earned money to pay for my freshman tuition in a private school, which is 15000 dollars, which he can hardly afford. The night I came home in summer, he put his hand on his lap. In my opinion, the expression on his face is more sad than disappointed. Mother stood behind him, silent and aggressive. I later learned that she scolded my dad for a long time because he was too tolerant of me, and I began to hate her for it.