When I put a table of steaming hot meals on the table, I called out to my son a lot. The little guy is always reluctant to eat. I nagged him many times and even my son memorized my lines. He was eating and said: "Mom, you were happiest when you could eat steamed buns when you were a child?"

I nodded and pretended to chew the delicious food. I have always been a good provider and never picky about my meals. I can always eat enough to fill my stomach no matter what. I finally made myself fat and now I have to lose weight ruthlessly. Even if I only eat a cucumber for dinner, I try to sit down at the dining table and finish the meal slowly with the little one. Every time at this time, I recall the dinner in my childhood when my mother was absent.

My childhood dining table only has the memory of several dinners. At that time, my father was working in the commune. When we got up every day, my father was already riding his heavy bicycle to work. There was hot porridge and sweet potato pancakes on a dining table. Mother did not sit on the kang, but stood on the edge of the kang, finishing her meal in a hurry and going to work. We children also hurriedly drank a bowl of pumpkin porridge, or grabbed a piece of corn pancake and carried it to school in our schoolbags. Lunch is often not cooked. In summer, my mother said, hot meals are troublesome to eat and heat up the house; in winter, my mother said, the days are short and there is not much work to do, and I can’t eat three meals a day, so I only put the leftover rice in the morning. The thick black mud burning pot was covered with a baggage and stuffed under the quilt at the end of the kang. It was still slightly warm at noon. When we come back from school at noon, we each put our hands in to touch a piece of sweet potato pancake, pour some sauce into the sauce jar, or peel an onion and eat it. They would sit on the edge of the Kang or stand in front of the Kang or in the kitchen. Many times they would even go out to the streets with pancakes in hand to watch people playing hopscotch.

There is only the memory of the dinner, warm and grand. Mother washes sweet potatoes early and mixes them with golden corn flour and occasionally some white flour. Cut half of the cabbage, and sprinkle the rare peanut oil on the top of the cabbage. Occasionally, there is a bowl of stewed pickle sticks, or, for a bit more extravagance, egg dumpling sauce. The small dried fish is usually not put into the pot. After the fire ceases, it is lightly roasted on the reddish charcoal fire in the stove, and the delicious aroma slowly fills the room.

My father would often pour some wine, half a glass for me and half a glass for my mother. But my mother's half-full glass of wine remained like that. Mother was absent from our dinner. She brought the hot and sumptuous dinner to the kang table and urged us to eat it while it was still hot, while she herself washed the pots on the stove and stirred pig food for the pigs in the pen. We little pigs slurped and ate deliciously. By the time my mother got on the bed, there was almost nothing left on the table but some vegetable soup, and a few fish bones and fish scales with burrs and thorns. Mother casually brought over a plate of yesterday's or morning's leftovers. She crushed up the dark yellow steamed buns and pancakes and put them into a vegetable basin. She poured some hot water into them and turned them into half a basin of soaked pancakes. Her mother picked up the wine her father poured for her and ate with relish on the fish heads on the table.

My father’s expression was difficult to understand. Sometimes he would sigh and look at the roof and say that the rice was cold. My mother said that adding some water would be just right, but I can’t get used to hot rice. The mother then scolded her, saying, "Who is this, eating so uncleanly?" Only the scales of a willow fish were scraped off and the side bones were eaten. The delicious fish meat exuded a delicious flavor. This small fish was blended in among the fish bones, making it inconspicuous. I saw that it was the "leftover" food from my father's meal.

Because she was afraid that her father would compete with her to eat the leftovers, her mother hid the leftovers in the pot and served them to her when she went to the kang to eat. Sometimes she would say, "Look at my memory. I forgot." Same. But one time when her father went to the pig pen to pour pig food, he got off the kang, opened the pot, brought out the leftovers, and mobilized the crowd to say, "Your mother still has some delicious food." After my father's instigation, we ate all the leftovers together. Mother looked at the dining table blankly, her mouth crooked, and she swallowed hard. But sometimes, my mother couldn't even eat the leftovers and vegetable soup with peace of mind. Sometimes the pigs are not eating well and the mother is worried. That is the hope of the family. She tried every means to prepare it, often mixing leftover soup into the pigs' food to encourage them to eat it clean. One time I asked my mother why she always came to eat after we finished eating. My father solemnly said: Because those little pigs haven't grown up yet. At this time, the eldest brother's eyes were red and he added some wine to his mother's small wine glass with trembling hands.

I can’t remember exactly when my mother started having dinner with us. I just feel that the dinner became richer with my mother’s active participation. White flour pancakes were served from time to time, and sometimes there were stew. I asked my mother where the leftovers were. She said they were put into pig food. I asked my mother in confusion why she was not in a hurry to feed the pigs now. The mother smiled but did not answer.

After we got married, my husband and I often went back to my husband’s house in the countryside. My mother-in-law didn’t talk much and just liked to prepare a big table of food. But when the food was on the table, she picked up a basket and said she would go to the vegetable garden to have a look. Only when the rice was almost cold did she come back with half an order of vegetables. The vegetable garden is right next to it. We spent almost the whole morning in the vegetable garden. What else is more important to see than eating? At first, I thought she was worried that my new daughter-in-law would be shy and unwilling to eat with me, and I laughed to myself. In what age do I still feel shy about eating? But year after year, the new daughter-in-law becomes an old daughter-in-law, and my mother-in-law is still like this. One time during dinner, she wanted to go to the vegetable garden again. I said a little irritably: What is this habit of running out without eating? Why should I go to the vegetable garden? My mother-in-law hesitated and said nonchalantly: I'll be back soon.

My husband whispered to me with a heavy expression: When she was poor, she had children and seniors, and there was not enough food to eat, so she would wait until the end to eat. This is a habit she has developed over the years.

Now that she is rich, she still cannot change. I was stunned there, suddenly feeling that a mystery from many years ago had been revealed. I thought of my eldest brother filling my mother's small wine glass with red eyes, and I felt a chill in my heart. I understood that my mother was so late.

Mother’s dinner