One Night Changed Everything (PAUSED)

14

At least now Carmen understands why Wuxi always seemed so familiar to her, he looks a lot like her childhood friend and his demeanor is very much like his mother. His smile should have given it away for her and now that she knows he is her best friend's son she can see his mother in his smile.

She makes him dinner and a soothing tea before she goes into his room to wake him. He needs to keep up his nourishment while carrying three babies. She nearly chokes on a sob thinking that he is carrying three babies and her friend will never get to hold those sweet treasures. She stops at his door and calms herself before she walks into his room and gently wakes him.

"Wuxi sweetheart, wake up, you need to eat something." She coaxes him awake.

He stirs and moans softly as he opens his eyes which are still swollen and sensitive from earlier. He closes his eyes again for a moment before opening them up again. He looks at Carmen "Hi, sorry about earlier." He says as he sits up and moves to the edge of the bed.

He puts his hands on the edge of the bed preparing to stand up but instead sits there for a moment before looking up at the woman standing in front of him "Thank you for before, I'm not sure how long I would have sat there if you hadn't come."

She shakes her head unable to speak for a moment as she looks at him and sees so many of her friend's features mirrored in his. She smiles finally "I made dinner, come eat something and then maybe take a shower and go back to bed if you want to."

He bobs his head slowly and stands up, they walk into the kitchen and she puts a bowl of white rice with a mild ginger sauce and seared fish in front of him. "I thought maybe we could eat light tonight considering the day you have had, I figured your stomach might not handle anything too rich or heavy."

He takes a small bite and smiles at her "This is perfect thank you, it is delicious too, I want to learn to cook this, I really like it."

She sits down with him and takes her own bowl putting it in front of herself. She clears her throat "Wuxi, I want to talk to you about something."

He nods his head as he eats not really looking at her "Go ahead"

"After your breakdown today, I was curious about the family you have been living with, so I got some information on them and you and your sister. Not to pry or anything but just so I could better understand without making you talk about it if you didn't want to." She says quickly.

He shrugs "I don't mind, I have nothing to hide, you can check all you want, I trust you."

She smiles at him "I, gosh this is harder than I thought."

He looks up fully then and tilts his head "What's hard?"

She sighs "Darling your mother was my childhood best friend, we grew up together and remained best friends until college."

His chopsticks stop halfway to his mouth and pauses there for a moment before being put back down. "What?"

She gives him a gentle smile "We were practically sisters and inseparable for the whole of our lives until I went aboard to study my second year of college and we slowly lost touch. We both got busy with college and I met my husband and got married and had children. It is difficult to maintain relationships of any kind when you are half a world away from each other and trying to build a life. We hadn't spoken in about fifteen years when she died. I tried to find her when we moved back to China but your mother and father had moved to Chongqing when you and your sister were just babies, the mutual friends we had when we were in college didn't know where she had moved to, and she didn't have any family to speak of, so I had no other way to try and track her down. I would have never thought to look for her there, she always said she would never leave Beijing because she loved the energy of the city."