Chapter 17 016

A standard, stereotyped biographical sample would start out by introducing the protagonist's grandparents, e.g. from England/Ireland/Germany/the former Soviet Union, and then trace their humble origins, e.g. shopkeeper/farmer/miner, never thought of (ancestors It's all like that, they never imagined the lives of future generations) Someday their grandchildren will be world famous/highly praised/notorious athletes/entertainers/politicians/arms dealers etc. Celebrity memoirs tend to have an element of grandiosity, usually beginning with a description of the experience of attending some kind of public event: When I was sitting in the audience and I heard so-and-so (the protagonist's rival) being called up to accept an award I struggled to hold back my tears when I realized that if I wanted to grow up, I had to reinvent myself and become an artist/arms dealer too.Afterwards, they also recall chronologically: Then so-and-so happened, and then so-and-so happened.

But actually human memory is like a salamander.Salamanders never crawl in a straight line.It squirmed, crawled in a zigzag way across the walls and across the ceiling.A ripple of color would appear and disappear at the same time: an orange head trailing a slippery blue body.Is this a scene from a dream?Laura asked herself.But it does seem to exist in my rhyme memory rather than a dream. A story based on human memory cannot be linear.Memories fold themselves, they cluster together, they form a ball.Instead of arranging themselves chronologically, they cluster together thematically: betrayal, ambition, regret, loss, and so on.

Whenever she takes over a manuscript, the first thing she has to do is to make a chronology of events, eliminate internal contradictions, and ensure that all events can be arranged in a reasonable chronological order.But Laura's superb copy editing skills make her helpless about a series of events after her father's death.They are intertwined, overlapping, and interpenetrating, inseparable. Laura, in spite of her efforts, was unable to put a coherent order into these events.The trouble wasn't in the details, but the details themselves: arranging a memorial service, contacting friends and family, writing an obituary, etc., and a mother who was too sad to help.

At one point in the timeline, Laura's father is reduced to ashes. When it was his turn to write the obituary, Warren said, "You're the writer." Laura had explained to him the nature of her job countless times, and he still stubbornly insisted on this false statement. "I don't write manuscripts, I edit manuscripts." "Whatever it is, you write an obituary, okay?" Writing an obituary is a strange thing: summarizing and examining a person's life in words, what is left out?What's left?The full name of the deceased must be included, followed by a series of acronyms denoting educational experience: BA, major, various honors, teaching certification (industrial arts), Athabasca University.Below is a list of the children and spouses, the time and location of the memorial service, the guests' donations in lieu of flowers, and flowers in lieu of attendance.There is also a famous quote from a wise man, which is even more sentimental: "There is a time for everything..." The obituary is not so much written as composed.

"What does that mean?" Warren asked strangely when he saw a line written by Laura on the paper, "Let the sky do what it wants, even if justice falls." "A saying Papa said—he wrote it down a long time ago," Laura answered.Maybe he didn't write it at all, maybe she imagined it, but it was still a message from her father. Inspector Brisebois personally delivered the autopsy report.He tucked his hat under his arm as a mark of respect for the deceased.As soon as the autopsy report was delivered from the medical examiner's office, he read it immediately.The column for the cause of death read: "Gravity Trauma." True.He didn't mention the fact that all the tire tracks on Ogden Highway were from that old car, or that the investigation had expanded.

"There was no alcohol in the victim's blood," Brisebois told the family. "There was no anesthesia, no cardiac arrest. His heart was fine." The words sounded to Laura as "He's got a good heart. He's a good man." Laura's grandma died without causing a ripple in the family, as if she had evaporated rather than died.It was a different story after my father passed away, with all the chores piling up and everything seemed to have to be dealt with right away.Laura arranges the funeral and Warren handles the money.He called the insurance company and refused to accept their request to delay the claim, and he gave the people involved a beating for this and other procedures that he considered "unacceptable".

This was actually the first hint at the problems that arose later. "The newly added insurance coverage on your father's insurance policy has been processed for too short a period of time to take effect." This is the reason for the insurance company's refusal to Warren.It turned out that the week before the accident, my father had just increased his life insurance, which was more than twice his premium.However, there is a waiting period of six months before the newly increased compensation can be claimed. Mother now lives with the Warrens in Springbank.She finally accepted that her husband would never come back. (Even after his body was cremated, she still expected him to appear in front of her at any time. She didn't realize that she had really become a widow until the memorial service was over and the guests had left.) Warren's home is in On a crowded narrow street.Mother took only a few belongings with her when she went to his house, so she spent most of the day indoors in that velvet dressing gown.Her letters were taken by Laura, who kept them tied up with a rubber band in the fish tank in her apartment. "These emails can wait for later," she told her mother.

The life insurance, the memorial service, the final notice...these things continue to intertwine and seem both separate and simultaneous.Then, the ATM machine under Laura's apartment swallowed her mother's bank card, and things were completely different from before. Warren took his mother to see Laura, in order to get her to change out of her pajamas and get some air.He sent her to Beishan Shopping Plaza and went back.Mrs. Curtis stopped by the bank in the square, intending to withdraw some money to have lunch with her daughter in the food court.The bank card she carried was shared with her husband.But when she entered the password, not only did the cash machine not spit out a single banknote, but the card could not be returned.In other words, the card was swallowed by the ATM.A line of words was displayed on the screen: Please find a salesperson inside.

Laura's mother didn't go in, but fled from the side door of the square in a panic, ran all the way to the door of Laura's apartment, and rang the doorbell in despair. "Laura, it's mother, come down!" So the mother and daughter went to the bank together and asked to see the manager. "You obviously made a mistake." Laura's tone was very certain, although she was not completely sure in her heart. The bank manager was a short, fat young man with rosy skin and a tie just below his neck that was too tight.He took out a bank statement, and the data displayed on it was: ($189, 809.51).

"What do the brackets mean?" Laura asked, already feeling a sense of uneasiness in her mind. "what?" "Brackets, the brackets around the numbers, please explain." The bank manager blinked. "It means negative balance. Didn't you get the notice?" He turned to Laura's mother. "Notice of default on home loan." "loan?" "A housing loan is like buying a house with a mortgage." Laura's mother said: "We didn't have a mortgage to buy the house, our mortgage was paid off many years ago." "Yes, you paid it off," the manager replied, "so your husband can apply for a loan, more specifically a maximum line of credit secured by the equity of the home."

He took out the relevant documents again, "Your husband." He hesitated to speak, as if this sentence explained everything. Laura shoved the paper back in front of him. "My mother didn't sign it. It's a fraud." "Your mother doesn't need to sign. The house is in your father's name." "Why is the house..." Before Laura could finish her sentence, her mother interrupted her by touching her arm, "When we bought this house, I was still studying at Teachers College. Besides, it was normal that the property was in the husband's name at that time." .” "But it's your house too," said Laura. "It should be our house," said the bank manager. "The loan is still in arrears." He added, "You can find a lawyer." Laura was looking for someone more powerful than a lawyer. "I called my brother," she said, threateningly, as if she were a seven-year-old girl again. "You're going to regret it." Laura sat looking at the manager defiantly as she called her brother on her cell phone.But the days when her brother was her patron saint are long gone.Warren also had trouble with insurance companies.After the call was connected, before Laura could speak, he began to spit bitterly: "They froze Dad's compensation, pending investigation, can you believe this damn nonsense?" Laura turned her head to the side and whispered, "Warren, we're at the bank, you have to come here right away." "Dad took out another 500,000 yuan as an additional insurance premium a week before the accident, but now these rascals refuse to spit out a dime. Fortunately, the mortgage is paid off." When Laura tried to get her brother to give her a few minutes to talk, her mother asked the manager, "Where's our savings?"