Chapter 10 mother's gold ring

Small-town residents have good memories, as anyone who has lived in a small town knows. When my mother was killed, it was only natural that the townspeople first suspected Dad of being the murderer.But because the real culprit could not be found for a long time, the case became an unsolved case, and it was never solved. Therefore, my father could only spend the rest of his life as a scapegoat. At that time, I was only eleven years old, and my sister Lucy was fourteen.Our family lived at the south end of the town in a dirty, run-down log cabin. When we were young, our house was bare.A stove is the only thing that keeps our house warm.While it takes up most of the room, it doesn't make our home any warmer.

Dad's occupation is a painter.Even when the economic crisis came, he could still support his family with his painting skills.But despite this, we are still often struggling on the verge of starvation. Dad is very popular in the small town, especially with women, he has many confidante.Dad wasn't a handsome man, but I guess there must be something attractive about him.Baba was tall, with slender limbs, and a disproportionately large head—a broad forehead, a sharp chin, a mass of brown hair, and black curled eyebrows.When I was a child I was terrified of his eyes, his small black eyes peering out from under his arched brows, and often gave me the chills.

Mom died before I could remember.In my memory, my mother is just a vague shadow.Although my father and mother's wedding photo was framed in silver and displayed on the radio, I had trouble connecting the slender, beautiful woman in the picture with the mother I remembered.My mother was fatter in my memory, because I clearly remember that she wore a gold wedding ring on her finger, the thin ring almost set into her finger. I remember that when my mother was murdered, it was at the beginning of March, which is the season of rejuvenation and the recovery of all things. That night, my sister and I went to my dad and asked him to let us watch a movie.Unexpectedly, my father readily agreed, because my father always said before, don't waste money on such meaningless things.But that night, my father was much more tolerant than usual. As soon as my sister and I spoke, he agreed.He gave us the money to buy tickets, and my sister and I went happily.That movie was called "Captain Valor," so that for a long time after that, I didn't dare to watch Spencer Tracy's movies again.But my sister didn't care at all.

At about nine fifty in the evening, my sister and I finished the movie and walked about a mile home from the center of town.I clearly remember that it was a starry night, the weather was a bit cold, and the south wind was blowing head-on. Every few steps, my sister and I had to turn our backs, cover our faces with gloved hands, and walk backwards . When we turned a corner and saw our home in the distance, my sister and I felt as if something unusual had happened.There seemed to be a lot of people watching, as well as the police. "Could it be that something happened to Don King's family?" My sister couldn't help guessing, "He must be drunk again? It shouldn't be, his wife usually doesn't call the police."

And my mind was full of ominous premonitions.The crowds watching, the noisy voices, and the flashing red lights all made me feel deeply afraid. As we got closer, I saw many people standing in front of our house.Under the faint starlight, everyone in the crowd was watching me and my sister, and we started running quickly towards the house. When we got to the door, the neighbors were scrambling to get my mom out and into the ambulance.The fat lady next door hugged me, covering my face against her big, soft chest. I heard my sister screaming as she tried to break free from the Fat Lady's twin boys, who were trying to stop her from jumping at Mom, who was being carried away by paramedics.

It was much later that I found out what had happened that night. At nine o'clock that night, the fat lady of the neighbor came to my house to borrow candy and was going to make chocolate fudge.She knocked on the door several times, but no one answered.The fat lady pushed open the door, but unexpectedly found that her mother was lying by the door of the bedroom, dead.When she realized what was going on, she screamed like the roof would come down.A few minutes later, when Dad rushed home, the ambulance had arrived, but it was too late. The police took Dad away for investigation.But Dad took out the so-called "alibi".He had coffee at the Bud's Café, then a game of pool at Alfred Pool, and finally he had a couple of beers with the Fat Lady's husband at Ellie's.Everywhere there were witnesses proving that Dad was not at the scene of the murder.

However, on this night, Dad still has many opportunities to go home and start.As a result, many criticisms began to appear in the small town.Many residents believed that the reason why he agreed to let my siblings watch a movie that night was to pay us off so that he could commit crimes.But they don't have solid evidence either. At that time, only one person thought that Dad was innocent, he was a new policeman, but not many people agreed with him.Because during the autopsy, the police found that one of the mother's hands had been chopped off by the murderer.Mother's hand has never been found, and no one knows where it went.And the new policeman thought: the murderer must be a pervert, he killed the mother and cut off her hand, because the murderer must have "hand fetish".

"You must have heard of people with 'foot fetishes,'" I heard him say to the Sheriff the other day, "and people with 'fetishes'—they're crazy about lingerie..." These new terms had never been heard of by the Sheriff, nor by anyone else.After about many years, they will not hear these words. Although this point of view did not resonate with most people, the new policeman still insisted on his judgment: "The murderer must be a person with a 'hand fetish'!" There were other doubts about the murder: no footprints had been left in the snow; and a wooden-handled meat cleaver my grandfather had made in the house was missing, and the police never found it.

With no clue, the case was left unsolved and lost in the dust of time.In the end, no one was charged.I often thought in my heart: If Dad was charged by the police and then acquitted, maybe he would be cleared of the suspicion.But now, almost everyone in the town believes that Dad is the murderer of his wife. Although people don't say anything in front of Dad, they are tacit understanding to each other. After my mother left us, the life of my sister and I became more difficult.At home, the two of us rarely talked to Dad, and even avoided him as much as possible.But that's not an easy task in such a small house.Every night, when my sister and I were doing homework, my father would complain to us that the people in the town always treated him coldly.

"Everyone thinks I did it," he said, "but you know it wasn't me! You know that, don't you? How could I do that to your mother and why would I?" It was strange that Dad, who had never cared about others in his life, should now be troubled by the looks of others.Before my mother died, my father never drank strong alcohol; but now, every day when he comes home, he just sits aside and drinks by himself until he is very drunk.In the middle of the night, my father would fall drunk on the bed. Although he would not beat my sister and me, the appearance of him when he was drunk was even more unacceptable to us.

At first, my sister and I thought that Dad might remarry, since the neighbors knew that Dad had always been "a bit mean" to Miss Judy.Miss Judy is the fourth grade teacher in the town school. "It's kind of interesting" is a word we pastors use a lot. I remember that when my mother was still alive, my father didn't show too much affection for Miss Judy.Sometimes, when we went to town fairs, Dad would say hello to Miss Judy, and even try to strike up a conversation.At this time, Miss Judy always frowned, smiled and shook her head at Papa. After my mother died, my father invited Miss Judy to dances several times, and even bought movie tickets for her to watch movies.But Dad's several attempts failed, and Miss Judy rejected him. I guess maybe Miss Judy has no idea about Papa.After all, Dad was also suspected of killing his wife.But whatever the reason, in short, after a year, Miss Judy married a gas station owner.That means Dad never gets a chance. Since then, my sister and I have gotten worse and worse.After my sister graduated from middle school, she entered a miners' hospital and became a trainee nurse.I know, she is waiting for me to graduate, and then go together.Because a long time ago, we decided: we will leave this broken home when we grow up. When I was seventeen, I graduated from high school.In the weeks leading up to graduation, I had packed my personal belongings in a tattered bag I picked up at the dump when I was thirteen.On the night of graduation, I returned home, stuffed my mother's wedding photo into the bag, and left without saying goodbye.I went directly to the bus station and headed to a rural elementary school - our principal arranged for me to teach here temporarily.In the summer of the second year, I was lucky enough to be admitted to university.I am studying while working part-time, planning to seek a formal teaching job after graduation. My sister's career is also going well, she has completed a nurse training course.Not long after, she married.Three years later, I also got married.My sister's home is only fifty miles away. Neither of us, my siblings, saw Dad again—nor did we meet him until he died. My sister and I went back to our hometown just once because we were going to attend my father's funeral. When we returned, his body had been carried to the funeral home behind the furniture store, and several townspeople had come to attend.We didn't stay long at the funeral, and we left in a hurry as soon as Dad's body was buried.Maybe people think we don't respect Dad, but Dad doesn't respect us either. My sister and I stayed at the hotel while attending my dad's funeral.Even if you give me a hundred yuan, we don't want to sleep in the old house where my father lived.However, the day after Dad was buried, we still went to the old house on the south side of the town to sort out Dad's belongings. The cabin we used to live in is even more dilapidated, with mottled paint remaining on the walls, weeds growing in the yard, and everything is barren. There was a musty smell in the room that almost suffocated us.My sister opened the window to let the air circulate.Next, the two of us started to clean up the debris in the house.A large pile of garbage that was cleaned up was sent directly to the garbage station for disposal, while some usable items were donated to the Salvation Army.In short, nothing works for us. "what is this?" On top of the cabinet my mother bought when she got married, my sister found a little thing.It was an old cigarette tin, not too big and flat. "What's in it?" My sister held it and shook it by her ear, "There's something ringing inside." She unscrewed the lid and poured out the contents. Let's look at that thing together. It lay there quietly, the skeleton of a human hand.At the end of my little finger, I saw the familiar gold wedding ring that had once been almost embedded in my mother's flesh. Poor dad, he always wanted to make the best use of everything, but that ring never came in handy again.We know that Dad wanted to give the ring to a woman, but this made Mom lose her life.