Summary
I went to attend my son’s parent-teacher conference.
The teacher pulled me aside and said he’d recently gotten very close to a delinquent girl from outside the school.
“I don’t know how they met. That girl fights, drinks, dates-she does it all.” The teacher frowned. “Boys at this age can go bad fast if someone leads them astray. Chi An’s mother, you need to take this seriously.”
When I got home, my husband, Chi Yunqian, called to say he’d be working late.
I told him about it right there over the phone.
I didn’t expect him to have me on speaker. Someone beside him let out a laugh. “Looks like Chi An takes after his dad in that regard.”
The room fell silent.
Holding the receiver, I thought of my own past-technical secondary school, fighting, drinking, dating.
After a long moment, Chi Yunqian’s heavy voice came through:
“Mm. He takes after me.”