“I wish you weren’t my mother.”

They arrived back in Bhuo late in the evening, though the sun still had its summer strength, beaming through the mountains and casting the city in a beautiful array of lights and shadows. Lian didn’t like to admit it, but she loved Bhuo in the summer. It had none of the majesty of the Great Cities of the Empire, and the people and her generally did not get along, but it was striking. The trees, though sparse, were arrayed in green, the sky was usually bright and clear, and the air had the cool, refreshing quality of an oceanside beach, only cleaner, crisper, and thinner. Each summer she’d come back to see Quan she’d loved that first ride into the city. And now her son was experiencing it himself for the first time.

She left the room, destroyed. Utterly destroyed. And he knew it. Not the impact of it, he couldn’t imagine that, but he knew it would hurt her and he’d wanted to hurt her. He hated her. He despised the way she talked to him, her empty promises and all the ways she’d ever lied to him. And most of all he meant it: he wished any of the other mothers he’d ever met had been his. Anyone but her.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I love coming back into the city.” Quan just nodded, that same smile he’d had on his face the last few days still there. She couldn’t tell if it was from his kiss with Fen or the conversation afterward. She didn’t care. She was happy he was happy.

It had been the culmination of a very bad day for Quan. He’d woken late and been reprimanded for missing the morning prayers: latrine cleaning duty all morning. And he’d had plans to go rat hunting with Palden in the temple warehouse. It was their favorite game at the moment, and Quan was finally getting close to catching up with Palden in skill. The week before Quan had caught six rats to Palden’s seven. Now he wouldn’t have the chance to show Palden he was almost as good.

They marched into the city and were greeted by Mittens, who meowed loudly the instant Quan stopped his horse. “Hello, kitty,” he smiled. Mittens rubbed against the leg of the horse.

It was always like that – every time Quan got good at something, Palden got a little bit better. He knew it was mostly because Palden was two years older, but Quan also knew he had special gifts and he was anxious to grow them and show them off. He didn’t see why he should have to wait two more years to do the things Palden did. That frustration had been brewing for months, and when he couldn’t even best his friend at a simple hunting game, to twelve-year-old Quan, it seemed an insurmountable problem. He cleaned the latrines, gagging the whole time, swearing under his breath when he wasn’t gagging. And then Palden had the nerve to get angry at him.

As they marched through the streets, Lian noticed Quan noticing the looks, finally. The way the girls all stared a little bit longer than they should. He finally stared back. Some of the more worried parents shooed their daughters away, but Lian knew the damage had already been done. Quan had announced he was ready for a woman after all.

“I thought we were going to go hunt rats.”

“I slept in. They’re making me do this.”

“Shit. I really wanted to go.”

“Me too.”

“Well just forget about it. Blow it off. They won’t get mad at you.”

“I can’t, I’m already in trouble.”

“You’re such a baby.”

“What?”

“You heard me. A baby. Can’t kill the rats better than me. Now you make an excuse so I can’t show you how much better I am.”

“Shut up. Like I want to clean this shit.”

“Just a big baby.”

At the Temple, Palden and Master Tinsley met them, and they both gave Quan great big hugs. Quan’s face lit up too. He pulled a bright pink prayer sash from his bag and held it out to Palden. The other young man looked at him and shook his head, prompting Quan to laugh hysterically before replacing the sash with a more manly deep green. Palden snatched them both from Quan’s grasp. “I’ll give the pink one to one of my girlfriends.”

By the time he finished cleaning the latrines, he was exhausted. He couldn’t sleep in the summer. When he was little it was because he wanted to spend every waking moment with his mother. Then it just became a habit, even as he wanted to see less and less of her as he grew up. As his body started demanding ever more sleep, the summers left him tired and cranky. He was on lunch duty and had to start cooking immediately after he cleaned himself up. He stirred the thick porridge that was the monk’s meal that day, the heat of the fire and the tiredness in his arms combining to make him even more exhausted by the time it was over. His anger and frustration grew and grew.

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They set about distributing their earnings to the various artisans and producers who had given them goods to sell. Those who had gotten a good price were overjoyed, those that hadn’t were miffed, but even in the worst case it was more than they could hope to make in Bhuo. They all thanked Lian and Quan warmly. Some of them gave some money back, as a thank you for a job well done.

After lunch he was supposed to meditate. But he was too tired to concentrate and too angry to focus. The harder he tried to bring his mind to attention and connect with the Great Tiendu, the further it slipped from his grasp. Master Tinley came by and admonished him further – told him the same old tricks he’d already tried and failed with. He wished the old man would just realize this was not a good day, but he didn’t, he kept hammering away at Quan, insisting he try harder. But that only made it more difficult. By the end of it, Quan couldn’t even feel the Tiendu, no matter what he tried. His whole life it had been out there, like a good friend sitting just around a corner: he only had to call and it would answer. Now it felt as if it were on the other side of the mountains. He’d never felt lonelier.

They returned to their small home and found a small gift basket waiting for them, from the monks. Lian had brought some new stoneworking tools from the Empire on her entry that summer, and the monks who looked after the temple had decided to repay her with sweet meats and a local jam made from a berry that grew in the King’s orchards. “Looks like we’re gonna have a bit of a feast tonight,” Lian said approvingly.

On his way back home he’d seen them: mothers picking up their children from the temple schools. Most everyone in Bhuo sent their kids to learn from the temple monks, and since women looked after the children in Zhosian, they always came down like a wave upon a shore when the schools let out for the end of the day. Quan walked through them and felt the second hand love and dedication on every smile, every tired expression, every hug or clasped set of hands. His school and home were one of the same, and neither of them featured a mother there to meet him at the end of most days. One month a year, yes, there she was. But she was nothing like these women – domestic and safe, a caregiver but not a disciplinarian. Zhao Lian was nothing like what he wanted, and that became very clear as he trudged home, exhausted and beaten by the day.

They made the meal together, roasting the meats on skewers and spreading the jam on biscuits, then smushing the ingredients together into a delicious sandwich. Lian poured Quan a small bit of some of the wine Puotong had given them as they’d ridden through back to Zhosian, and Quan poured her some of the fruit tea he’d purchased for her in Daming. They ate and talked about their travels and the cities: the differences and similarities, the senses of both and the absences of either. Lian watched her son’s eyes come alive with something she knew very well: hope for the future. A future that was more than just being the most powerful Keeper in the Great Temple of Bhuo. A future out in the world.

That whole summer had made it worse too. She’d come in raving about the basket of gold she’d sent to the temple earlier that year. It had arrived, yes, and it had made some of the monks hate him less, but to many of them he was still an Imperial orphan and a dead weight who did not belong. The only one he belonged with was his mother, and when he finally allowed himself to hope that this would be the end of their separation, and that she would take him with her, or stay in Bhuo herself, she said no. She couldn’t. It was still too dangerous for him. She still needed more money. Excuses. She had nothing but a long chain of excuses for why they couldn’t be together. But deep in his heart he began to suspect another reason altogether: she didn’t love him. She didn’t want him. He was a burden she couldn’t bare. And so it came out easily from his mouth. Because he wanted to hurt her the way she hurt him.

She felt lucky to be there still. Sixteen years since he’d been born, and she was still alive. It was a minor miracle, all things considered. Her job was not a simple one or a safe one. But she was alive, and she had experienced a great many things. Things he would need to know if he was going to join the world one day. Things the Keepers could never teach him. Things only she could teach him. She’d started already – maybe sooner than she’d liked – with the bandits and the weight of taking another human life. But she was lucky also: he was an amazing student.

“I wish you weren’t my mother.” He regretted it almost at once. The moment she left it crushed him almost as much as it had her. Because as soon as she left, he was alone again. He had no other mother, and none of those other women out there in the streets of the city would ever care for him. The anger and indignation disappeared with Lian, and at the end of his very terrible, no good, very bad day, he burst into tears and missed his mother.

The meal finished, Quan started cleaning up. “No, don’t. You go check in on Palden or something, I’ll clean up.” Quan acquiesced after a little nudging, but insisted on putting away his belongings from their trip before anything else. They worked together in the tight environs of their little home, and Lian was overcome with the joy of this domesticity. Theirs was not a normal family, she knew, but it was the family they had, and she loved it.

He’d wanted to apologize to her, but she was gone. Back into the world where he couldn’t reach her, and where the love he felt for her seemed to disappear. He spent every night meditating, reaching out into the Great Tiendu to try and feel for her. She had a particular glow in the Tiendu, a unique sensation he could pick out at once. That winter he grew strong enough to track her wherever she went, even to feel distant aftershocks of what she felt. He felt triumph at her successes, and suffered her defeats. And the next year when she returned, she walked up to him and said, “I’m going to spend the whole year here. With you. I promise.” And she did.

“You’re a pretty good mom,” he told her, standing in the doorway, preparing to go. She looked up at him and forced herself to smile even though her insides were breaking.

“You’re alright too,” she joked.

“I’m glad we could go out together.”

“We’ll do more next year. I promise.”

Quan smiled, knowing it was true. She had a good track record of keeping her promises. “Good.”

“Good,” Lian confirmed, the nodded out the door. “Now get out of here.”

He grinned and left, and Lian ensured he was gone before she let herself cry in the very same spot he had four years earlier. Both of them missing the only family they’d ever had.