There is a couple living next door. The woman is a sanitation worker who likes to joke. She is about fifty-five years old and about one and a half meters tall. Her long braids hang down to her knees. She is extremely thin and you can clearly see the frame wrapped in skin. The man must be less than fifty, works in construction, and looks cold. In the three years since I moved here, I haven't seen any expression from that gentleman, and I can actually hold it in. I haven't taken the initiative to say hello to him for three years. For a special neighbor like a rental house, except for the children running and jumping in the corridor, no adults know each other's names, and the couple next door are no exception. Everyone only greets the lady, calling her "Hunan", and she calls me "Chenchen mother".
The balconies on our entire floor are connected and are actually corridors. After get off work, everyone sat by their respective doors, with more than a dozen children running back and forth, and the adults chatting and laughing, getting along very harmoniously. "Hunan" is very enthusiastic. Whenever it is windy or rainy, she will help me put away my clothes. She will also help me occasionally when I do things. Our children often call "grandma, grandma". Perhaps because her mother-in-law was similar in age to her, the two of them could chat for an hour or two as long as they sat down, and from time to time they would arrange to dance in the square downstairs. So after three years, we are relatively familiar with each other.
Their family has a son, about twenty years old, who used to live in a dormitory. Recently, he suddenly moved back and brought a girl with him. So in that 20-square-meter rental house, just use wooden boards to separate it, and a family of four could settle down.
I often see the young couple playing around on the balcony, and the boy can skillfully braid her hair. Every time at this time, I would smile and say to my husband: "My hair has grown to my waist, can you braid it for me?" Although my days commuting to and from get off work are the same every day, I am still smiling and stable, and time flies by.
Last Spring Festival, "Hunan" that I hadn't seen for two months finally appeared. I was hanging clothes on the balcony, and my mother-in-law was doing cross stitch next to me. As soon as we met, we started chatting. I heard my mother-in-law ask:
"Why haven't I seen you for so long?"
"Yes, I'm home."
"Your husband has Here, the whole family is here, why did it take you so long to go back?”
“He is not my husband!”
My mother-in-law and I were stunned by the next conversation. I knew something about her. The man she lives with in "Hunan" is ten years younger than her. They live in the same village. Her husband does not go out to work due to health reasons. The boy lives with this man, and her own daughter is married. This man lost his wife, and every Spring Festival "Hunan" would go home by himself...
We got along as usual, and no one mentioned those things. The young couple was still braiding their long hair on the balcony, and from time to time I heard the girl saying delicately: "Hubby, are you feeling better soon?"
When summer came, I was awakened by the sound of smashing and noise late at night. I couldn't hear clearly what was said, I just knew it was next door. The girl was crying so hard that her words were choked, and there were bursts of breaking sounds like glass...
The girl left alone early the next morning, dragging two large suitcases.
I never asked about these things, and I never saw that girl again!
I wonder if in today's wandering environment, people living as "husbands and wives" like "Hunan" are just isolated cases? But I understand that situations like that young couple exist everywhere. I have no way of knowing how many people you need to call "husbands" before you can truly own that "useless" marriage certificate, or which "wife" you need to truly live in.