After the nightmare, my mind felt hazy.
I thought I'd talked to my brother, but maybe I hadn't.
I remembered my mother, who had died in a car accident last year. She'd jaywalked, and the driver's view had been blocked by a car parked illegally on the road. The car hit her head-on. She was taken to the hospital, but she died two days later.
It had been almost a year, but the lawsuit was still ongoing. My brother and sister-in-law had been busy with it, and they looked exhausted.
I must have hinted something to my brother, but he seemed not to understand.
I couldn't focus, thinking about that foreigner.
Every night, I dreamed of that courtyard. I dreamed I was hung from a tree, slowly dying, slowly rotting.
I wanted to run away. I started looking for work in other cities.
No, I should go find that foreigner. I should catch him...
My thoughts grew more and more jumbled.
In the blink of an eye, the day of the next hearing arrived.
The driver who hit her and the driver who'd parked illegally by the roadside were both defendants. The police had already determined their respective liability and imposed criminal penalties. The lawsuit was about civil compensation.
Sitting in the gallery, I watched the security footage playing on the small courtroom screen.
My mother had darted straight off the sidewalk and into the road. She seemed to be fleeing something, panicked and desperate. Even though it showed only her back, I could tell how she felt. She'd raised me from childhood. Of course I knew her.
The defendant's lawyer accused my mother of jaywalking.
I couldn't listen anymore.
On the footage, my mother was knocked to the ground. The driver got out, and some passersby gathered around to