October in San Francisco was submerged in endless, relentless rains. The overcast grey sky was like a thin, waterlogged curtain enveloping the ancient St. Jude Gothic school, turning the vast marble hallways abyssal and ice-cold. Autumn winds lashed violently against the Gothic glass windows, creating prolonged rustling sounds like an endless, mournful melody.
This year's rainy season was strangely abnormal, and brought with it continuous late afternoons of Mark being picked up late.
Ever since that torrential rainy afternoon when Travis unexpectedly appeared and then vanished again like a ghost, the duty of picking up and dropping off Mark was handed over entirely to a group of unfamiliar drivers. But almost every afternoon, when other classmates in the Purple Sprout class had already been whisked away by luxury cars and bodyguards from four in the afternoon, Mark still sat quietly alone in the corner of the room right by the glass window.
Some days at five o'clock, some days as late as six in the evening, when the streetlights began to dance on the stagnant puddles outside the vast courtyard, the mysterious black car would finally pull up to the school gate. The person stepping out of the car was always a new driver — at times a tattooed Black man with a razor-sharp gaze, at times a taciturn man bearing a long scar on his neck. They arrived very quickly, flashed a metal card bearing an eagle motif, greeted Mark with cold nods, and then vanished into the heavy traffic.
That frequent tardiness caused the school staff and teachers immense frustration. Ms. Beatrice stood at the classroom door on more than a few occasions with crossed arms, complaining, her eyes constantly darting to her expensive watch:
"I really don't know what is wrong with this family! So much wealth and money, yet they cannot even manage to pick up their child on time! Ms. Maya, pack up his things and send the boy out to sit in the security room to wait; I have to head home."
Maya looked at the five-year-old child huddled in the corner of the class, his hand tightly clutching a cotton-fabric robot, his ash-grey eyes turning to look out toward the school gate full of self-pity. She softly replied:
"It's alright, Ms. Beatrice, please go ahead and leave first. Let me stay behind to watch over little Mark. It's very cold and windy out by the security guard, I'm afraid he might fall ill."
Those drawn-out rainy afternoons naturally became a private time belonging only to her and the child. Inside the large classroom submerged in warm yellow light, Maya meticulously took care of Mark bit by bit with all the tenderness she possessed.
Knowing Mark often got hungry from waiting for a long time, Maya personally prepared tiffins of hot vegetable soup brought from her rented room. She carefully scooped up each spoonful, blew gently on it to lessen the heat, and fed the little boy. She thoughtfully used a soft cotton towel to dry the fine strands of hair that were slightly damp from the wind-blown rain, then gently changed him into a clean backup dress shirt, fragranced with the mild scent of scented soap.
Whenever she saw Mark obediently devouring each bite of soup, or when the little boy whispered a question: "Ms. Maya... are you staying behind with me again today?", a wave of indescribably warm emotion surged in the young girl's heart.
Mark was no longer a "mute" or frightening child in the eyes of the world; to Maya, this child was like a tranquil patch of sky, a spiritual anchor helping her endure long nights of fear from being stalked by a pervert at her lodging house.
However, Maya's unostentatious devotion became a thorn in the side of the colleagues around her.
In a place like St. Jude where every good deed was scrutinized through the lens of money and power, the fact that a dirt-poor intern teacher voluntarily stayed behind for night shifts without pay for the son of a tycoon family immediately sparked extremely vicious rumors.
In the teachers' lounge during lunch break, incessant whispering resonated behind her back:
"Looking at that pretend-caring demeanor makes me want to vomit! Who on earth is so kindhearted as to stay behind every afternoon to watch someone else's child for free?"
"A kid from a dirt-poor family, she's probably taking the opportunity to 'climb high' and cling to that super-wealthy chairman, isn't she! Don't let that bewildered, innocent face fool you; her mind is terribly calculating, intending to use the child as a bridge to change her life!"
"Truly the type of intern who wants to change her life at all costs, having no sense of shame whatsoever! A tycoon like that is a cloud in the sky; they aren't stupid enough to let this rag-like intern lead them by the nose."
Those insulting, sarcastic words bounced off Maya's ears daily like pricking needles. She heard it all, feeling clearly every mocking gaze passing over her worn-shouldered clothes. But absolutely, Maya did not once raise her voice to argue back or attempt to explain.
She patiently walked past those contemptuous gazes with a serene, cold smile. Growing up in the slums, the stubborn toughness and the self-esteem trampled on since childhood had taught her that: Arguing with those who already carried prejudices was merely a useless waste of energy. She stayed behind out of pity for the child lacking a mother's love, for Mark's pure smile, and not for any charity or invisible fame.
But... deep down in the most hidden corner of her soul, Maya knew she was lying to herself.
Every time the rainy afternoon fell, amidst the silent space filled only with the pitter-patter of rain pounding outside the glass window, she felt her heart unconsciously skip a beat whenever she heard the sound of footsteps thumping thud... thud... along the hallway.
She was waiting.
An unreasonable, crazy, and luxurious anticipation to the point that it made even herself startle in fear.
She longed for rainy afternoons. She longed to see the tall, imposing figure stepping out from the curtain of rain. She longed to touch again those deep ash-grey eyes like a dark night ocean — the eyes of a man whom she had only met precisely twice, and the number of spoken sentences between them had not yet exceeded ten.
Ten brief sentences, yet the courtesy, elegance, the way he attentively looked at the needle prick mark on her hand, and Travis's suffocating masculine magnetism had planted a small root deep into the affection-deprived heart of the young girl. Even though her reason continuously poured buckets of cold water, reminding herself that he was a tycoon holding the power of life and death while she was merely someone struggling at the bottom of society, that smoldering flutter remained like a tiny spark, quietly bursting into flame in lonely, rainy afternoons.
Another Friday afternoon, raining heavily. The clock on the wall already pointed to six-fifteen.
The lights out in the hallway had been dimmed down, leaving only the warm yellow light inside the Purple Sprout room. Mark had slumped his head, falling asleep on Maya's lap at some unknown moment, his hand still tightly clutching the cotton-fabric robot stained with dirt. Maya sat leaning her back against the wall, one hand gently stroking the child's back, her eyes staring blankly out of the vaulted glass window.
Outside, the dense curtain of rain swallowed up all scenery. The marble road in front of the school gate was completely deserted, without a single soul, nor did the familiar black car appear.
The vast classroom sank into desolate silence. Maya bowed her head, looking at Mark's stubborn yet lonely forehead, and then looked down at the old phone placed on the desk.
The phone screen was pitch black. The chat window named Travis still lay motionless in the corner of the screen, without a single signal, without a single line of reply to her reports.
A gentle sigh softly escaped from Maya's mouth, blending into the heavy sound of pouring rain outside. That sigh was both overflowing with heartache for the poor child abandoned in luxury, and carried a vast, bitter disappointment of her own — a person who happened to have fallen out of rhythm for a silhouette belonging to a completely foreign world.
