Chapter 10 A New Job and a New Environment
During lunch break, Queenie was still learning how to use the editing software in the office. When her colleagues asked her to have lunch together with them, she waved her hands and kindly refused.
Kola said, "Well, let's order food together. There is a one dollar token if our bill reaches 7 dollars."
"What?" Queenie was confused and didn't know what Kola was talking about. Kola handed the phone to her and said, "Check what you want to eat."
Queenie took the phone and saw pictures of delicious food on the colorful ordering software. "How can I order food on this?"
"What?" Kola asked in surprise, "You have never ordered delivery food before?"
"Of course, I have! I just have to call the owner of a nearby restaurant and ask for delivery," said Queenie. She didn't want to look like a bumpkin.
"Which year do you think we are in now?" Kola couldn't help but complain, "Forget it. I'll order for you."
Queenie wanted fried rice with mushrooms and a bottle of yogurt. Kola quickly ordered that for her, paid the bill, and said, "It's 11 dollars in total and yours is 6 dollars. I'll give you my Venmo account later and you can pay me back."
"Venmo?" Queenie frowned and thought for a while. She didn't understand what Kola was saying at all.
Although she didn't understand, she thought she should pay Kola for her food! Queenie rummaged through her bag and didn't find her wallet. After searching for a long time in the office, she finally found her wallet. Then she made a envelop by hand and put 6 dollars into it. She thought using an envelop to hold her money could show her gratitude.
Queenie thought she was doing a good job. She walked to Kola, who was eating with her head down, with the envelop in her hand. "Well, here you are."
Kola took over the envelop, confused.
Queenie enjoyed the meal while watching a video. Suddenly, a tall middle-aged man came into the office. He looked honest, with a lunch box in his hand. He looked s bit shy but somewhat familiar to Queenie.
Queenie's eyes widened in an instant. She hurried over and said, "It's you! Why are you here?"
The man took a look at her and recognized her. Seeing that she had an ID badge, he greeted her warmly, "It's you! Miss... You work here?"
"Yes, I just came here today." Queenie asked, "Are you here to...?"
"Oh, I'm here to bring food to my son." The man was the driver of the black car in the accident. His name was Noah.
"Your son?" Queenie asked curiously, "Who is it?"
"Nathanael." The driver asked, "Do you know him?"
"Yes, I know. The manager of the publicity department. His office is over there." Queenie pointed at Nathanael's office, where Nathanael hadn't come out of the whole morning.
"Oh, thank you!" Noah took a look at the door of the office and took a few steps back. Although the man was tall, he looked a bit timid. Finally, after hesitating for a while, he plucked up the courage to knock on the door and enter.
Queenie returned to her seat and continued to eat. Her seat was very close to Nathanael's office, and Nathanael's office could be seen through the transparent glass at a glance. Noah walked in, put the lunch box on the desk, opened it, and even took out the food to feed Nathanael with an iron spoon. However, Nathanael pushed him away. The lunch box fell off the desk and the food in it scattered all over the ground. Nathanael's face darkened and his eyes looked so fierce. Noah stood aside awkwardly. Noah was over 5.9 feet, but he looked like a child who had made a mistake now.
Everyone outside his office had heard the noise inside, but they all pretended not to hear it and went on with their own business.
After a while, Noah walked out of the office with his head down and eyes red. As if he was carrying a heavy burden on his shoulders, his steps were heavy and slow.
Queenie followed him to the exit passageway where no one was around and asked with concern, "Mister, are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Noah pretended to be okay, but his eyes were a little red. "My son has a bad temper since he was a child, and now it has gotten even worse. He told me to get the fuck out of his office! If he's still a child, I would have beaten him up!"
"Well, you haven't seen each other for a long time. It must be different." Queenie comforted him softly.
"Yes, it's different. It's so different." Noah repeated dully. After a long while, he finally couldn't help but cover his eyes and said, "It's really different. After the incident, my wife left me, my parents passed away, and my son doesn't recognize me anymore.
My son used to cling to me when he was a child. He liked my cooking the most. Every time I went home after a long day of work, he would ask me to cook for him.
Back then, we were poor and couldn't afford expensive ingredients. Before I went to work, I promised him that I would cook for him when I came back.
"Now, he has grown up and doesn't like my food anymore." After saying that, Noah covered his face and squatted down. The tall man buried his head in his arms and cried.
Queenie's eyes turned red with tears, but she didn't know how to comfort him. She knew how he felt. Her comfort wouldn't work.
After crying for a while, Noah wiped his face hard and sighed, "Well, I don't want to talk about that anymore. How are you doing now? I see you have found a job and you are living a good life. Have you found your family?"
With red eyes, Queenie shook her head and said, "I'm not doing any better than you. My parents are gone. My hus... My ex-husband divorced me and had a son with another woman. His son's in middle school now."
"Well, me too. My wife divorced me and has two children now." Noah sighed, "That's our fate, maybe."
Queenie didn't know what to say. The two stayed silent for a while. After encouraging each other, they told each other their numbers and said goodbye in a hurry.
After sending Noah away, Queenie went back to her office. Before she calmed down, she heard Nathanael call her into the office.
She hurried in and asked, "Mr. Foster, what can I do for you?"
Nathanael raised his chin and said, "Clean it up."
"Okay." Queenie took a look at the messy office and found the trash can and a box of napkins. She squatted down and picked up the food from the ground into the trash can, and then wiped the tile floor with a wet tissue.
Sitting in the office chair, Nathanael watched her clean the mess up in silence. After a while, he asked, "Were you also in that car?"
"How do you know?" Queenie asked curiously.
"From your age, look, and how you talked to that man just now," Nathanael lowered his head and said.
"Okay!" He must be referring to Noah!
"What did he say to you?" Nathanael had seen them from a distance, but he didn't hear their conversation.
"Nothing. We just talked about our life," Queenie said as she wiped the floor hard. Nathanael fell into silence. After a while, he asked, "Do you think I was going too far just now?"
"No." Queenie said, "I tell myself not to try to persuade others to be kind. I have no idea what might have happened to you." "Do you think that man is pitiful?" Nathanael asked with a sneer. "From my point of view, I do feel sorry for him." Queenie nodded.
"Well, you abandoned your family for  twenty-three years without a word in advance and you think you are pitiful." Nathanael asked fiercely, "Aren't we more pitiful than you? We are left alone for so long."
"I won't find myself any excuse. But if you say that we abandoned our family, that's not right! Do you think that we left our family because we want to?" Queenie threw away the rubbish in her hand and couldn't help but stand up to look at him. "No one wants to abandon their family!"
"You didn't want to but you did! You just left us here for twenty-three years, making us unable to find you everywhere! We waited and every day was torture to us!" Nathanael glared at Queenie and said, "How dare you ask us to be tolerant? How dare you ask us to forgive you! How dare you ask us to accept you! Why do you still fantasize that everything will be the same as before after doing such a despicable thing?"
"We didn't do it on purpose!" Queenie argued.
"If you didn't kill people on purpose, you still killed people. They are dead. Time has passed, and that changed the injuries we suffered." Nathanael said softly, "So when we think you are dead, why aren't you dead? Why do you come back?"
Queenie stared at him. His accusation made her heart ache. After a long time, she said softly, "Because the people we love are still here. As long as we are alive, we will come back!" "Yes, you are alive, but some of us have already died." There was a sharp coldness in Nathanael's voice.
Queenie froze and stared at him. Thinking of her parents who had passed away, her eyes turned red in an instant and she couldn't say a word with her fists clenched.
Nathanael turned her head and stopped talking with her. The office fell into silence again. With tears in her eyes, Queenie squatted down, continued to clean up the floor and left. There was only Nathanael in the office. He stared fiercely at the computer screen in front of him and recalled what had happened in his childhood.
When Noah disappeared, Nathanael was only eight years old. The winter vacation seemed to be very cold at that time. The fierce snow had lasted for several days, but children in the north were already used to this kind of weather. Occasionally, people would go out to ski on the lake with their friends, make snowmen, and fight in the snow. Nathanael's grandmother always boiled a large pot of water at home. As soon as she saw him, she asked him to warm his feet and hands in the water, fearing that he would catch a cold. Then, all of a sudden, his father disappeared. There were rumors everywhere. Some said that his father was a human trafficker who drove a car of people away to sell them, and some said that there was an accident on the road and all of them died. And the families of the missing people came to Nathanael's home several times, asking for compensation, beating people up, and taking advantage of the situation to take their things. Nathanael could see people come to cause trouble three times a week.
Half a year later, his family became so poor and his mother remarried and left him. In fact, he also understood his mother. After all, it was not easy to remarry someone if her mother wanted to take him with her. After his mother left, he lived with his grandmother. His grandmother was more than 60 years old and worked so hard to raise him. After working hard for many years, she passed away.
When he was a child, he had hoped more than once that his father could come back and beat up those who beat him. He had hoped that his father could take back the money and furniture that had been taken away from his family, and that his father could send his seriously ill grandmother to the hospital. In the end, he thought, even if anyone could tell him that his father was dead, it would be okay. In that way, at least he and his grandmother wouldn't have to be called the family of a human trafficker and be despised. At least he could make friends, and when his grandmother passed away, she could rest in peace.
Then he grew up and left his small city. He had no expectation of his father anymore. He even forgot that he had a father. He didn't need his father's care. He was old enough to protect himself. He was so strong that no one dared to bully him and no one dared to steal his things. If his grandma was still alive, he could send her to the best hospital and let her receive the best treatment.
He didn't need his father anymore.
But his father came back.
His father came back with a face of thirty-five years old and a strong body that could protect him and his grandmother. His father appeared in front of him and said, "Nathan, Dad is back."
Nathanael felt that if he had a knife in his hand at that time, he would have rushed up and stabbed his father to death, using his blood to wash away the humiliation and pain that he and his grandmother had suffered over the years. But he didn't. He just turned around and left without even looking at that man.
Nathanael raised his head and tried hard to hold back the tears in his eyes. He took a deep breath and thought, "I won't forgive that person. I won't forgive him for the rest of my life."
Queenie sat at her desk, unable to calm down for a long time. After she came back, Timothy only showed concern and how much he missed her. What about his resentment?
Nathanael hated his father deepl. Did Timothy also hate her? How would he feel every time he thought of her in the past twenty-three years?
Queenie wanted to ask, but she didn't dare. She was afraid to hear his love or resentment. She didn't dare to touch those intense emotions. She was afraid that she would want to destroy his family and take Timothy back regardless of anything.