Ch 181 - Back To Family

"Thank you," Alex said to Nelly. She didn't look at him. She just kept working with the food

in her pan.

"Why are you thanking me? I think those two women are eyesores," she said.

He felt a bit ashamed of her. He thought that if she was the only one in her truck after he left each day, she must feel very lonely.

"Why did you tolerate them so much?" she asked, as she sat on a stool and watched him

pack up.

He was stunned and replied, "We're old classmates, after all. They just said a few words to

1.

They didn't try to beat me up or anything. I don't want to be like them. If I start hurling insults as they do, I might become like them."

"Oh… you have much more patience than I do. If someone gets upset with me, I'll get ten

times more upset back at them," she said. He didn't say anything.

In his seven years of poverty training, the humiliation, ridicule, and

bullying that he had endured had been unimaginable.

"Hey, more than a month has gone by, so why haven't you called your family yet? You're not going to die alone like me… are you?" she asked.

Her question touched his heart, as the memories of his family came flooding back to him.

He had started to lose his memories of his grandparents, father, and mother since he had

been sent to Texas for poverty training seven years ago.

He had not seen his parents in all that time, and he had only met his grandfather once on

Harmony Island a few months ago.

He sniffled a little, as he looked at her with watery eyes.

"Did your family treat you badly?" she asked.

Her question surprised him, and he replied, "No, it's just that thinking of my family makes me sad. Did your family treat you badly?"

She stared at him, but she didn't seem to understand what he had meant by this question.

She appeared to stop and think about something, and she became a little gloomy.

"I hate thinking about my family. They're worse than some of the worst villains out there."

He was surprised to hear this. "What did your family do to you that makes you hate them so much?"

She looked at him with a painful expression. "Just don't talk to me about them anymore…

okay? They're all dead to me now."

After she had finished talking, she grabbed a drink out of the refrigerator and walked out of the food truck.

He was concerned, since they just had an emotional conversation, and he

wanted to go with her, but she said, "Just look after the truck while I'm gone. If I come back

and find you being lazy, I'll deduct your pay by one hundred and fifty dollars!"

She went for a walk alone.

More than an hour passed before she returned. She appeared to be back to her usual self and continued bossing Alex around with an occasional kick to his rear end. Despite being kicked, Alex was very happy to see that she was doing better.

Alex returned to his rented room that evening. He lay in bed and checked for information

about Richmond University. Summer vacation was coming to an end, and classes at this

Washington, D.C. university were resuming in a few days. He thought that if he and Nelly

could park the food truck near the university, he would have more opportunities to see Leona.

He put down his phone and was about to go to sleep when it started to ring. He saw a

number with a Washington area code, but he couldn't guess who was calling.

He answered the phone.

"Hello, Alex, it's Phillipa", said the caller.

"Phillipa! How did you get my number?" he asked.

"Hey, it wasn't easy. I had someone help me crack into your WhatsApp and find out your number," she said.

"Oh, what's the matter?" Alex wondered why she was calling him, as they had not had much contact with each other in high school.

"Um, there'll be a meeting with people originally from Texas at the Ruby Hotel tomorrow.

We should go there together. People from Texas who now live in Washington, D.C. will all

be there, and maybe they can help you. Come with me," said Phillipa.

"I don't want to go. You can go by yourself, but thanks for telling me." He did want to attend the meeting, but his lack of funds prevented him.

"Hey, you're so boring. How can you refuse my invitation? Are you still a bachelor? You

really don't understand the advantages that it can bring you," she said to him and then

continued, "Are you afraid that you can't afford to pay for your meal? Don't worry, you

won't have to pay. A boss will be there who's inviting everyone this time. Up to one

hundred people will attend, so we can go together."

"Um", he muttered.

She had warmly invited him, and he didn't have anything against Phillipa. On top of

it, he wouldn't need to pay for it, so, after a few seconds of mulling it over, he said, "Okay,

I'll go with you."

"Okay, good! It's tomorrow evening in meeting room 304 at the Ruby Hotel. I'll see you

there," she said and hung up the phone.

**

Phillipa was sitting with Myriam at a coffee shop downtown, and they sipped tea.

"Myriam, why did you want me to bring Alex? I thought you said that you hated him," she

asked suspiciously.

"Yes, it's because I hate him so much that I'm letting him come," said Myriam, as she took a

swallow from her cup.

"Hmm." Phillipa had a bad feeling. It felt like the phone call she had just made to Alex might

end up hurting him. She said in a low voice, "We're all high school classmates. Some of the

unhappy things that happened in high school are water under the bridge. Don't you

agree?"

"No." Myriam stared at her angrily and said, "If it wasn't for him, I could've gone to a top university. What school do I go to now? I go to a second-rate local college. So, my whole life path was changed by him. Phillipa, do you know that because of this, my family and friends laughed at me for two years? It's all thanks to Alex. I want to see him ridiculed by lots of people. I want him to have a taste of what I had to deal with, and then he can finally see how it feels."

Phillipa knew what had happened all those years ago. Why did Myriam think it was Alex's

fault? What had happened to Myriam was that when she was taking her final exams, her

pen had stopped working properly, and she had gotten so flustered and annoyed that she

had failed.

Phillipa remained silent.

**

The next day, Alex and Nelly drove the food truck to the popular West Lake scenic area. It

was the end of summer vacation, and people were seizing the opportunity to make their

last summer trips before the season ended. There were lots of tourists that day, so business was doing well.

At seven in the evening, there was a steady stream of customers. Alex told Nelly that he had to leave because he was going to a meeting in a hotel.

But Nelly refused to let him go.

As he didn't want to break his promise to Phillipa, he finally negotiated with her to deduct thirty dollars from his pay to compensate for his absence.

He had planned to take a bath and change into clean clothes before he left, but it was

already too late. He had to go to the Ruby Hotel in his dirty work clothes.

While waiting at the bus stop, his phone rang. He picked it up and saw that it wasn't

Phillipa's number.

He answered the call.

"Alexi?" A woman's voice came over the phone. He froze as soon as he heard this strange

but familiar voice and manner of address.

"Alexi?" said the woman again because he had not responded. He couldn't believe what he had just heard was real.

"Alexi, what's wrong with you? It's your mother. My child… what's wrong with you? Why

don't you speak?" said the woman on the other side of the phone in a slightly anxious tone.

He started to sniffle.

"Mom?" Alex choked up, and he could hardly speak.

Tears started to fall from his eyes, which he tried to wipe off with his sleeve, but they just kept flowing.

"Hello, my dear boy. Your mother has missed you so much," said Flora, Alex's mother.

"I've missed you so much too." He choked out the words.

"Okay, son… we'll meet soon. I'm in Washington, D.C. now. I've reserved the best meeting

room for us at the Orange Hotel. You should go to this hotel, so you can let your mom have a good look at you."

"Really… Mom? You're really here!" He was overjoyed. After hearing his mother's

affirmative reply, he said, "Mom, I've made a promise to go to a meeting with someone

today, but when I'm finished there, I'll come and see you straight away."

"Can't you just push your meeting back to a later time?" asked his mother.

"Mom, I've already promised my classmate that I'd go with her. Didn't you and Dad teach us when we were kids to keep our promises? I'll see you when I'm finished there,"

said Alex.

"Good son, I'm glad my words are still in your heart. Well… you go to the party first and

after the party, come over to the hotel and see me," she said.

Alex agreed, and then hung up the phone. His eyes were still red, and the other people at

the bus stop looked at him in surprise. They didn't understand that he was excited that he

was going to see his mother.

When the bus arrived, Alex hopped on, found a seat, and sat down. He looked out the

window at the street as the bus drove on, but he was in a daze with his thoughts. His mind

was filled with images of his mother from his childhood.

He remembered that his mother had been very strict, yet doted on him. Once, he

accidentally hit his cousin when they were playing together. His uncle had wanted to

organize an investigation with the teacher into what had happened. He had wanted to

punish him with a beating, but his mother had not allowed it. Alex had been so angry with

his uncle that after his uncle had left, his mother had made him stand in a corner until the

next morning.

When he was six years old, his parents had been promoted to head the family's businesses in Southern Europe, so they left the country. He could only visit them during spring break every year. And now it had been seven years since Alex had started his poverty training, and his family had never been together in all that time.

Thinking of his childhood, Alex couldn't help but be fascinated. At that moment, the bus

arrived at his destination.

Alex got off the bus and saw a towering building in the distance. It was the Ruby Hotel.

He walked to the front of the hotel. As he was about to go in, he saw an old woman pushing a bicycle nearby. Plastic bottles and cardboard were piled up high on the bicycle. She was careless, so the plastic and cardboard fell off and spread out all over the sidewalk. He ran over to help her pick things up.

As he picked up empty plastic bottles, he chatted with the woman and learned that her son

had died in a car accident.

"Thank you, you're a kind young man," she said to him. Her old eyes looked teary. She

sighed, "If my son was alive, he might be just like you. Can you call me mom?"

Seeing the twinkle in her eyes, he thought about how he had not seen his own mother for

seven years. He was still so sad. But this woman had been separated from her son by his

death, and now she was miserable in her old age.

"Mom?" Her request hit him in the heart, and he couldn't help but also shed a few tears.

She cried and took out a couple of dollars from her pocket. She said, "Young man, take this…

Thank you very much."

He couldn't accept her money, but she insisted on giving it to him. He knew that if he didn't

accept it, she would feel sad. So, he said thank you and took it. She continued to push her

bicycle as he walked into the hotel.

In a BMW not far away, a driver said to his boss who sat in the back seat, "Boss, now that

young man was really shameless. He just helped that old woman pick up plastic bottles, and then he asked her for money. Is that man crazy?"