"it's because of my parents and my children" she answered, giving me a sad look.
I scoffed. "Wow. You have children?" I asked surprisingly, staring at her with shocking eyes.
She nodded, chuckling at my expression. " Yeah, I have"
"How many are they?"
" I have three children " she answered, curving her lips and shrugging her left shoulder a little.
I rolled my eyes. "Wow...! Oh my gosh!" I shook my head, swallowing the spoonful of noodles that were in my mouth. "Do you know that you don't seem to be a mother? Do you know that?" I asked, gaining a surprising look from her.
" O, really?" She asked, staring at me with a gaping mouth and raising her eyebrows, causing me to laugh at her expression.
"Yeah, you don't" I shrugged my shoulders. " I thought that you were some kind of a lady that has just started life."
She shook her head gently in disbelief. "Why?"
"Because you are still looking young and fresh"
" Hm. Wow. For the first time someone tells me how I look," she said, shaking her head gently.
" O, really?" I asked, raising my eyebrows
She nodded. " Yup"
" Are you saying that I'm the only one that has told you about your freshness and that no one has told you before?" I asked,
She nodded. "Yeap. You are." She answered, curving her lips. " Even me, I've always thought to myself that I'm old," she said, causing me to laugh out loud till I got a choke in my throat.
"Oh my god! Maria, Why would you think that?"
She let out a sharp sigh. " Because of how I'm stressing myself, ma" she answered, giving me a sad look.
"Oh, no… don't be thinking of such to yourself for God's sake, my dear. Do you know how fresh and beautiful you are? Haven't you been checking yourself in a mirror?
She chuckled sadly and shook her head. "No, I don't even have time for that. All of my time I spent on my work here. I don't have time"
"Wow! Anyway, you are good. You look sweet, my dear. What about your husband? How is he?" I asked curiously, staring at her as I kept stirring noodles in my mouth.
She took a deep breath and leaned her back on the chair. " My husband was dead," she said sadly. A few tears slid down from her eyes.
"Oh, so sad. Sorry, okay? Take heart." I said, calling her into a hug and caressing her back with her hair. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry." She nodded in my chest, sniffing and cleaning her eyes.
"Okay. Okay, ma'am. Thank you for caring," She said, nodding and lifting herself from my chest.
"So who is taking care of the children now, you?"
She nodded. " Yes, ma'am. I'm the one."
" What about your parents? What do they do?" I asked, staring at her as I suddenly lost the appetite for the food and couldn't finish it again.
" They're still with me. I'm the one taking care of them all with my siblings" she said, causing me to give her a pitiful look.
"Oh my… this is so sad. This is so heavy for you alone" I said, shaking my head gently and staring at her pitifully. "Don't worry, God will help you out, okay?"
She nodded and sniffed. "Amen. Thank you, ma'am," she said, cleaning her nose.
" So, you are doing this job to take care of yourself, your children, your parents, and your siblings, right?" I asked and she nodded in response.
" How much is he paying the four of you that are working for him in this house?"
"It's one million dollars for each person" she answered, causing my jaw to drop.
"Wow!" I exclaimed in a whispering tone. " That's some huge money. Oh my gosh! In my days, I barely see such money, talking of handling and feeling it in my hand. I mean, that's some huge money, my dear."
She nodded and chuckled softly at my expression. " Yeah, it is but…" she hesitated, waking the curiosity inside me and causing me to stare at her with more attention.
"But what?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.
"My boss is too cold to us. He's making this job much heavier for us. No rest, no discussion, no calls. He doesn't want to see you standing or sitting without doing anything.
You don't make calls or discuss with any of your co-workers when he's around, and even when he's not around, you can't still do it because he will know," she said, causing my eyes to widen in surprise my blood to run dry in shock.
I scoffed surprisingly. "How would he know?"
"He will know it because there's a very small camera that he placed in his room which is videoing the whole house both in and out and from up to down,
so that he would know how things are going in his house whenever he comes back. That's why I said that he will know and that's why we all in this house are being careful the way we're doing things if not, you will be fired,
If I have seen any other place that is paying more than what he pays or paid the same amount he is paying us, I would have gone" she finished explaining, staring at me.
"Hm. Wow. How did you know about the small camera in his room?" I asked, still shocked by what she said as I wrapped my arms around my body.
"I realized one day that I swept the room and arranged things. As I was trying to clean cobwebs on the ceiling, I saw a little something placed at the corner of the ceiling that I was trying to clean.
I checked it again to see what it was and suddenly saw a little blue light blinking at the corner of that thing. That's how I realized that there's a camera in this house. And also, many more things had happened that day which assured me of the camera.
There was one of my coworkers who was fired that day because of stealing. He stole something in one of the rooms in the upstairs
And when Mr. Nacel came back that night, he discovered that our colleagues had stolen something and also realized that I had seen the camera. He fired our colleague and warned me not to tell anyone about what I saw in his room. That's it" she finished explaining and stared at me.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes to let what I'd just heard sink into my mind. After a while, I opened my eyes and shook my head, sighing heavily in shock as we both ran into a deep silence, staring at something else.
"So ma'am, tell me, why is your face pale and your eyes are swollen? Why?" she asked, cutting me off from my thoughts.
I turned my gaze to her and let out a deep sigh of frustration. "It's your Boss"
" Oh, ma'am, sorry," she quickly said, giving me a sympathetic look.
"It's okay. It's fine," I said, planting a sad smile on my lips.
"What did he do to you, ma'am?" she asked with curiosity written in every corner of her eyes as she stared at me.
I took a deep breath and began to explain it to her. But as I was explaining to her, I heard a deep, cruel voice.
"Why are all these noises here?" he said coldly in an angry tone, cutting us from our discussion.
We both quickly turned our gaze and stared in the direction of the voice as we saw my cold, ruthless, and cruel husband standing closer to us and glaring down at us with his dangerous red eyes and furious face
I trailed my gaze down and saw Maria fidgeting and melting in her seat as her body quaked as if she were catching a cold. Her lips shook seriously, and the breakable tray she was holding slid from her hand and fell to the floor, broken in pieces, causing tears to run down from her eyes. "P-p-p" she stuttered