“I want you to know I am only doing this in order to give you enough rope to hang yourself. That is, enough freedom to lead me to Ray and my stolen property. I have no doubt you will. You will begin to remember, and when that happens, you’ll be in touch with Ray, wherever he is.
“And there is one more thing, Marnie, one restriction. You are not, under any circumstance, to take Jonathan away from the house. I will not give you the chance to run away with him. You can leave, but not with my son.”
Chapter 24
When Marnie had calmed down enough to think about it, she realized David was right, but the prohibition against taking Jonathan shopping stung like a hot iron. If she were in David’s shoes, she wouldn’t have trusted her either. She might have taken Jonathan and demanded money to return him, or even worse, reverted to being a negligent mother.
She would have liked to take Jonathan shopping, let him help pick out his own toys and clothes, but she would just have to do the best she could to make choices she thought he would like. Maybe one day she could regain David’s trust. Or gain it in the first place, she thought.
David remained quiet on the way home. Marnie figured the coincidence that she had picked the same parking spot where she had earlier abandoned her car had thrown him into his sullen contemplation. She almost hated to ask anything of him, considering his tone when he last spoke to her, but she steeled her nerve and voiced her request.
“Would you mind showing me where the library is located? I thought I might like to check out some books for Jonathan.”
For a minute she thought he wasn’t going to answer her, but then he told her to take the next street to the right and pointed out a large red brick structure a block off the main street.
“I doubt you have a library card,” he said sarcastically.
“I’ll get one,” came her curt answer.
She was growing weary of being on the defensive all the time. She knew she had done some unforgiveable things, and she was well aware of the fact that David was tired of hearing her say she didn’t remember. But she was equally tired of saying it. What happened was in the past. She had to move on.
“I’ll get a damned library card. I’ll buy Jonathan the things he needs. I will not kidnap him. And I will not apologize any more for things I do not remember doing!”
When they reached home, she left the car in the circle drive and slammed the driver’s door as she exited the vehicle. Storming up the front steps, her escape came to an abrupt halt when she tried to open the massive front door and found it locked.
David was smirking when he came up behind her.
“I was wondering when the old Marnie would come back,” he said, using his key to unlock the door. “And here she is.”
Holding back on any retort, Marnie ran up the stairs to take refuge in her bedroom. She threw herself onto her bed and pounded her fists into a soft pillow.
“Now that the old Marnie is back, are you ready to tell me where Ray is? Where are the prototype and plans?” David’s voice asked from the doorway.
She sat up and threw the pillow at him. It fell to the floor far short of the intended target.
“I’ve told you and told you. I don’t remember! I don’t remember anything before waking up in that park. Asking me over and over isn’t going to help me remember. And I apologize for any and all the bad things I’ve ever done to you! I apologize for tricking you into marriage! I apologize for not being a good wife, a faithful wife! I apologize for not being a good mother to Jonathan!” She climbed off the bed and came to stand before him. “And I’ll tell you one more thing. I’m tired of saying ‘I don’t remember,’ and I’m tired of apologizing. This is the last time I’ll do it.
“You can take it or leave it. Believe me or not. There is nothing more I can do or say to change your mind about me. I’ve got to start living this life. What’s that cliché, ‘This is the first day of the rest of your life’? Well, it is. I’ve got to start living my life from this day forward.”
David crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, a grin playing around his mouth.
Marnie continued. “I think it’s time you decided what you want from this point. Do you want a divorce? Are you going to put me out of the house? Just stop asking me things I don’t remember. If anything, anything at all, comes back to me, I’ll tell you. I promise. But stop badgering me.”
She turned and walked away from him.
“I’ve got to start figuring out what I’m going to do. If I knew what skills I had, I could look for a job. And don’t you dare”—she turned suddenly and pointed a finger at him—“don’t you dare suggest I go back to work at the Roadhouse! I’m not working in a place like that!”
She walked to the window and looked out. “Alice told me I went to business school and worked in an office for a while. Maybe I have computer training or typing or something.” She turned toward him again.
“But if you’re going to divorce me, tell me. I’ve got to start figuring out how to support myself.”
He quietly observed her. Finally he spoke.
“That’s certainly what I had in mind when you left. Without a doubt you didn’t want to be married to me, since you ran off with your lover. I don’t see how either of us can expect this marriage to survive. There is nothing left of what wasn’t much of a marriage to begin with, but I’m not ready to divorce you right now. As long as I have you here, it won’t be long until Ray comes sniffing around again, if only to find out what’s going on. If you had a fight and left him thinking I’d take you back and support you, then think again.
“Until I figure out what this amnesia story is and where Ray is and what has happened to my property, then you can stay right here. As you say, you can’t remember what skills you have to support yourself and you have no other place to live, so I think you’ll stay right here where everything is provided for you.”
“Better the enemy you see than the enemy you don’t?”
David looked surprised at her statement. “Exactly!”
“Well, let me tell you this. I’m not your enemy. Maybe I was, before, although I have no idea why. Now I’m just trying to get through each day. I can’t think of anything to do to you, for you, or say to you to make up for anything I’ve done in the past, so I’m not even going to try. I am, however, going to try to make up for being a neglectful mother to my son.”
David’s face was stern when he spoke again. “One thing I won’t do, Marnie, is let you hurt Jonathan again. You’ve wormed your way into his heart, and he’ll be hurt when you go. I have no doubt you will leave again, but there is no way I’ll let you take him from me. Be careful not to make me more of an enemy than I am now by hurting Jonathan. You’ll end up with nothing, nothing at all.”
He started to leave and then turned back for one final word.
“You may find yourself working at the Roadhouse to support yourself after all.”
Chapter 25
David was right; her old self was slowly creeping back.
Marnie sat in the chair by the window and pulled her feet up so she could wrap her arms around her knees.
For days she had been living in a state of stunned stupor, unable to fully grasp the notion that all her memories were gone and the person she had been—the person she couldn’t remember—was an unlikable, untrustworthy, cheating wife.
I couldn’t have been like that, I just couldn’t, she had kept telling herself. Denying the possibility she could have acted the way people described was the only thing Marnie had to hold onto. The alternative was to admit they were telling the truth and take to her bed in tears. She didn’t want to be that person. She would not accept it, no matter how many people told her. There must have been a reason she had acted that way—a reason no one was telling her, perhaps something they didn’t know.
She
had been living in fear of the truth that she was really that terrible person; she admitted it to herself. Each new day awakened the fear of finding out more hateful things about herself and the fear of what the future might hold.
This is it, she thought. I can’t sit around letting people tell me who I was or what I did. I can’t spend my days worrying about what I did in the past and what is going to happen in the future. I have to take control of the only me I know—the me who’s sitting here right now, not the me who ran off with a lover who stole from the family company.
She got up and checked her pockets. Driver’s license, check. Credit card and cash, check. Car keys, check. She noticed another key on the ring. It must be to the front door, she thought, or else the back door. I have to be able to get back into the house.
Picking up the jacket she had tossed on the bed, she hurried down the stairs and out the front door. I’ve got to get away from here for a while. She slid into the driver’s seat of the Mustang she had left parked in the circle drive. It was tempting to release some of the tension by driving the car to its limit, but common sense prevailed. That’s all I need, a speeding ticket—one more thing to hold over my head. Retracing the path she drove earlier, Marnie found her way back to the mall. This time she drove the length of the parking lot until she found the main entrance and a parking place nearby. She mentally cursed the part of her brain that earlier led her to park in the same spot she had used when she ran away with Ray.
Entering the wide corridor, she searched until she found a store directory at the first intersection. Locating a toy store, she proceeded down the busy thoroughfare, ignoring all other shops along the way.
“Marnie! Marnie!”
It took a few seconds before it registered in her brain that someone was calling her name. When she slowed her steps, a buxom blonde with a large rose tattoo above her left breast caught up to her.
“Hey! Where’ve you been, Marnie? I haven’t seen you since that party at Eddie’s place. Man, that was some scene, wasn’t it? How’ve you been?”
Marnie had given no thought to running into someone who knew her and was thrown off guard by this woman who was obviously acquainted with her.
“Er . . . I’ve been sick. Really sick,” was all she could think of.
“Gosh, that’s too bad. You do look a little under the weather. Or it might be because I’m not used to seeing you with no makeup on. You goin’ shopping?”
“Yes, I have to buy some things for my son, and I’m in a hurry. Bye,” Marnie said as she resumed walking the direction of the toy store. She might have come across as rude, but at this point, she didn’t care. She felt quite sure her old self wouldn’t care if she was rude to someone or not, and this Marnie didn’t care if she was friendly with the woman or not either. She knew she was never going back to any party scene or associate with the people who did.
Once she found the toy store, she spent an hour browsing the aisles, looking for things that would be both entertaining and educational. Wishing she had paid more attention to the things he already had and asked him more about what he liked, she decided to buy only a few toys. She didn’t want to bombard him with things, but to find more to challenge him and spark his creativity and learning. The choices he had at home seemed quite limited.
She picked out a dinosaur puzzle, animal dominoes, a rug that laid out the streets of a town, a set of buildings that went with the rug, and tiny people who worked in the buildings.
With those purchases made, she retraced her steps toward the entrance, which led her through the food court. Aromas assailed her from every direction, and her stomach reminded her it was well past lunchtime and she had only eaten toast and juice for breakfast.
She bought a large slice of pizza and a soda and took a seat at a small table half-hidden behind a potted tree. She had only eaten a few bites when a man approached her.
“Well, hello there. Long time no see.” He was dressed in a suit and tie. Marnie assumed he was a businessman, but the way he leered at her made her think he was a pervert.
“Remember me? Lonnie?” he said when she didn’t answer his first greeting.
“No. No, I don’t remember you.”
“Aw come on now, Marnie. You can’t have forgotten old Lonnie, not after the good time we had.”
“I said I don’t remember you, and I don’t want to.” She reacted quickly by gathering her purchases in one hand, throwing the rest of her lunch in a trash container, and striding decisively toward the exit.
The possibility she might run into people who knew her hadn’t occurred to her, but it couldn’t be helped. It was either stay home, imprisoned by the fear of encountering people from her past, or brace herself for such encounters and face the world.
Marnie had intended to go to the library next, but she decided to put that off until another day. She was anxious to get home and present Jonathan with the things she bought for him. She was looking forward to playing with him, teaching him how to play dominoes, and letting him show her the proper way to work a puzzle. She was smiling at the thought when she pulled into the garage.
Chapter 26
Marnie was humming as she browsed through the clothing in her closet. The hour she spent with Jonathan had lifted her spirits. He was thrilled with the items she had purchased. She taught him about matching the animals on the large cardboard cards, and they played several hands of animal dominoes. After the game, she spread the rug on the floor, and they discussed the proper arrangement for the buildings.
“See, we can’t put the fire station too close to the school because the siren on the fire truck would be too loud for the children studying,” he reasoned.
“That’s good thinking!”
“Let’s put it here, not far from the houses, so if they catch fire, the firemen can come in a hurry.”
“Where should we put the hospital?”
Together they arranged and rearranged until it suited Jonathan, and when she left to dress for dinner, he was busy running his cars up and down the streets of his pretend town. She made a mental note to be sure he had a small fire truck, police car, and ambulance to use with the set.
After a shower, she was again left with the problem of finding something suitable to wear. “Tomorrow I’m going to start weeding out clothes I’ll never wear again,” she said to herself. “Maybe then I can see what I have that isn’t too short, too tight, or too low cut.”
She finally decided on a voile skirt printed with blue and green swirls and lined with coordinating fabric gathered on an elastic band. She liked the way it flared and moved when she walked. With it she donned a silk and cashmere sweater. In a drawer full of costume jewelry she found a long silver chain that she added to the costume, along with silver bracelets and earrings. When she looked at herself in the mirror, the feeling she got made her hum some more of the tune that filled her head.
When she entered the dining room, she found Mrs. Grady scurrying around setting food on the table and muttering to herself.
“Good evening, Mrs. Grady. I thought I was late, but I see I’m the first one here.”
“Good evening, Miss Marnie.”
Marnie noticed the table was only set for two.
“Should I not have come?” she asked, thinking Ruth or David might have banned her from the dinner table.
“What’s that? Oh . . . oh, no, you’re fine. It’s Miss Ruth who’s not coming. She’s decided to eat in her room from now on. Mary will take her food to her and then serve you and Mr. David.”
“That makes a lot more work on you.”
“Not me, it don’t. Mary’s the one ‘ats got to see to her majesty’s whims, she is,” Mrs. Grady retorted.
“Am I the reason she isn’t coming to the table?”
“Who’s to know? She’s been terrible flighty since Mr. Robert and Mr
. John died. Miss Celeste can get her out of the house, and she does go to the country club some or out to eat with her women friends, but she’s spendin’ more and more time in her room.”
“I just hate to be the cause of more work for you and Mary and Alice. Everyone did so much for me when I was sick in bed, and I want you to know I appreciate it, Mrs. Grady.”
“Luv, that’s one thing you always done right, never tried to cause us any more work, and always told us thank you. Alice says it’s ‘cause you come from working folks yourself, and not from money.” She headed back toward the kitchen but stopped and faced Marnie. “I’m not saying everything you did was right, mind ye’. You ran with an awful wild crowd, if someone hasn’t already told you, and you didn’t treat Mr. David or your sweet little tyke like you ought to have, but you tried not to make any extra work on the help, and you always said thank you. Your mama raised you right, that way, at least.” With that she pushed through the swinging door.
Marnie wondered if she would be eating alone. She put her hands on the back of her chair to pull it out when she heard David on the stairs, and within moments he came rushing into the room.
“I’m sorry I’m late.” He was gasping for breath. “I got to playing with Jonathan and let the time get away from me.”
“That’s easy to do,” Marnie said.
“Mother’s not here yet?”
“Mrs. Grady said Ruth is taking her dinner in her room from now on.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” David said irritably as he pulled out Marnie’s chair for her. “Well, I’m not bending over backward for her this time. Let her eat there if that’s what she wants. She’ll come out soon enough when she wants to know what’s going on in the house and at the plant.”
The Memory of All That Page 12
