The Memory of All That (12 page)

Chapter 23

Marnie rubbed the spot on her left ring finger
. How could I have overlooked a missing
wedding ring?
I guess I forgot about it the same way I forgot about my marriage, my son, and my entire life,
she thought.
An engagement ring that size must be worth a lot of money. Did I sell it? Give it to my lover?

She sighed. She was so tired of being confronted with yet another situation that revealed what an appalling person she was. Yet David had not accused her of anything, only asked if she remembered what had happened to the rings

Marnie clung to the hope that when she did recall what had happened to her there would be a legitimate reason she had acted the way she did—a reason that made sense to her. Until then, she was going to have to do the best she could to regain her life and make amends to her son and husband.

She tossed and turned during the night, unable to fall asleep because of all the things swirling around in her head. As a result, she slept late, and Jonathan and Mrs. Tucker had already eaten breakfast and returned to the nursery when Marnie stopped in. When she entered the room, Jonathan was busy telling Mrs. Tucker the sounds the various letters made and sounding out words.

Jonathan surprised her by rushing to hug her around the knees as he had done to his father the day before. It was the first time her son had hugged her or shown any affection toward her, and as she bent to put her arms around him, tears threatened to spill from her eyes.

After hearing him read several words and praising his progress, Marnie excused herself.

“I’d better go eat some breakfast myself. I’ll see you later in the day,” she said. “You can finish your lessons while I’m gone.”

When she entered the kitchen, she found Mrs. Grady sitting at the granite island looking through a notebook. “Good mornin’, luv,” she said. “You slept in, I see. What can I fix you for breakfast? Some nice eggs?”

“No, don’t get up, Mrs. Grady. I just want some toast and juice, and I can get it myself.”

“Then I’ll let you. I’m trying to come up with something to cook for supper—er, dinner, Mrs. Ruth calls it—something we haven’t had a hundred times before. What do you fancy?”

“I don’t know,” Marnie answered as she poured her orange juice. She retrieved her toast and sat across from the cook at the wide bar. “Chicken, maybe? I think I like chicken.”

“Chicken, you say? Yes, that does sound just right for today. Maybe a nice fricassee.”

As Marnie was eating her second piece of toast, David’s head and shoulders peaked through the swinging door.

“Ah, there you are. When you’re through eating, Marnie, come down to the library, please.” With no more than that, he withdrew, leaving the door swinging in his wake.

What did I do now? Every day it seems like I find out another of my misdeeds.

When she entered the library a few minutes later, she found David sitting behind the massive desk, making notes and putting papers into a folder.

“I’ve been getting you squared away this morning.” He shoved a card across the desk. “Here’s a new driver’s license. I went to the courthouse and told them you had lost yours and needed a new one. Since everything was on the computer, it was easy enough for them to pull up your record and print a new card for you. Of course, it has a different number than the old one. If anyone tries to use the old one, it will alert authorities immediately.”

Marnie felt awkward standing in front of the desk like a wayward school child in front of the principal, so she sat down in one of the chairs facing the desk. David pushed another card toward her.

“Here’s a credit card in your name. Since the bill comes to me, I’ll know where you charge things, Marnie, and how much. It has a limit on it, so you can’t go wild buying things.”

“I wasn’t going to go wild,” she told him stiffly. “I was only going to buy Jonathan some things, some toys and books.”

He ignored her comment and continued, “I canceled your old credit cards after you and Ray had been gone a few days. I left them active for that long on the recommendation of the detective I hired to find you.”

“You hired someone to find me? It sounds like you thought you were better off without me.”

“Maybe. But I wanted my project back. It’s worth a lot more than you were,” he answered sarcastically.

She remained silent, absorbing that statement as he continued.

“You two were smart enough to know I could find out where you were if you used your credit card. Ray had closed out his bank account before you took off, so I assume you were using his cash so you wouldn’t leave a paper trail.”

He reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. Taking several bills from it, he tossed them onto the desk. “Here’s some cash, too. Take care how you spend it. I’m not going to be as generous as I have been in the past. Or maybe I should say I’m not going to be the pushover I once was.”

“Thank you, David. It really is kind of you to do this, since evidently I’ve been a poor wife and mother. I promise you I won’t spend any on myself. This is for Jonathan.”

“And finally,” he said, pushing a cell phone toward her, “here’s a new cell phone. I’ve programmed three numbers into it: my cell phone, my office phone, and the house phone.”

She picked it up and flipped it open.

“If you call the office number, you’ll get my secretary, Virginia. She knows your voice, and she knows about your amnesia. If you need me when I’m at work, it’s probably best if you call me through that number. That way you won’t interrupt a meeting or another phone call.”

“Thank you,” she said. These few things gave her the feeling she was getting back to a normal life, although she still had no idea what a normal life for her felt like.

He stood up behind the desk. “Go get a coat on. I want to see if you remember how to drive before I give you the keys to your car.”

A few minutes later they slid into the seats of the red Mustang. She adjusted the driver’s seat forward a bit and moved the rearview mirror so she could use it.

“We messed up your seating when we retrieved it from the mall parking lot,” David explained.

She started the engine, backed out, and drove around the house toward the street.

“Take a right. You’ll always take a right coming out of the drive to go anywhere in town,” he instructed.

He directed her through town, at first taking the same route they had driven to the Roadhouse, then branching off on a different street. After a couple of miles, they came to an intersection adjacent to an interstate highway.

“There’s the mall on your right. Pull in there.”

Marnie did as he said and drove about halfway along the expanse of the large building. She pulled into a parking place but didn’t turn off the motor.

“I think I can find this place again,” she said. “It’s easy enough to get here.”

David was looking out the car window, looking grim but saying nothing.

“What’s the matter? Did I do something wrong?”

“You just happened to park in the same spot you used when you abandoned the car and left with Ray. Coming back to the scene of your crime, perhaps?”

“Oh, David . . .”

“Don’t say it! Don’t say ‘I don’t remember’ one more time. I’m sick and tired of hearing it!”

“Well I’m sick and tired of saying it!” she lashed out.

Frustrated, she closed her eyes and held her mouth tightly closed to avoid saying something she would be sorry for. At last she opened them and said, “Thank you, David. You’re being very generous considering my past behavior.”

“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.”