The Memory of All That (22 page)

Chapter 46

Martie woke up the next morning when David unwrapped his arms from around her and eased out of bed. She didn’t know when they had tangled themselves together. When she fell asleep, David was on the far right of the bed and she was on the far left. She only knew she felt bereft when he withdrew his warm embrace and left the bed.

“Good morning,” he said when he returned from the bathroom, fully dressed, and noticed she was awake. “Sleep well?”

“I slept perfectly, thank you.”

“I’m going to go down and get a cup of coffee. Why don’t you join me there when you’re ready?” he asked.

“OK,” Martie answered, thinking about the coffee maker in their room.

Is he being thoughtful, trying to lessen any stress on me by leaving me alone to dress, or is he trying to distance himself from me?

Nothing to do but play it out,
she thought.
So what if he does want to distance himself. He is married to someone else, after all.

A half an hour later she spotted him in a corner booth, drinking coffee and reading the morning paper.

“Hi,” he said with a smile, as she slid into the seat opposite him. “Would you like some breakfast?”

“Just orange juice and wheat toast, please,” she said to the waitress who approached with a pot of coffee.

“I’ve been thinking about what to do next,” David said.

“Tell me.”

“I want to go see Mrs. Oberle again and give her a check for the rent you owe plus another month. That will give us some time to organize our thoughts. Since we now know Ray and Marnie were here in Phoenix, maybe that will give the private detective more clues to find them. For example, they had to have rented a car to get to your house, and they probably stayed at some hotel or motel here. Maybe someone at one of those places remembers something they said or did that would lead us to them.”

“That’s all great except that I’m the one who needs to pay the rent. It’s my apartment after all.”

“We can straighten that out later, but for now let me pay.” Martie opened her mouth to object, but he quickly added, “You haven’t been working, and your bank account might be kind of low.”

Martie quickly shut her mouth as the truth of that statement hit home.

“Secondly, it was through the hands of my wife you suffered amnesia and kidnapping. If not for that, you would have been home all this time, working and living a normal life. Consider this as payment for damages caused by Marnie’s actions.”

The waitress brought Martie’s breakfast and set it before her. She buttered the toast while thinking about what David had said.

“OK,” she said at last. “At least for now.”

“We can gather up anything you want from your place to take back with you. You must have a suitcase since you travel with your work. You can fill it with anything you’d like.

“I’d like to keep it as close to normal as possible with Jonathan, and he’s expecting you to come back to him. We can go on as we have been, if that’s all right with you.” It sounded more like a question than a statement.

“If you mean as we were before we went to the cabin, then OK,” Martie replied. As much as David tempted her, she wouldn’t fall back into the bed of a man she knew was married to someone else.

After a few tense moments, David finally spoke. “Yes, the way it was before we went up to the cabin—friendly, but with separate bedrooms. There’s an early afternoon flight back. I’ve booked us on it. I can always cancel if this doesn’t meet with your approval.”

“That’s fine with me,” she said as she finished the last of her juice. “I’m ready.”

They spent some time with Mrs. Oberle, but they didn’t tell her about Marnie and Ray kidnapping Martie.

“Martie is coming back home with me,” David told the older woman. “That way she’ll be there when my wife shows up. Martie has grown close to my son, caring for him in my wife’s absence, and he’d miss her if she stays here.”

“But I plan on coming back here,” Martie assured Mrs. Oberle, hoping David understood, too. “Since I’ve been wearing my sister’s clothes up until now, I’m going to take some of my own.”

“But tell me again, how did you get to thinking you were your sister?” Mrs. Oberle couldn’t figure out the complicated story of identical twins.

“She lost her memory,” David explained. “Possibly from the earlier trauma of the injuries in the wreck that killed her husband and son and then the severe case of the flu.” He left out the part where Ray and Marnie kidnapped her. “When she showed up, she looked so much like Marnie everyone thought that’s who she was. She was very sick. She accepted what we all told her.”

He stood up and offered his hand to Mrs. Oberle. “Thank you so much for keeping Martie’s apartment,” he said, trying to steer the conversation away from the kidnapping. “We’ll be back in touch with you before the rent is due again.”

“I don’t mind telling you I’m glad to get this check,” she said, waving the piece of paper. “I didn’t know what to do about the apartment. I was about ready to pack up all your things,” she said, looking at Martie. “Of course I’d a kept them for you, but I need the money I get from renting out the place. I was thinking I needed to get someone else in there. I’m glad you’re back. You’ve been the perfect tenant.”

Once back in her apartment, Martie went directly to the bedroom and took the suitcase standing in the corner and placed it on the bed.

“I’ll be glad to have my own clothes,” she said as she filled it with items from the closet and drawers. “That’s one thing I don’t share with my sister, our taste in clothing.”

“You always looked nice wearing her clothes,” David commented as he watched her. “Although I must admit, I never saw Marnie wearing any of the things you chose to wear.”

“Maybe she bought them and then decided she didn’t like them,” Martie said as she added a pile of underthings to the suitcase. “If I think about it when I see her again, I’ll ask her.”

“I’m not going to be thinking about her taste in clothes when I find her,” David said grimly.

Martie knelt on the carpeted floor and opened the bottom drawer of the bureau. She withdrew a book and held it up for David to see. “Does this look familiar?” she asked.

“It’s just like Jonathan’s,” he exclaimed.

“Yes, it is. When I read that book to Jonathan, when we discussed the dinosaurs, it always seemed familiar. That reinforced the idea I really was Marnie and Jonathan was my son. I thought I had read it to him before.”

She turned and put it back in the drawer, tears threatening for the first time that day. “It was Tommy I had read it to, so many times we both had it about memorized.” She withdrew a stuffed dinosaur from the drawer. “Tommy slept with this every night. I’m going to give it to Jonathan.”

“You’re sure?” David’s eyes searched hers. “It means so much to you. Are you sure you want to give it up?”

“Yes. I’m sure. Jonathan means a lot to me, too. He’ll like it, and it should be enjoyed by the cousin of the little boy who first loved it.”

Chapter 47

They landed in Denver in the late afternoon. After retrieving their luggage and car, David suggested they eat supper before heading home. It was late before they reached their final destination, and the house was dark.

David helped Martie get her bags to her room and turned to leave.

“You know, it would be very embarrassing if Marnie came home and found me sleeping in her room,” Martie said.

“If Marnie comes home she’ll have a lot more to be concerned about than someone sleeping in her room,” David answered. “Besides, she’d think her plan worked and you were pretending to be her, like she wanted in the first place.”

“That’s true.”

She waited for David to leave, though she didn’t want him to. She yearned for his arms around her and his kisses, but that was impossible now. She didn’t know if things were better now that her memory was back or if they were worse. All she could do was see what happened next.

“Well, good night,” David said.

“Good night,” she answered. There was nothing more to say.

Martie slept late the next morning. By the time she rose, showered, and dressed, she missed having breakfast with Jonathan as she had planned. When she went to the playroom, David was holding Jonathan and telling him how glad he was to be home so they could play together.

When he saw Martie walk in, he turned to Mrs. Tucker. “Mrs. Tucker, could we have some time alone with Jonathan, please?”

“Certainly, Mr. Barrett. I’ll be in my room.” She picked up a piece of needlework and exited the playroom.

“I’ve brought you something,” Martie said. She sat down in a chair and sat the stuffed dinosaur in her lap.

“For me?” Jonathan asked, eyes wide.

“For you,” she agreed.

He climbed into her lap and took the stuffed animal, looking it over carefully.

“It’s not new. It used to belong to another little boy who loved dinosaurs,” she said.

“Doesn’t he want it anymore?”

Martie took a deep breath before answering. She didn’t want to cry in front of Jonathan.

“He . . . he died.”

Jonathan studied her face, then looked back at the dinosaur.

“What was his name?”

“Tommy.”

He studied the markings on the fabric toy, then said, “I’ll take good care of it.”

“I know you will,” Martie said quietly and hugged him.

“Sport, we have something to tell you,” David said. Jonathan looked at him quizzically.

“I know it’s going to be hard to understand, but do you know how you thought this was your mother?” David motioned toward Martie.

Jonathan stared at his father. “No. She isn’t my mother,” he said as if correcting a preposterous statement.

David was nonplussed. “You didn’t think she was your mother?”

“No. She looks kind of like my mother, but she’s different. People kept saying she was my mother, but I knew she wasn’t.”

David looked at Martie, surprise written all over his face.

“How is she different?” he asked his son.

Jonathan didn’t have to think about it long. “Well, she looks different. Her face is all smiley, and my mother’s face isn’t smiley. My mother smiles fake smiles sometimes, but she’s not
smiley
.” He emphasized the word to be sure they understood what he was saying.

“And this mommy is cuddly. My mother isn’t cuddly.
And
. . . ,” he said importantly, “she
smells
different.”

“Smells different?” David asked, befuddled over this turn of events.

“Yep. Different.” Jonathan answered, looking back at the dinosaur and hugging it tight. “Was Tommy your little boy?” he asked Martie.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry he got dead.”

She hugged him tight. “I am too, Jonathan. I am too.”

After they had given Jonathan the set of dinosaur blocks they bought in the airport gift shop, they went downstairs for breakfast.

“You’d think I would have noticed you smell different,” David said as they passed through the dining room.

“Shh. Someone might hear you,” Martie said as she elbowed him.

When they entered the kitchen, they found Ruth, Mrs. Grady, and Alice. Ruth looked like she was on her way out, with her purse over her arm and car keys in her hand.

“Good morning, everybody,” David greeted them.

“So you’re home,” Ruth said. “Has your wayward wife regained her memory?”

“In a way,” David answered cryptically.

“In a way?” Ruth raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“It means this woman has regained her memory, but she’s not my wife.”

“You got a divorce while you were gone?” Ruth asked doubtfully.

“I mean, this isn’t Marnie,” David answered.

“Of course, she’s Marnie. You’re speaking nonsense.”

“This is Marnie’s identical twin sister, Martha Kelley—Martie,” he said.

“Oh my,” murmured Alice.

“My stars above,” Mrs. Grady exclaimed.

“Rubbish!” Ruth said. “Another one of her tricks, and you fell for it, sounds like.”

“No, I assure you, it’s the truth,” David said.

“So which one has been living here the last month?” Mrs. Grady asked.

“This one—Martie,” he replied.

“Which one are you married to?” his mother asked.

“I’m married to Marnie.”

“So what is this one doing here? Helping with the theft?”

“She’s here because Marnie and Ray kidnapped her, drugged her, and put her out on City Park Hill to find her way down to town.”

Ruth turned to Martie and said with a sneer, “So now you remember all this? You remember you aren’t Marnie?”

“I didn’t remember anything when I came here. Everyone told me I was Marnie Barrett, and I believed them.”

“And suddenly you know who you are? A likely story!”

“I didn’t remember until I entered my apartment in Phoenix and everything started rushing back. I had some pretty bad things happen to me, and I guess my mind just shut down and refused to remember anything at all.”

“Well, I don’t believe this cock-and-bull story, not a bit of it. Somehow you’ve convinced my son there are twins involved in this scam. Probably something went wrong between you and that man, Ray, and you’ve come back home with your tail between your legs hoping he’ll take you back.” She turned back to David. “I hope you are smarter than to believe this woman. She’s taking you for a fool.” She turned and started out of the kitchen.

“I’ve got to go. I’m meeting Celeste.” She paused in the doorway. “Why you didn’t marry Celeste as planned and let this . . . tramp . . . raise her bastard herself I’ll never know.”