just for a little bit. I just came home to see how you were doing,” David said, looking directly at Marnie.
“We’re doing fine. We’ve worked a puzzle and played a game with cherries and buckets, which he says is the only game he has, and now we’re playing Go Fish,” she said, smiling broadly at David.
After two rousing rounds of Jonathan’s now-favorite game, David called a halt.
“I think it’s time for lunch. I’ll join you and then I have to get back to work.”
Jonathan gathered the cards and put them back into the drawer.
As they walked down the hall, David told Jonathan, “You better wash up before going to the kitchen. We’ll meet you there.”
“OK,” Jonathan replied and opened the last door on the right which was obviously a powder room.
“I think I’d better wash my hands, too,” Marnie said.
“There’s another powder room off the east hall, too,” David replied as they walked through the living room.
“Will Ruth be joining us for lunch?”
“No. Mother eats breakfast and lunch in her suite of rooms. It’s like a separate apartment for her. She does like to have dinner here,” he said as they passed through the dining room. “I think you are recovered enough to join us tonight.”
“All right. What time?”
“Six o’clock. Be on time.” He glanced at her attire. “Mother is old school. You’d better dress more formally than jeans. Wear a dress.”
Chapter 22
“What do you wear to dinner with someone who hates you?” Marnie mused aloud as she looked through her closet. With as many choices as she had, she was having trouble coming up with something appropriate. She had tried on several dresses, but when she looked in the cheval mirror, she realized each was too short, too tight, or showed too much cleavage for a family dinner.
Where in the world did I wear all these things? she wondered again.
Finally, she came upon a pink knit dress with long sleeves and a high, rounded neckline. The hemline reached mid-calf, and when she tried it on, it fit perfectly. She added high-heeled black boots and admired the look.
It needs a piece of jewelry, she reflected. Rummaging through the drawers in the dressing room didn’t produce anything suitable and then she remembered seeing something in the drawer of the dresser in the bedroom. Among the bits and pieces, she found a small, ornately jeweled pin. Only costume jewelry, she was sure, but it was a nice brooch from years gone by, a circle of silver swirls and leaves, set with pink, ruby, and clear stones.
Satisfied at last with her outfit, she added a touch of lipstick and went downstairs. The big grandfather clock standing in the foyer was chiming six when she reached the last step. David was pulling out a chair for his mother as she entered the dining room.
“Good evening,” she greeted them.
“Good evening,” David said as he rounded the table. She thought his eyes lit up at the sight of her. “You look lovely tonight.”
“Thank you.”
“Good evening, Ruth.” She was determined to be pleasant to her mother-in-law, though she was in agreement that Ruth had every right to be angry with her.
The older woman remained silent.
“Mother, let’s do our best to get along tonight.”
“I don’t know why you are bending over backwards to be nice to a woman who cuckolded you and stole from you—from us. What she did endangers not only your future, but your son’s and mine as well. She ought to be in jail like the criminal she is, not sitting down to dinner with us.”
“I asked Marnie to join us for dinner tonight. She’s not going to remember anything sitting in her room alone for meals. I’m hopeful that something we say, some conversation, will trigger her memory, bring back what she’s lost.”
“And you believe this—this ridiculous story of hers? You believe she can’t remember anything before the day she came stumbling back here?”
“Yes, I do believe it, and so does Doctor Means. If you were around her for long and were open-minded enough, you’d believe it, too. She simply doesn’t behave like she used to.”
At that moment Mrs. Grady came through the swinging door from the kitchen bearing a platter, which she sat at the end of the large table where David, Ruth, and Marnie were seated.
“A glorious roast, if I do say so meself. ‘Twere a good cut and roasted up nicely, it did.”
With this pronouncement she left the dining room and returned with a bowl of potatoes and carrots, Mary following