The Memory of All That - Nancy Smith Gibson Page 0,45

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

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