What Frances was thinking was obvious enough for him.
Given that he had nothing to talk with Clara, he decided to leave and head back home.
As he pulled away the car, Marshall could see from the rearview mirror that Frances was talking to her
phone, stamping his feet and showing an exasperated expression on her face towards him.
Marshall took a sigh of relieve, and relaxed the muscles on his face.
Going back to his house, he saw that his grandma was sitting on the sofa and talking with Lydia.
A little surprised to see Lydia here, Marshall greeted her in a respectful tone.
Lydia laughed, "You're back, Marshall! It's quite late now, what has gotten in your way?"
Marshall answered, "Nothing, I have just spent some time meeting my mom."
Hearing that, Old Mrs. Grant sighed, "Is she doing fine recently?"
Marshall answered with a second of pause, "Maybe. She seems doing fine, actually."
Despite the awkward look on her face when she mentioned Clara, she seemed to be getting used
to her new life now.
Marshall turned into the kitchen and asked the servant to cook him a bowl of noodles for dinner.
As those cooking utensils clattered in the kitchen, Marshall sat down and joined the talk with the two
ladies.
Old Mrs. Grant asked Marshall whether he was going on a business trip for the next few days. Then,
she mentioned that she saw Khalid had already packed his things in preparation for the trip, which
made her wonder why, since it was the first time she had ever seen Khalid being so pro-active in
preparing for a single business trip.
"It is," she said, "as if he couldn't wait to go."
both Marshall and Lydia laughed, but only Marshall knew Old Mrs. Grant was not exaggerating.
Indeed, Khalid was yearning to set off for the business trip as soon as he could, since he was just
desperately in need of some space to run away from everything and clean up his mind.
As far as Marshall had found, Frances had recently been phoning and messaging Khalid non-stop, and
said she wanted to meet him.
She was a straightforward woman, and thus was candid about her willingness to be reconciled
to Khalid.
Marshall didn't know how Khalid thought of that exactly, but he knew that his father was currently not in
the mood to reflect on things between him and Frances.
Sadly, Khalid was neither resolute enough to repulse the return of his wife nor bold enough to accept it
immediately.
Stuck in such a dilemma, he was struggling in a mess, and thus longed for some space to cool himself
down.
With the corner of his lips lifted, Marshall said, "We are going to meet a big customer this time. I guess
he just don't want to miss the boat, and thus gets himself fully ready in advance."
On second thought, he somehow began to admire his mother.
He remembered Peter had told him that it was important to take the initiative in a relationship, which
was exactly what Frances was sparing no effort to do.
A while later, Lydia shifted the topic back to her son Lucas. She said she had no idea who the ideal girl
in Lucas's mouth exactly was.
The social circle of Lucas was not wider than Marshall, and he seldom went anywhere else to kill his
time other than the Grants' company.
Neither did she have any idea where his son got acquainted with the girl, nor did she know when they
fell in love with each other.
Old Mrs. Grant did not have a clue either. She asked Lydia whether she had introduced any girl
to Lucas, and said possibly the girl was exactly among them.
Lydia shook her head, "I don't think so. Whenever I try to fix him up and send him on a blind date, he
always displays reluctance before he sets off, and expresses disappointment after he comes back. If
what you said was true, mom, he would have told me the name of the girl already. I suspect that the girl
is from a, you know, disadvantaged background. That may explain why he insists to keeping her a
secret: he's afraid that we may not accept the girl."
Pondering over what Lydia had said, Old Mrs. Grant thought her words did make sense. Heaving a
sigh, she said, "You child has grown up, and is able to take care of themselves already. Children can
just make their own choices, and we'd better stop sticking our hands in their business anymore.
Otherwise, they might turn against you with grievance at the end."
Lydia took a glance at Marshall, and thought that Old Mrs. Grant was making pointed allusions to him.
Years ago, it was all because the whole family pushed him so hard that Marshall was irritated and
decided to marry Katherine. And now, his marriage had ended in divorce.
Though he didn't seem to blame anyone for his failed marriage, there must still be grievance and
reluctance in his heart.
Lydia offered a symbolic nod, "You're right, mom."
Old Mrs. Grant's words didn't remind him much about her mother, but did get him thinking
about Katherine.
He could tell that his unexpected visit had really driven Katherine crazy, and meanwhile, he was also
wondering whether his words had gotten deep into the heart of her.
In fact, he wanted to be sincere in front of Katherine, and to express his faithful willingness to be with
her again. Even before Katherine came back home, he was still scratching his head and thinking about
how he could express his feelings properly.
However, every sweet word in his head uncontrollably turned out to be warning and threatening as he
saw the angry expression on Katherine's face.
With a click of his lips, he didn't know whether he had done the things right or wrong.
Lydia and Old Mrs. Grant were still discussing about the identity of Lucas's little girlfriend. As Old Mrs.
Grant failed to draw any conclusion, Lydia then turned to Marshall, "What do you think about
that, Marshall? You guys always hang out with each other, and meet in the company almost on a daily
basis. Have you ever heard of any girl's name from him?"
Stunned, Marshall lost in thought. In his impression, they didn't actually hang out with each other much
in their daily life, and talked about nearly no other topics but work in the company.
However, at the next moment, he astonishingly recalled that they did have several times talked about a
woman, and her name was Katherine.
It seemed that Lucas was just trying to discomfort him by continuously displaying curiosity or caring
for Katherine.
From an objective perspective, he had to admit that Katherine was indeed the sort of girl
whom Lucas would be fond of.
However, his sensibility placed him against such recognition and urged him to utter, "Nope, never
heard of that. He's a man of few words, and won't talk with anyone about such things, not even with
us."
Lydia nodded, "Indeed, he's always been a reticent boy. Maybe I should try to ask him more about that,
otherwise he would possibly keep that as a life-long secret."
Dinner was served, and Marshall told the servant to take it to his room upstair.
Going back to his room together with the servant, he changed his dress, and the servant placed the
bowl of noodles on his night table.
Having a taste of the noodles, he grumbled inside that it was still far less delicious than that made
by Katherine.
Marshall sat down, and took out his smartphone.
Katherine again sent him a message and asked who he was.
Staring at the phone screen, he still chose to leave her on read.
On the other side, stepping out of the bathroom, Katherine found that there was still no reply from the
other end. Then, she decided to send a voice call to the unknown account.
While eating his dinner, Marshall was stunned by the sudden ring of the voice call. He looked at the
phone screen again for a few seconds, and laughed.
This time, he still chose to put the call aside.
In Marshall's head, he could imagine how angry Katherine would be if she found out that the owner of
the account was him.
The woman had been growing more and more bad-tempered.
Or, to be precise, she had become increasingly bad-tempered and impatient towards him.
Finally, after the last ring of the second call faded, his phone came back to silence.
He waited for a while, and looked up Katherine's post.
'Well, it seems that she has unfriended me.' Marshall thought to himself, and laughed.
She had always been a resolute and determined girl dealing with things like that.
Marshall felt that, somehow, there was something stabbing his heart.
Things would be much easier if she could just be a little more lukewarm and meek — just as
she used to be.
Marshall heaved a sigh.
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