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.
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