A Ruling Passion – Chapter 0736

Time flew. Onward came the night before Easter, a time when some families gather for a lovely, hearty meal. At Arianne’s insistence, Henry the butler and Mary sat around the table for dinner together with her and Mark.

It was important to Arianne. They were her family, people who had raised her since childhood.

As usual, she also received a sum of money from Helen as a gift and some well-wishes under the backdrop of distant church hymns and occasional fireworks. With a pang, she realized that Easter this year was different from its previous iterations. She could not pinpoint the exact differences, but she wondered if it was because the festival felt homelier than it used to be.

After replying to Helen’s text, she looked up and considered Mark. “I wonder how Granny is doing,” she wondered out loud. “I haven’t been able to contact her for such a long time that I’m starting to worry. There’s no way Zoey and the rest could keep that act for this long, but somehow they pull it off this time...”

It was one of Mark’s most dreaded scenarios all over. For some reason, every festival automatically reminded Arianne of her grandmother, forcing him to come up with new lies to explain it away every now and then.