J. Jance - Long Time Gone

By standing on the tips of her toes on a kitchen chair, five-year-old Bonnie could just see out over the sill of the window in the tiny daylight basement apartment where she lived with her parents. The sun had finally burned through the low gray clouds, and now splashes of sunlight cast a crazy-quilt pattern across the rain-dampened grass of the yard and the cracked concrete of the crumbling sidewalk and driveway. Sunlit spring afternoons were rare in western Washington, and Bonnie longed to be outside, but she didn’t dare, not with Mama and Daddy gone.

When they went away on those long Saturday afternoons, they’d tell her that she’d better stay inside and be good until they got home, or else…Bonnie knew what “or else” meant. If they found Bonnie had been outside while they were off drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, Daddy would take off his belt and light into her. Or Mama would go outside and cut a switch from the weeping willow tree and use that on Bonnie’s bare legs or the thin, raggedy panties that covered her equally thin behind.

The outside door was unlocked. Bonnie could have gone up the stairs and let herself out if she had wanted to. She would have loved to run barefoot through the grass, chasing the butterflies that drifted in and out of Mimi’s garden, or to play a solitary game of hopscotch on the smooth surface of her neighbor’s driveway. But she didn’t. No matter how well she tried to hide what she had done, Mama always seemed to know exactly when Bonnie was telling fibs.

So Bonnie stayed where she was, watching and waiting, sometimes shifting her weight from side to side and holding on to the windowsill to help keep her balance. Then something interesting happened. A big car came creeping up Mimi’s driveway. Her driveway was far nicer than theirs. It was smooth and clean with no gaping cracks where grass and weeds and dandelions squeezed through.

The car stopped a few feet from Bonnie’s window perch. It looked new and shiny, and it was red. Not fire-engine red, but a funny kind of red Bonnie had never seen before. She watched as a man got out, a big man wearing the kind of dress-up clothing Daddy never wore, not even on holy days when Mama made him go to church. The man slammed the car door shut. He hurried over to the steps and pounded on the back door. After a while, Bonnie’s friend Mimi opened the door and stepped out onto the porch and stood with her back to the screen door.

During the week when Mimi went to work, she wore dresses and heels and had her hair pulled into a bun at the back of her neck. Today, though, her long dark hair was in a ponytail, which made her look much younger. She wore light green pedal pushers with a matching top along with white sandals. Even from where she stood, Bonnie could see the bright red polish that Mimi wore on her toenails. Mimi had even offered to paint Bonnie’s toenails once, but Daddy had said, “No. Absolutely not.” And Mama had said Bonnie was too young for nail polish. So all Bonnie could do was look at Mimi’s brightly colored toes and wait to grow up.

Since Saturday was housecleaning day, Mimi wore a flowery full-length apron. As she talked to the man on her porch, Mimi crossed her arms under the bottom of the apron as though her arms were cold and covering them with the cloth of her apron might help warm them.

Bonnie couldn’t hear any of the conversation, but from the bright red splotches of color on her friend’s cheeks Bonnie knew that Mimi was angry. So was the man. He waved his arms. His face turned red. And every time he stopped talking, all Mimi did was shake her head. Whatever the man wanted, Mimi’s answer was no.

One of the car doors opened and another woman stepped out. This one looked familiar. Bonnie thought she might have seen the woman before, coming to the house with a vase of flowers or maybe a covered dish for supper. Bonnie had seen Mimi’s mother occasionally. The woman was old and sick. Sometimes she was in a wheelchair, but mostly she stayed in bed. Mimi worked in an office all day. The rest of the time she was at home taking care of her mother.

As the second woman walked toward the porch, she opened her purse, reached inside, and pulled something out. Only when the sun glinted off the blade did Bonnie realize it was a knife. That seemed odd. Most of the women Bonnie knew used their purses to carry lipstick and hankies and compacts and change purses. Never a knife.

Why a knife? What was going on?

The woman stepped up onto the porch beside the man. She looked angry, too. Bonnie wondered what was wrong. Why were those two people yelling at Mimi? Bonnie didn’t have to hear the words to know they were saying mean and nasty things. At last Mimi turned and started to go inside. That’s when the man reached out and grabbed her. Catching her by the arm, he pulled her off the back porch.

Bonnie watched in horror as Mimi fell all the way to the sidewalk, where she lay still for a moment, as though the force of the fall had knocked the wind out of her. Bonnie knew how that felt. The same thing had happened to her once when she had fallen out of the apple tree.

Then, instead of helping Mimi up, the man dropped on top of her, with his knee in her stomach. There was a brief struggle. The man seemed to be hitting her. The woman was standing in the way, so Bonnie couldn’t see everything that happened. She wanted to scream out at him, “Stop! Stop! You’re hurting her.” But her voice froze in her throat. The words wouldn’t come.

At last the woman reached down and helped the man up. The two of them stood there for a moment, looking down at Mimi. Even from where she was standing, Bonnie could see that the man’s hands were bloody. So was his shirt. After a moment, the man and woman hurried into the house, closing the door behind them and leaving Mimi lying on the sidewalk.

For a time Bonnie didn’t move. She didn’t know what to do. She might have run upstairs and told their landlady, but Mrs. Ridder was a cranky old woman. Mama had made it clear that she didn’t like children and that Bonnie was never, under any circumstances, to go upstairs and bother her. But still, Bonnie couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. At last she jumped down from the chair, ran up the stairs, and hurried out the door.

If the afternoon sun was warm on her body, Bonnie didn’t feel it. She raced across their driveway and the narrow strip of grass that separated her backyard from Mimi’s. A few feet away, she stopped and stared in horror. There was blood-bright red blood-everywhere. Mimi’s flowery apron was drenched in it. Blood spilled onto the cement driveway and pooled beneath her. The handle of a kitchen knife that looked just like Mama’s stuck out of her stomach.

“Mimi,” Bonnie gasped when she was finally able to speak. “Are you okay?”

Slowly Mimi turned her head and looked at Bonnie. Her eyes searched aimlessly. It was as though she were seeing Bonnie from a very long distance away and was having trouble finding where to look. Mimi opened her mouth and tried to speak, but at first no words came out.

“Please,” Mimi began finally, but she couldn’t go on. Her lips moved, but Bonnie couldn’t hear what she was saying. The horrified child dropped to her knees, hoping to lean near enough to hear and to understand what was needed. Mimi reached out, but instead of taking Bonnie’s hand, she pushed her away. “Go,” she whispered urgently. “Please go!”

Just then the back door opened. The woman hurried out onto the porch. “Who the hell are you, you little shit?” she demanded, staring down at Bonnie. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Bonnie struggled to her feet and dodged backward just as the woman lunged toward her. Fortunately the woman’s high-heeled shoe caught on the edge of the driveway and sank into the muddy grass. It was enough to allow Bonnie to scramble out of the way.