Evan Hunter - The Moment She Was Gone

“Suspect you what way?” Maggie asks.

“Oh, you know. Thinking I was trying to pull a fast one. Like get free health care or something. They were probably told to keep a special eye on me. Dr. Ernst probably told them I’d ‘attributed malaria to some inspirational religious experience,’ were his exact words, mocking me like that.”

“When did you plan to go?” Maggie asks, getting off the subject of hospitals; everyone in the family knows how Annie feels about the health care system.

“Oh, I don’t know. The shop m Maine isn’t doing too well, you know. And I don’t have many friends up there, to tell the truth. I had a lot of friends in Sweden. That’s where I first met Sally Jean, in fact, well, never mind her. I’ll tell you, Maggie, I hope I never see her again. She’s to blame for all my problems.”

“Well, the hospital’s behind you now, Annie. The main thing is that they were able to cure you. You haven’t had any relapses, have you? No chills? No fever?”

“No, I’m fine. But...”

“So really, you should...”

“But I’m not talking about the hospital, don’t get me started on hospitals. Anyway, who knows if I’m really cured? Who knows what kind of drugs they gave me in there? Ever since they linked me to her in Amsterdam, when we were rooming together, they won’t leave me alone. They think I may have had something to do with those translations she made for the Russians. When there was still the cold war, do you remember?”

“Yes,” Maggie says, “I remember.”

“They just can’t get it in their heads that I had nothing to do with it! They keep coming around in their damn blue jackets, I really feel I should call someone about it, their harassment. But who can I call? If they can reach someone like Dr. Ernst, I mean who knows how far their influence extends? Their control?”

Bees are buzzing in the clover. It is a hot, quiet, lazy afternoon. Maggie has no idea how close she is to treading dangerous ground. She hesitates a moment, and then, tentatively, she says, “You know, Annie, have you ever thought about discussing this with someone?”

“Discussing what with someone?”

“These people who follow you around and...”

“I am discussing it with someone. I’m discussing it with you.”

“I meant someone qualified,” Maggie says.

Annie looks at her.

“Maybe you ought to talk to someone before you leave the country again.”

Annie keeps looking at her Then, all at once, she nods, and gets up, and goes into the house. Maggie thinks she is going inside to pee. She is gone some three or four minutes, just enough time to find what she wants in the kitchen drawer. When Maggie turns again, she sees Annie coming at her with a claw hammer raised high above her head. The next thing she knows, it is crashing down on her left shoulder. She thinks Annie will hit her again, but instead she just yells, “Go fuck yourself, asshole!” and hurls the hammer onto the grass, and runs out of the yard.

Maggie sits alone on the lawn, stunned, her shoulder bruised and throbbing. She is still sitting outside when my mother and I return from the beach at a little past four, but she is now holding a towel full of ice cubes to her shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” I ask at once.

“Annie hit me with a hammer,” she says.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” my mother says.

“Mom, she hit me with a fucking hammer!”

“And I don’t appreciate that language.”

“Gee, I’m terribly sorry, but that’s what your daughter did.”

“Let me see that,” I say.

“It’s all swollen,” Maggie says, sounding very much like a little girl. She lifts the towel for a moment. Her shoulder is a puffy mass of discolored flesh, blues and reds blending into purples. “There’s the hammer,” she says, and gives an angry toss of her head to indicate where it is still lying in the grass.

“Where’s Annie?” my mother says.

“She left.”

“Left?”

“She hit me and ran off.”

“She didn’t hit you, don’t be silly,” my mother says. “Where is she?”

“Is everyone in this family crazy?” Maggie asks. “I’m telling you she hit me with a hammer, and you’re telling me I dreamt it?”

“Is she in the house?” my mother asks, and turns on her heel and immediately walks toward the porch and into the house.

“Call the police,” Maggie tells me.

“No, I don’t want to call the police.”

“Andy, she attacked me!”

“I’d better go find her,” I say, and start for the car. “Mom!”

My mother comes rushing out of the house.

“She’s not here,” she says. “What’d you say to her?”

“Mom, where are the...?”

“What did I say...”

“... car keys?”

“... to her? How about what she said to me? ”

“What’d you do to provoke her?”

“She called me an asshole! She told me to go fuck myself!”

“My daughter doesn’t use such language. And she’s not a violent person. You must have provoked her in some way. I’ll go with you,” my mother says, and we both start for the car.

“Andy!” Maggie calls.

My mother hands me the keys and throws open the door on the passenger side. I turn to where my wife is sitting with the towel pressed to her shoulder.

“Andy,” she says very softly, “your sister hit me with a hammer. You should have her committed.”

“No, I can’t do that,” I say, and get into the car, and insert the ignition key, and twist it. The engine roars into life. Maggie is still sitting there when I back the car out of the driveway.

My mother and I search all the back roads for the next two hours, but we cannot find Annie.

Annie is gone again.

When we get back to the house, so is Maggie.

It is three minutes past eight when she arrives at Volumes and Tomes. I am standing outside the shop waiting for her. She is wearing this morning a dark blue pleated skirt, sheer blue pantyhose, black French-heeled pumps, a white blouse with a stock tie, and a gray jacket. She reminds me of the private-school girls you see walking along Madison Avenue on their way to or from school. The gray jacket is lacking only a school crest to make what she’s wearing look like a uniform.

Maggie is a quite beautiful woman. When I first met her, I thought she was the most beautiful — but you already know that. Back then, she wore her black hail long to the shoulders... well, like a raven helmet. She now wears it cut much shorter. Her brown eyes are so dark they almost match her hair exactly. She wears no lipstick these days. I gather she considers this a “bookish” look. We greet each other perfunctorily. We do not even shake hands. It is strange that two people who made such passionate love together — at least in the beginning — cannot even shake hands in greeting anymore.

“To what do I owe the honor?” she asks.

“Annie’s gone again,” I tell her.

“So what else is new?”

“She may be schizophrenic,” I say.

Maggie looks at me.

“She was hospitalized in Sicily. They diagnosed her as schizophrenic. She hears voices, Magg.”

She keeps looking at me.

“What do you want from me?” she asks.

“I have to talk to someone.”

“Why me?”

“You’re the only one I know.”

It starts over coffee, it ends over coffee.

“You’re looking well,” Maggie says.

In all the years I was married to her, I never found the courage to correct her grammar. She is an educated person, a bookseller no less, and I am a teacher of English. But she still says, “You’re looking well” instead of “You’re looking good,” and she still says, “I feel badly about this” instead of “I feel bad about this.” When we were married, I used to wince at these grammatical lapses. We are no longer married. I no longer care if she uses “Between you and I” for “Between you and me.” That was the worst of her assaults on the English language, and she used it with supreme confidence and maddening regularity. But I no longer care. I no longer care about her at all. That is the sadness of it.