Evan Hunter - The Moment She Was Gone

“Thank you,” I say. “And so are you.”

She nods. Makes a slight moue. The facial expression says either “I know you’re being nice,” or “I know I look tired,” or simply “Who cares what you think anymore?” which would put us on an equal footing. It is so sad. It is so fucking sad, really.

“So what’s this about Sicily?” she asks.

I tell her what happened there. I tell her the doctor in Sicily thought Annie was schizophrenic...

“Thought?”

“Well, apparently she told him she hears voices.”

“Apparently?”

“Well, I don’t know what his credentials are, actually.”

“But he’s a doctor, isn’t he?”

“A psychiatrist, yes. Presumably.”

“Presumably,” she repeats.

“Annie denies all of this, you realize.”

“Mm. So you went to Sicily, huh?”

“Yes. To pick her up.”

“The good brother,” Maggie says.

There is an edge to her voice. For the longest time now, there has been a note of bitterness, or sarcasm, or even controlled anger whenever we discuss Annie. All at once, I wish we weren’t sitting here together. All at once, I feel this is a huge mistake.

“Get you something?” a waitress asks.

“Just coffee,” Maggie says.

“Coffee and a toasted English,” I say.

The waitress pads off toward the counter. The shop is relatively quiet at this hour of the morning. On the avenue outside, there are men on their way to work, wearing suits and carrying dispatch cases, Soccer Moms who have just dropped the kiddies off at school, some of them in exercise clothes they will later wear to the gym, nibbling their lips, worrying. Everybody in this city worries. Especially since the attack, everyone worries.

“So how was Sicily?”

“I didn’t see much of it.”

“I always wanted to go to Sicily,” she says almost wistfully. She shrugs, shakes her head, is silent for a moment. “So when did Annie vanish?” she asks.

I do not like her use of the word “vanish.”

“My mother discovered her missing at two this morning. She went to see a psychiatrist here in New York last week...”

“A psychiatrist?” she says, surprised. She knows how my sister feels about the health care system.

“Yes. I took her to see a woman named Sarah Lang.”

“The good brother,” Maggie says again. “So you think this woman may have frightened her away, is that it?”

“I don’t know what caused it this time,” I say.

“Or any time,” Maggie corrects.

“Two coffees,” the waitress says, “a toasted English.” She puts our order on the table, takes two packets of Equal from her pocket, sets those down as well, asks, “Anything else?” and, when she receives no response, goes back to the counter again. Maggie lifts her cup. She sips at the coffee. It is too hot. She purses her lips as if scalded. I suddenly remember that she cannot abide her coffee too hot. I suddenly remember this.

I remember, too...

And this comes back to me as if rolling on a loop of film which I can stop at will, frame after frame rolling past some hidden gate in some secret projector, flashing suddenly on the screen of my mind...

I remember driving through Massachusetts with Maggie.

She is wearing a pink blouse, a white summer skirt, sandals. Her knees are propped against the dash board, the skirt falling back onto her thighs. The windows are wide open, her long black hair is blowing in the wind. She is sipping coffee from a cardboard container.

We are on the way to her mother’s house.

There are mountains on either side of the highway.

Maggie is going home.

She turns to me suddenly. There is a little girl’s grin on her face.

“Nice, huh?” she says.

Grinning over the coffee container.

Nice, huh?

Yes, I think now. It was nice, Maggie. Sometimes it was nice.

She adds milk to her coffee cup, sips at it again, testing it. She looks across the table at me. Her dark brown eyes are very wide.

“I still don’t know why you’re here,” she says.

“I want to apologize.”

“Ah.”

“I should have called the police that day.”

“Yes, I think you should have.”

“Maybe we could have helped her.”

“I don’t know about that, but it sure as hell wouldn’t have hurt our marriage.”

“I’m sorry, Magg.”

“Yes, well, easy come, easy go,” she says, and turns her head away, her eyes avoiding mine.

We are silent for several moments.

“Did you ever hear Annie talking to herself?”

“No.”

“Not that day?”

“Never.”

“Aaron thinks she does.”

“Thinks?”

“Well, knows. He says this black girl... well, she must be a woman by now... Pearl Williams, she used to play keyboard in Annie’s band. Aaron says she witnessed an incident... well, an episode, I guess, you’d call it... in Georgia. There would seem to be no... well... doubt... that Annie hears voices.”

Maggie says nothing. She is staring at me across the table now.

“But you still don’t quite believe it, do you, Andy?”

“I believe it,” I say. “I think she may hear voices, yes.”

“May.”

“I guess she hears voices.”

“You guess.”

“I know she hears voices, all right? I think they may have spoken to her this time. I think that’s why she’s gone. Because they told her to leave. I don’t know, Maggie. I don’t know what the fuck these voices tell her or don’t tell her!”

The waitress turns to us. She seems ready to come to the table, ready to ask us to leave if we can’t maintain at least some small measure of decorum here. I want to tell her Hey, lady, my sister is a lunatic who may be about to harm herself or others, so what do you expect here, the New York Public Library?

“How do you know they spoke to her this time?” Maggie asks.

“My mother heard her talking to them.”

“Saying what, exactly?”

“Mumbling. Nothing coherent. I think she might have been talking to the television set.”

“That doesn’t sound good, Andy.”

“I know. What should I do, Magg?”

“I don’t know how to advise you.”

“I just want to help her, Magg. I don’t know how to help her.”

“Poor Andy,” she says.

It seems for a moment that she will reach across the table to take my hand. She does not. It occurs to me that she will never again take my hand. Ever. I don’t know why that should bother me so much. We’ve been divorced for almost ten years now. I don’t know why that should bother me now.

“You should have believed me,” she says.

“I should have.”

“You should have cherished me more.”

“I did cherish you, Magg.”

“Ah, but not enough, not enough.”

We sit there across the table from each other.

She sips at her coffee again.

Nice, huh?

I want to tell her that once I loved her very much. Once I adored her. I want to tell her that I don’t know what went wrong with us, but something did, and it’s a terrible dreadful shame, but I did love you, Magg, a whole lot. I loved you to death.

“I just want you to know there’s never been anyone else but you, Magg. I don’t know what went wrong with us, but there’s never been another woman. I just want you to know that.”

“Andy,” she says, “there’s been another woman for as long as I’ve known you.”

And before I can ask her what the hell she’s talking about, she says, “Your sister.”

We part on the sidewalk outside, like strangers. Like strangers, we do not even shake hands. She walks off in her direction, I in mine. There was a time when we would turn to look back at each other, the way lovers do. Mimed to each other. Folded our arms across our chests, opened them wide to say I love you, I love you. Once, twice, sometimes three or four times before we lost sight of each other. There was a time.