A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories

“How long did you stay in the hospital?”

“Two days. Then I was up and around, feeling no better, no worse. By that time my wife had picked up and skedaddled.”

“Oh, my goodness, my goodness,” said Miss Fremwell, recovering her breath. “My heart’s going like an egg beater. I can hear and feel and see it all, Mr. Lemon. Why, why, oh, why did she do it?”

“I already told you, for no reason I could see. She was just took with a notion, I guess.”

“But there must have been an argument—?”

Blood drummed in Mr. Lemon’s cheeks. He felt that place up there on his head glow like a fiery crater. “There wasn’t no argument. I was just sitting, peaceful as you please. I like to sit, my shoes off, my shirt unbuttoned, afternoons.”

“Did you—did you know any other women?”

“No, never none!”

“You didn’t—drink?”

“Just a nip once in a while, you know how it is.”

“Did you gamble?”

“No, no, no!”

“But a hole punched in your head like that, Mr. Lemon, my land, my land! All over nothing?”

“You women are all alike. You see something and right off you expect the worst. I tell you there was no reason. She just fancied hammers.”

“What did she say before she hit you?”

“Just ‘Wake up, Andrew.’”

“No, before that.”

“Nothing. Not for half an hour or an hour, anyway. Oh, she said something about wanting to go shopping for something or other, but I said it was too hot. I’d better lie down, I didn’t feel so good. She didn’t appreciate how I felt. She must have got mad and thought about it for an hour and grabbed that hammer and come in and gone kersmash. I think the weather got her too.”

Miss Fremwell sat back thoughtfully in the lattice shadow, her brows moving slowly up and then slowly down.

“How long were you married to her?”

“A year. I remember we got married in July and in July it was I got sick.”

“Sick?”

“I wasn’t a well man. I worked in a garage. Then I got these backaches so I couldn’t work and had to lie down afternoons. Ellie, she worked in the First National Bank.”

“I see,” said Miss Fremwell.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“I’m an easy man to get on with. I don’t talk too much. I’m easygoing and relaxed. I don’t waste money. I’m economical. Even Ellie had to admit that. I don’t argue. Why, sometimes Ellie would jaw at me and jaw at me, like bouncing a ball hard on a house, but me not bouncing back. I just sat. I took it easy. What’s the use of always stirring around and talking, right?”

Miss Fremwell looked over at Mr. Lemon’s brow in the moonlight. Her lips moved, but he could not hear what she said.

Suddenly she straightened up and took a deep breath and blinked around surprised to see the world out beyond the porch lattice. The sounds of traffic came in to the porch now, as if they had been tuned up; they had been so quiet for a time. Miss Fremwell took a deep breath and let it out.

“As you yourself say, Mr. Lemon, nobody ever got anywhere arguing.”