The Day It Rained Forever

‘Must have been. Oh, yes, she must of been.’

‘Did you prosecute her?’

‘Well, no, I didn’t. After all, she didn’t know what she was doing.’

‘Did it knock you out?’

Mr Lemon paused and there it was again, so clear, so tall, in his mind, the old thought of it. Seeing it there, he put it in words.

‘No, I remember just standing up, I stood up and I said to her, "What’d you do?" and I stumbled towards her. There was a mirror. I saw the hole in my head, deep, and blood coming out. It made an Indian of me. She just stood there, my wife did. And at last she screamed three kinds of horror and dropped that hammer on the floor and ran out the door.’

‘Did you faint then?’

‘No. I didn’t faint. I got out on the street some way and I mumbled to somebody I needed a doctor. I got on a bus, mind you, a bus! And paid my fare! And said to leave me by some doctor’s house downtown. Everybody screamed, I tell you. I got sort of weak then, and next thing I knew the doctor was working on my head, had it cleaned out like a new thimble, like a bunghole in a barrel….’

He reached up and touched that spot now, fingers hovering over it as a delicate tongue hovers over the vacated area where once grew a fine tooth.

‘A neat job. The doctor kept staring at me, too, as if he expected me to fall down dead any minute.’

‘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 eggbeater. 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 kermash. 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?’