The Woman Hidden

by Lucas Mattias

  Which was also a possibility. Could they two know each other and have set them into a macabre game against his sanity and stability?

  Anthon found his keys and put them in his pocket, ready to leave.

  And his phone rang again.

  “Why don’t you just answer the fucking phone, then?”

  “Georgia, honestly, I’m warning you that…”

  “That what? What are you gonna do, Anthon? Ruin something else in your life?”

  She was close to him again, too close this time. He could feel her breath in his nape, he could feel that they were apart by only a single strand of hair. And that was causing his blood to boil even more, making his head to shrink more and his nausea now felt stronger, as if…

  “That’s what you do, isn’t it, Anthon? I don’t need this shit, I…”

  He turned, abruptly raising his hand with its back turned to her.

  She halted and retreated, her muscles tightened in the face of danger. Anthon managed to hold himself back, but he knew shit had been tossed into the fan, definitively. He inhaled deeper and lowered his hand, under Georgia’s scared and desperate glare, already wet and threatening to burst into tears. Her lips trembled and that, Anthon knew, was genuine fear, maybe a fear triggered by a memory, a trauma.

  Shit was spreading all around.

  Georgia wavered her head, her dark and silky hair bouncing with the movement, and she walked away with her hands on her face.

  Then he heard a loud cry, blocked partially by her hands. And another scream.

  “So that’s it?” She turned to him again, shouting at him. “You were going to make me shut by force. Anthon? With your brutality, your male, masculine, macho virility?”

  He lowered his head and waited. He knew that storm would last a few minutes until she got exhausted, too.

  And he endured when the slap came against his face. And Georgia’s push. And another push.

  “Is that it? Were you going to hit me? So hit me, Anthon. What’s stopping you? What? What stops you?”

  Her voice was already too loud and he feared someone would hear them. But he wouldn’t touch her, he didn’t want that kind of reaction, he also didn’t want an aggression charge.

  “You career? Thinking that this would ruin you forever?”

  She opened her arms and walked away, her feral eyes directed towards him. And his phone rang again.

  “So come, Anthon, here I stand. Be a man!”

  “Georgia, I have to go.”

  “No, you won’t…”

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  He lifted a hand against her, demanding silence and finally answered to Monica’s call.

  “Anthon?” The voice on the other side called, while he watched Georgia walk away to the balcony, trying to recapture her breath. He knew he had fucked it all up, now he had to deal with that.

  “Yes, I’ve just returned from my trip.” He answered, moving away a little, deeply fearing Georgia could yell again. She looked calmer now.

  “I need to speak with you.”

  “Monica, I’m not willing to wear myself out again with another divorce talk. Is it about that?”

  “Yes. And no.” She went silence for a second and for long seconds all he heard was her breathing. “I want to believe we could try.”

  Anthon inhaled and held his smile back, he didn’t want to show something else that could piss Georgia even more. He’d have to deal with her later. The woman, however, seemed distant, now sitting at the bed with her eyes locked on the glass table.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said in a low voice, which was not that effective as he noticed Georgia’s glare to him. “I just need to stop by at the lab before, but we could meet today.”

  Monica gave him a few more warning and gave him instructions about calling back later and that was it. He dropped the call and put the phone in his jacket’s pocket, already searching for the keys so that he could leave. He didn’t remember where he had put them.

  “You’re leaving.”

  “I have to.”

  His voice was harsh again, but that was maybe the best way to end it all at once. He wanted to throw his phone through the balcony, he wanted to punch the wall until blood came out of his skin, but he controlled himself. He could just leave, take some more shots of whiskey and set his life back to its tracks.

  “And where do we stand, Anthon? Is it over? Or do you want another opportunity to threaten to hit me again?”

  The words stuck to his throat. He wanted to say a lot more, he wanted to shout, to say goodbye and never come back again.

  However, he didn’t want any of that. He knew he had gone a little over the top and, although he couldn’t promise her that would never happen again, he wasn’t ready to tell her goodbye. Even when it all seemed too messed up, Georgia still represented a safe place to him, a moment of comfort that, so far, he hadn’t had at home. And he knew the first months of that reconciliation would be tough.

  “Listen.” He walked to the bed and sat by her side. He didn’t look her in the eyes, he didn’t even get that close to her, but he reached for her hands. “I have to go. I need to do some tests, routine stuff, and check my status at the department, I need to go back there as soon as possible with those evidences and… it’s just too much. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you going back together?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You know I never demanded a relationship from you, Anthon. I just want you to have the decency of ending this fling with me in a more mature way rather than that of a enraged teenager.”

  “I never wanted to…”

  “I know.”

  Georgia, suddenly, leaned and placed a soft kiss on his lips. Something fast, but that warmed him more than the drinks.”

  “I don’t know where my wallet is. And I have to leave.”

  Georgia moved and rolled on the bed, grabbing something on the nightstand. The wallet.

  “This one?”

  He embarrassedly smiled and took the wallet, shoving it inside the pocket on his pants as soon as he stood up.

  “Watch my stuff, will you? I’ll be back soon.”

  “Fine. I’ll be waiting.”

  Anthon left. He didn’t know where his hopes lay, he didn’t even know if he should lay them anywhere, but that would suffice for the moment being. He still had his suspicions regarding Georgia, sure, but seeing her so helpless and traumatized had touched him. What kind of man was he?

  Monica… he felt pain for her too. Maybe that was a good time to end all of that and work that situation out. How could he, when he didn’t even know what he wanted to do?

  When the door shut behind himself, he saw himself in this endless corridor of a thousand doubts and questions, endless frustrations and depressions. He had to work things out, more for himself than for the other people involved with his problems. He had to work that out.

  Before, he would follow Aubry’s advice and take a test. He had to make sure he was okay.

  At that point, he wasn’t sure of that anymore.

  IV

  The hallways were crowded, a hell made of white and aseptic walls. Marco wanted a moment alone, a moment to breath and organize his thoughts, however the outside of the hospital was out of consideration. In one hand, the emergency wing, so crowded as the place he was at; on the other, he would find the front yard, busy with cars and snow, which had already started to pile up on the streets. He had to think. He had to clear his mind.

  The diary he had found, though he couldn’t understand how he had gotten that, revealed itself an anguishing and wrong reading for the day. He wished he had never opened that small notebook, but now it was a step already taken towards the abyss that wouldn’t let him go back to his previous idle state of mind. What bothered him the most were not the entries itself, most of that he had also lived through, but a few peculiar things he had discovered.

  But where to start? Where should he start at?

  He tried to convince himself t
hat taking that further would allow him to better comprehend his mom and whatever had happened during those years of suffering in that house. It would also help him to know whether he was safe with his father. She let a lot out through pages and pages of a diary, but what had she done beyond that?

  A phrase echoed through his mind, starting now a mild ache that seemed about to explode into an endless migraine. A specific, peculiar sentence, one of the last from the diary. Oh, how he longed for the other ones. He knew he would be entering a dark and dangerous forest, but he had to… he needed to know.

  Marco pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the time. It was still too early, she would probably asleep. He was already in the middle of a turbulent day, but Laura was probably still enjoying her sleep and she would probably sleep for a few more hours before he could bother her.

  It was not her fault he had been woken up in the middle of the night by the yells of a hurt and drunk Clarice so that he could help his dad, who had passed out and was seizing while drunk.

  Drunk. Sobriety was gone. It was all gone. Marco felt his body hair raise and he shivered as that imaginary blow of cold air moved up his body, creating a shock between the heat within and the frozen outside. He was lost, fearful. His father went back to drinking and that could screw everything else up, all they had conquered, built and restored together. Everything.

  Marco felt his head sink into a spiral of doubt and anxiety. Even when he didn’t want to think about the issue and the possibilities embedded into it, his mind would go back to it, to the diary, the entries, to Clarice, to the drunk and barely alive father. His thoughts wandered across the doubts and wonders, stopping only to remind him of what had happened three years before, stirring it to the shit spread across the following years. It was all at stake. All of it. His future in medicine, his relationships, his freedom… And all of that because his father couldn’t resist the taste of alcohol. Everything was going so well…

  He checked his phone and unlocked it with his thumbprint, sliding his finger across the touchscreen until he found the contact he wanted. Laura. His eyes went to the hour again. There was no time for him to be polite and wait for her to wake up. He called.

  “Hey! You’re awake.” He answered with a gentle grin as he heard her sleepy voice say his name.

  “Is everything ok?”

  “Yes.” He scratched his head. “No. My man’s at the hospital.”

  “Gosh, Marco. What happened now?”

  “Alcohol.” He replied in a sigh, with his voice low trying to conceal it from the people walking by, including doctors and nurses around. “He drank and I think his body couldn’t handle it. He was almost in his twelfth month, Laura. A year. And he threw it away.”

  “That’s gotta be a woman in it. Men are like that.”

  “No.” He immediately replied, trying to avoid further questions. “Actually… never mind. I was meaning to ask you something.”

  “Marco, stop being so evasive. You know I know when you’re hiding things from me.”

  “I am. But it’s for your own good. Seriously, I gotta ask you something.”

  “Shoot.”

  Marco stood and glanced around. The end of the corridor, where some shelves and a small cart with unknown devices rested, seemed cool and idle enough. He abandoned his ill buddies and walked to that corner, trying to get some privacy.

  “I found one of my mom’s diaries last night.”

  “Found. You just… found it?”

  “It was on my bed, I think my dad let it there for me. I cannot ask him, he’s out.”

  “Still?”

  “Yes. And the sheriff is coming, he’s going to end his life. Anyway…”

  “The diary.”

  “Yes, the diary. Remember when you told me you were at this online support group, the kind of forum created by your psychologist for women who…”

  “Who were abused or in an abusive relationship. You don’t have to make it pretty, Marco. The group is for women and it is anonymous for a reason.”

  “I don’t care about the group. I mean… what’s the name of it?”

  Silence. He heard Laura’s breathing fail, as if she were ready to say something and then gave up on it, followed by the sound of her blankets moving on the bed.

  “Agnes. It’s a chat, not a group. The name is some kind of biblical reference or something. Why do you care?”

  “My mom was a part of the group, wasn’t she?”

  There was tension underneath Marco’s voice and, although he wanted to hide the trembling in his voice, his attempt proved ineffective.

  “I… I don’t know, Marco. We don’t tell names on the forum, safer that way.”

  “My mother named some people in her diary, if she were a part of it, you’d know.”

  “Some women have friendships outside the internet, at their own risk… but I don’t know, Marco.”

  “Laura, don’t lie to me. What do you know about my mother.”

  “Marco, I’m telling you what I know. If you don’t want to believe, there’s nothing I can do.”

  “I need…” He went quiet after noticing he was almost yelling at the phone. “I need to know, Laura. I need to know what you know.”

  He heard a long and heavy sigh, followed by something he couldn’t comprehend.

  “I cannot say anything, Marco, but I know someone who can. Her name is Doctor Anna McCormick. She’s a psychologist with focus in women who were subject to domestic violence, she works there at the hospital. She created this community, she could help you.”

  “Laura, I didn’t mean to…”

  He had no time for apologies, the call was ended by her. He knew it hurt, he knew about Laura’s frailty, but he had no time for being extra careful. He needed answers and he needed them right away. It could sound eccentric and spoiled even to himself, but he knew those notions to be right. His anxiety was affecting his brain and he needed rest. Rest he would only allow himself to once he had obtained all answers he wanted.

  He inhaled the frozen air and after shoving the phone back to the pocket, he followed to the information desk on the other side of the hallway. His father was probably still out and all he needed was a few minutes, the man wouldn’t even notice it.

  “Hi,” Marco greeted, trying to read the features of the small nurse with some Asian traces near the desk. She didn’t seem so friendly or willing, but it would help. “I’m looking for Doctor Anna McCormick. She’s a psychologist.”

  “Are you a patient?” The nurse questioned without even taking her eyes from the papers she had in hands.

  “No. Not yet. Actually, I need to talk to her.”

  “Family?” She finally looked at him, probably analyzing his features and skin tone. He was used to that.

  “I just want to talk to her.”

  “You could try. Her office is at the third floor, north wing.”

  She didn’t need to say anything for him to understand she was dismissing him.

  Marco turned around and walked to the elevators. One floor only to go and the time inside the elevator to think about what excuse he would use to talk to the woman. He didn’t even know how he would ask her anything without looking suspicious, he just needed the moment with her and the rest… well, he would see.

  The ride in the elevator turned out exhaustive. Although he spent only a few seconds locked inside the metal box, the anxiety made it feel like hours. He could feel his palms sweating while clenched, on an attempt to conceal and focus his tension. When the doors opened, he felt he could breathe again, inhaling the thinner air from the third floor.

  In there, it all felt calmer. A large hall waited for him, with few people and few doctors walking around, a smaller number of white coats and people waiting for their resting patients. On the wall facing the elevators he saw a board with the names of the doctors on the floor and their corresponding rooms. Obviously, he thought, he would have to go through the desk of some secretary or receptionist before entering the doctor’
s office, but that he would also work whenever he got there.

  Marco rushed his walk, following the path that would lead him to McCormick, according to the signs on the walls.

  As he had imagined, before he could access the offices he would have to pass by a counter with two secretaries that seemed too busy among their jobs, the phone calls and gossips. He couldn’t delay his plans no longer, he needed something to work with. A couple of doctors were near, which indicated he couldn’t cause any fuss or the woman wouldn’t accept seeing him at all.

  Fine, he thought, I’ve been through worse.

  Marco followed up to the counter with fake confidence, pretending to know exactly where he was, and smiled at one of the receptionists, ignoring the doctors nearby.

  “My name is Marco Flyce. I’d like to speak to Doctor Anna McCormick.”

  The woman barely reacted. It was as if he weren’t there. A sixteen-year-old boy trying to act like and adult to a woman who, most certainly, had received a complex training on how to deal with such situations.

  “Do you have an appointment?” She asked, her eyes locked on her computer screen.

  “Actually, I don’t.” He replied, his voice already showing his nervousness. The two doctors nearby stopped talking. “But I really need to talk to her.”

  “What is it about?”

  “Well, she’s a psychologist, I don’t think I’m here to have my tonsils removed.”

  The joke, although well-intentioned, was not well received by anybody in the room. The other receptionist discreetly smiled, while the one he was talking to frowned, her lips compressed and not happy.

  “Boy, this is not a school. You want to talk to Dr. McCormick, you need an appointment.”

  “It’s an urgent matter. I’m sure if you bring her here she’d understand…”

  “I’m sorry, but…”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  Before the whole situation could evolve into a bigger altercation, the doctor who was standing nearby intervened. She was pretty, though she looked to be somewhere after her middle-forties. She had light eyes, a serious and well-sculpted face, besides the nicely done hair in an artificial shade of red, a vibrant one.