Listen to Me

Listen to Me Read Free Page B

Book: Listen to Me Read Free
Author: Hannah Pittard
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discovered a string between the mattress and the box spring. When he pulled the string, he was surprised—surprised? No, try
astonished
—to find it was attached to a small switchblade.
    When she got home from the clinic that night—the first shift she’d taken since the detectives—he pointed at the switchblade, which he’d set on the middle of the kitchen table, and said, “What the fuck, Maggie? What the fuck is this?”
    She’d shrugged. “It’s a knife,” she said. Gerome was crazy-eighting around her legs.
    â€œI know it’s a knife,” he said. What alarmed him most was how dismissive she was, how suddenly calm.
    â€œI could have died,” she said. She moved for the knife. Mark grabbed it before she could. “I could be dead right now.”
    â€œIs this about the college girl?”
    â€œRight now,” she said, “you could be a widower.”
    â€œIt wasn’t even the same man,” he said.
    â€œIt could have been.”
    Mark shook his head. What she was saying was crazy. What she was saying was downright lunatic. “But you’re not dead. You’re here. You’re right here.”
    â€œBut what if I weren’t?” she said. “What if I weren’t here?”
    When he told her no more knives, when he told her he drew the line at weapons in the bedroom, she shrugged again. “If you don’t give it back, I’ll just buy another one. Play it how you want.” It was maddening that she refused him the discussion.
    Normal people didn’t waste their days reading about other people’s misfortunes. Normal people didn’t take a gross sort of pleasure in keeping up with local crime statistics. Normal people didn’t walk the dog in a robe. Normal people didn’t act like Maggie.
    The semester would be over in a few weeks, at which point the two of them would make their annual drive east for a couple months at Mark’s parents’ farm. His hope was to finish several chapters of his latest manuscript, a history of anonymity, which he believed—if pulled off correctly—might put him on the academic map in a major way. But Mark didn’t think he could wait another few weeks to make the drive. He was frightened by what Maggie was capable of. He’d found the mace. He’d found the application for a gun and that terrifyingly sharp little switchblade. But what might she bring home next? What might already be hidden that he hadn’t yet found?
    Mark understood—a sort of hammer-to-the-skull-type realization, as Maggie walked out of the kitchen, leaving him alone with the knife and its distressing string attachment—that his wife must be removed from the city immediately. Distance needed to be created between Maggie and her desire for blades, guns, and even the Internet. A return to nature—to Wordsworth’s meadow, grove, and stream—was essential for them both.
    When Mark went out with the dog that night, he called his mother.
    â€œWe’re coming this weekend,” he said.
    In the background, he could hear his father knocking about loudly with the evening’s dishes.
    â€œIs it June already?” his mother said. “Am I losing my mind?” Then, before Mark could answer, she said to his father, “Mark says they’re coming this weekend.” Then, after a pause, she said to Mark, “Your father wants to know about classes.”
    â€œWe’re going into finals,” he said. “I’ll get a grad student to administer them. It’s fine.”
    There was another back-and-forth between his parents, along with more clanging and clattering of pots and pans. His mother again: “Your father says that’s cheating the students.” Mark’s father was a retired professor. He’d been a trailblazer in the field of eco studies and was now emeritus faculty at the University of Virginia, something that filled

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