The Secret Life of Hamel: April, 2009

HERE IS THE CONTINUATION OF THE STORY AS POSTED DURING APRIL, 2009 PLUS THE FIRST DAY OF MAY. (THE APRIL 30 POST ENDED IN MID-SENTENCE. MY DAUGHTER TELLS ME THIS WAS POOR PLANNING.)

Once, a young, very pretty, red-haired waitress at a restaurant clearly became obsessed with getting Hamel to notice her. She filled his water glass immediately each time Hamel took a sip. She touched his shoulder lightly as she leaned forward to pour. She asked him questions with each trip to the table. Did he work nearby? Was he a runner? Did he ever visit the restaurant for lunch?

When the waitress brought the credit card slip for a signature, Hamel’s wife noticed a business card from the restaurant attached. Trying not to be obvious, she watched closely as Hamel signed for their meal. She saw him pick up the card, casually turn it over, and then drop it on the table. As they stood to leave, Hamel’s wife retrieved the card and slipped it into her handbag.

Later that evening, alone in her kitchen after her husband had gone to bed, Hamel’s wife examined the card closely. A phone number, the words Call Me?, a simply drawn heart with a smiley face inside it. There was no name, no signature.

Two days later, Hamel’s wife did an unusual thing: she decided to ask Hamel about the card and the waitress. She chose her words carefully.

Did you notice that waitress the other day? she began. The red-haired girl. She really seemed to pay a lot of attention to you.

Hamel shifted his position on the sofa, but didn’t look up from the book he was reading. I didn’t notice, he said. He turned a page.

It was so obvious that she was flirting with you, Hamel’s wife said. I’m surprised you didn’t have some kind of reaction.

Hamel’s wife hesitated, tried to deliver her next words lightly, almost conspiratorially, as if they were sharing some special secret. You know, she left you her phone number. On a card. Hamel’s wife tried to make her tone even lighter. Looks like you have a big fan.

I think you’re mistaken, Hamel said. And that ended the conversation. Hamel’s wife knew that it was useless to say anything further.

Conversations, if you could call them by that name, were not Hamel’s strong point. He was not rude; he did not ignore her. But Hamel rarely contributed to dialogue with his wife, other than to acknowledge its existence with a polite comment or murmur. He was often as silent as the picture that stared at Hamel’s wife from the computer monitor. Whatever was going on in Hamel’s brain, he shared it only occasionally. It had been that way for as long as she’d known him, though she had once hoped for a change.

Hamel’s wife broke herself away from both her thoughts and Hamel’s steady gaze. She emailed the photo file to the police officer.

Now what? she asked herself. What exactly are the proper, day after thoughts and actions when a woman’s husband has disappeared?

There was no one in Hamel’s wife’s life to tell her. She had no one to call. It had been just her and Hamel for such a long time.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

Five days after Hamel’s disappearance, his wife decided to make the short walk to the corner grocery. It was a tiny, poorly lit store, the kind of iconic retail establishment that was quickly disappearing from the city’s neighborhoods. Hamel’s wife did not shop there often, preferring instead the modern supermarket that had opened recently, just two blocks farther from the house. But it was a cloudy, gloomy day, with an unseasonably chilly breeze, not a good day for a stroll.

She picked her way carefully down the concrete steps from her townhouse, turned left when she reached the sidewalk, passed her neighbor’s tuft of a front lawn, felt a sudden desire to quicken her pace.

Hamel’s wife knew that this was her first time outside her home since Hamel’s disappearance. She was unprepared for her reaction.

Anxiety, vague and formless, seemed to wash over her the moment she turned to walk up the block. She felt the tenseness of an animal being stalked, could feel a prickliness on her arms and the back of her neck. This is silly, she told herself. Whatever happened to Hamel, she was sure it had not happened here, in this neighborhood, in this stable, quiet section of the city where she’d lived all her life.