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“You can talk to me, you know.”
You hate blood. “I know.”
“I need you to talk to me.”
“I am.” You don’t really want to know. “We’re talking.”
“Why did you have the gun, Charlotte?”
I don’t want to answer, but I can’t just let us stand there locked together in silence. I know he’ll wait for the answer longer than I can wait to give it to him. Still, I don’t trust my voice. I have the distinct feeling that if I lie to him, he’ll somehow know.
With a deep sigh, I scoot around him and open the refrigerator door in search of something to fix for breakfast. “One of the girls at work was attacked a few months back.” Taking a carton of eggs from the shelf, I turn so we are facing one another. “And I don’t know—I just thought I should protect myself.”
“Attacked?” His eyes widen. “What? Why didn’t you say anything?”
I shrug. “It wasn’t really a big deal, I didn’t think. I mean…it didn’t happen at work. But after—well after—she talked about how she’d bought a gun and was thinking of taking a class—and so a few of us went together. To show our support. ”
“You took a class? When?”
“I don’t know. A few months ago…back in September…I think.”
“And you didn’t think that you might want to mention this at some point?”
“It wasn’t like I was hiding it.” I place the eggs on the counter. “It just never came up.”
“Hold on.” He’s pacing now, and going over to the doorway, he stops and glances around the corner. Then he looks back at me, his voice lowered. “Let me make sure I have this right. You brought a loaded weapon into our home—you carried it day in and day out, in your purse—and it just never came up?”
“Not every day.”
His eyes blink rapidly as he tries to piece it all together.
“Look,” I offer, changing tactics. “I know how you feel about my job, and I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t want to make things worse.”
In two strides, he’s at the window. Bracing himself against the counter, he stares out at the media trucks lining our street. “You didn’t want to make things worse…”
“My dad was a cop—having a gun around was just a normal thing for me growing up. It wasn’t something we felt we needed to discuss, Michael. It just was.”
“Well, I’m not your father.”
“Then stop acting like it.”
When he turns, his expression is pained. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If I hadn’t had the gun,” I say, retrieving the bacon from the fridge, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” I slam the bacon on the counter. “Your daughter and I—we’d be dead.”
“Fine. Where are we supposed to do the grocery shopping? It shouldn’t take that long to get things cleaned up, right?”
I glance at him sideways. This is not the question I’d expected. “I have no idea.”
“I’d hate to have to drive across town,” he answers with a nod toward the window. “I’m not even sure I can get out of the drive.”
The best I can manage is a tired nod. I’d give anything to drive across town without being followed or noticed or both.
“We’re low on coffee creamer.”
“I’ll text Julia. See if she’d mind picking some up.”
Julia is our neighbor, two houses down. She, too, has been helpful since the shooting. But then, she’s divorced, unemployed, and very obviously a big fan of my husband, so I suppose you could say she’s always rather helpful.
