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Chapter Forty-five
It’s seven o’clock in the morning,and everyone in the McKay household is sleeping, except Maggie.
In fact, she hasn’t slept at all.
How could she sleep when every time she closed her eyes, she saw her son with the gun in his small, trembling hands? Followed by an image that was even worse: her beautiful little boy with half his head blown off, his sweet face obliterated by the force of a heartless bullet, his own kind heart forever stilled.
“Oh God,” Maggie moans, trying to wipe the disturbing picture from her brain.
But, like a stubborn stain, it keeps coming back.
She is sitting at her kitchen table, her gun, now emptied of bullets, resting on the table beside her laptop, her laptop open to a list of the best ways to dispose of an unwanted firearm. Much as she would like to, she understands she just can’t throw the damn thing in the garbage.
She has learned there are five reasons to get rid of a gun legally: that the gun is unsafe or incapable of being fired, that it’s not worth fixing, that there is a court order, that the owner wishes to create a gun-free household, or that the owner has inherited the gun and doesn’t want it. She has also discovered that there is an organization that will have the gun appraised for her, as well as cover all shipping and transaction costs.
Maggie isn’t interested in recouping her investment. She just wants the gun out of her house.
Which, she discovers, leaves her with four options.
The first is to contact the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and explain her situation.
But it’s seven o’clock on a Sunday morning, and it’s unlikely anyone will be around to answer her call. Plus, it seems a bit extreme to bring the federal government into what is, after all, a relatively minor personal matter.
The second option is to surrender the gun to local law enforcement, either the sheriff or a police station. It is highly recommended that one call the nonemergency line and declare one has an unwanted gun before simply showing up at the station with it and risking getting shot or placed under arrest.
“Sounds reasonable,” Maggie says, finishing what’s left of the coffee in her mug.
The third alternative is to surrender the weapon to a Federal Firearms License holder, also known as FFL. All legally operating gun shops and gun dealers possess an FFL. Maggie knows she wouldn’t have any trouble finding either.
The final option is to donate the gun to a gun safety training program or museum.
Maggie decides on option number two. She’ll call the police, tell them she owns a firearm and wants to surrender her weapon.
Sounds easy enough,she thinks. Almost as easy as buying the damn thing had been.
She’s reaching for her phone when she hears a noise behind her and turns to see Heidi. The young woman has changed out of Maggie’s nightshirt back into the shorts and T-shirt she wore to last night’s barbecue. Her auburn curls have been pulled into a ponytail, and she looks surprisingly fresh and serene for someone in the middle of a marital crisis.Oh, to be young,Maggie thinks. “You’re up early,” she says.
“I smelled coffee.”
Maggie is instantly on her feet. “Would you like some?”
Heidi nods, approaches the table. “Oh,” she says, stopping when she sees the gun next to Maggie’s laptop. “Your son’s toy?” she asks, not bothering to disguise her obvious skepticism.
Maggie returns to the table and picks up the gun as Heidi takes an automatic step back. “Don’t worry. I took the bullets out last night. I’m turning it in to the police station later. Going to create a ‘gun-free household.’ In the meantime,” she says, her eyes scouting the room for a place to put it, “I’ll just put it…here.” She opens the freezer and deposits the gun behind a package of frozen peas. Then she returns to the counter and pours Heidi a full mug of coffee. “Cream? Sugar?”
“A bit of both would be great.”
Maggie adds a small amount of cream and a teaspoon of sugar to the mug and places it on the table. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
“Thank you. For everything.”
“How’d you sleep?” Maggie asks as Heidi sinks into the chair across from hers.
“I was out the minute my head hit the pillow. Toad and Squirrel Luigi obviously did the trick. You’ll have to thank Leo for me.”
“You can thank him yourself when he gets up.”
“No,” Heidi says, taking a long sip of her coffee. “I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I finish this.”
