Marty nodded. "Okay."
"So, these two guys get out," Amber continued, "and they start walking toward us, not even glancing around or talking to each other. They just got out and walked right at us, like they'd been waiting for us."
Marty nodded and closed his eyes. "What’d they look like?"
"One was a big fat greasy guy with long hair. He had a bushy beard, and a fat, chubby face. It was really weird—they were both wearing long pants and long shirts. It didn’t make any sense."
"Yeah, and I think the skinny guy—he was a little shorter than the fat one—I think he was on drugs or something. He kept scratching at his neck,” Mitch said. “He had these red marks on his neck and his face and his hands…and his hands twitched," Mitch added.
"Sounds like a druggie. Go on," Marty said, his eyes still closed.
"They walked right up to us…” Amber said as she stared out into the backyard, eyes focused on nothing in particular. "Didn't even threaten us or anything. The fat one just said, ‘Give us your stuff.’ Like that was just expected. Like we were just holding it for them.”
"And what did you do?" asked Marty.
"I laughed,” Mitch said, “and told him to go bother somebody else.”
The old man opened his eyes and looked carefully at Mitch. "That how you got the shiner?"
Mitch shook his head. “Nah. They reached for Amber, and I shoved the skinny one out of the way. He fell down, and the fat one pulled a bat out of somewhere—I didn't see where he had it, but he took a swing at me."
"What?" Cami demanded. "Oh, this is all my fault!" she blurted. "If I hadn't let you leave those guns at home…”
“You mean you went out unarmed?" Marty demanded of Amber.
Amber frowned. "Trust me, that's never going to happen again."
"You got that right," Mitch growled.
Marty raised a trembling hand from his cane to silence everyone. "Good. Lesson learned—you two are extremely lucky. Most people don't get a second chance at that lesson. Now, it ain’t gonna be easy, but you need to forget about the fact that you walked out of the house without any way to protect yourself. Learn from it,” he commanded. “and move on. Don't waste your time blaming people, especially yourself, missy," Marty said as he pointed a curled, arthritic finger at Cami. "Now," he added as he settled back in his chair and replaced his hand on his cane. "What happened next?"
"Well…” Amber said with a shrug. "It all happened so fast. One second, Mitch was in front of me, knocking that skinny crackhead out of the way…and the next…” She shrugged. “The fat one swung a baseball bat, and Mitch was on the ground. He went to poke me with it, but I screamed, and took the backpack off and threw it at them," Amber said, her face bright red. She looked away. "I'm sorry mom, I didn't even put up a fight."
Cami leaned over and embraced her. “Sssh,” she soothed. "I don't even care about the vegetables. I'm just happy you weren't hurt. It doesn't matter, honey—what matters is you got away without getting hurt…or worse," she said with a look at Mitch.
"It's my fault, Cami.” He swallowed but held her gaze. “If I hadn't tripped when I tried to avoid that bat, I wouldn’t have ended up on the ground, and the skinny one wouldn’t have been able to hit me in the head." Mitch clenched his hands into fists. "He wasn’t even that strong, he just got a couple lucky hits.”
Cami wiped tears from Amber's face. "They got your bags, then?"
"Yeah," Amber said with a frown. "They took both bags—all those vegetables, all that work we spent to pick them—it was all for nothing!" She wiped hair out of her face. "Mia and her kids didn't get anything."
"So, after they took the stuff they just left?" pressed Cami.
"No…I think they had other things in mind," Mitch said, with a wary look at Amber. "But a couple neighbors came out of their houses when they saw what was going on, and those two idiots grabbed our bags and ran back to their car. They laid down a couple strips of rubber in the street when they took off."
Cami sat up. "I think I heard a car race by our house when I was out back earlier. That had to be them! Son of a—”
“Why didn’t you come straight home?" asked Marty.
"Mia saw us—when all the people came out of their houses and came to see if we are okay, Mia was one of them. She recognized us and had us come back to her place. Mom, she doesn't have very much, but I think she's okay for now," Amber said as she put a hand on Cami's knee. "She said to say thank you—she's talked with a couple of her neighbors and has gotten a better handle on things."
"Did her husband—?" asked Cami. "Is he back yet?"
Amber shook her head. "No. But she got a text from his boss saying that he left work on time the day the tsunami hit…” Amber shrugged. "Nobody knows where he's at, but Mia’s convinced that he's stuck in one of those traffic jams we saw on the news before the power went out."
"Been almost a week…” Marty groused. "If he ain't home in the next couple of days, I'd say he ain't never coming home."
No one said a word for a long moment. Cami looked away. She couldn’t think of Reese like that or she’d completely fall apart.
"I think she knows that," Amber said quietly. "She didn't want to talk about it. But you can see," she said and turned to Cami.
