“Not mine,” Alan postured.
“Yes, even yours.”
He looked cluelessly at her as if requiring an example.
“Let’s consider what you just said a minute ago,” Michelle began, “that you would never let anyone harm us. I know you meant what you said; you’re a man of your word. But what if the situation went beyond your control? Like if a loaded gun was pointed at you? What then?”
Alan forced out his lower lip. “I’d fight the person holding it…or try to take the gun away. Or tell him to shoot me.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah. Just like that. Groveling and begging is out of the question, that only further empowers the aggressor, and he has enough advantages already. Faced with that, I’ve got nothing to lose, so I’d go for the gusto.”
Michelle studied him. “I’m not…doubting you. I know you’re bold, but you’d really be that brave, knowing your own life was on the line?”
“What choice would I have? If I choose to do nothing about it, I’m dead. So why not try something?”
“Fair enough.” Michelle’s lips set into a grim smile. “Let’s assume another scenario, then. What if the gun was pointed at me? What if someone had a gun to my head and said that if you didn’t give up all your guns, they would kill me?”
Alan smirked, pretending to contemplate. “That’s an easy one. I’d tell him to shoot you.”
Michelle reached forward and shoved him. “Ass! Really?”
“Well, there’s no way in hell I’m giving up my guns…”
“Alan!” she shrieked, raising a fist.
“Okay, you got me, I’m totally joking,” Alan said, drawing back. “But…maybe I’d give the approach a shot without really meaning it. You never know, it might catch him off guard, and the shock value alone might be enough to change the stakes.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Michelle took a breath and exhaled frustration, pausing a moment. “Okay, how’s this for shock value? Assume the same scenario, only this time, the gun is being aimed at Lauren.”
Alan erased all traces of kidding around from his face. He didn’t respond.
“Now we’re getting somewhere. It’s different, isn’t it? Like if someone pointed a gun at Grace’s belly…”
Alan held up a relenting hand. “Okay, I get your point.”
“Finally,” Michelle said, feigning exhaustion. “Nearly everyone here walks around with one or more guns strapped to them these days. Ask any of them if they’re ready to fight a war to protect what they have or who they love, and they wouldn’t hesitate to say yes. Explain their children will likely be affected, and it changes everything. No one wants their kids endangered…” She trailed off in thought. “I don’t know…maybe I’m babbling, but I think it’s something worth considering. Our lives have been upended since coming here, but we have a lot to live for now, and all the same, so much to lose.”
The couple went silent after that. They stared at the soft, upturned earth beneath them, bidding to resume gardening efforts, initially unable to find the precise point where they’d left off.
Alan considered the questions he had remaining in his jumbled queue. There were just too many of them; and this dialogue, while adding more detail to the picture of his past, had infused another layer of haze into the obfuscation. One distinct question had hatched from the exchange, though. One about which he hadn’t thought to enquire before, and it was now sounding off loudly for precedence.
As his wife slid herself into position to rebegin planting seeds, Alan relocated opposite her. “Michelle…where are my parents?”
Michelle let out a breath, her hands going still beneath a coating of dirt. She gradually shifted weight to her arms to relieve the soreness in her back just as the moment’s burden crash-landed on her shoulders.
After a time with no response, Alan continued, “We…went there first. The house was…well, destroyed, more or less. Actually, it was downright obliterated; unfit for habitation by a long shot.”
Michelle bent back and watched him.
“I assume it must’ve been a beautiful place at one time.”
“It was,” Michelle added finally, her tone succinct.
“Thought so, it had all the makings of one. The exterior was badly dilapidated; portions of the roof had either collapsed or were getting ready to. The house looked like it sustained a direct hit by a hurricane and looters had moved in after to have their way with it. The defacement was substantial, like the place had been vandalized over and over by some pissed-off mob with a personal vendetta.” He looked away pensively. “With my safety being the number one priority, as usual, it was decided that I not go inside. Jade went in alone but wasn’t there long. She said it was ransacked, described it by saying it looked like a bomb had gone off. She didn’t find anything except martial law notices, some warrants, and other nastiness not worth mentioning. No traces of anyone, not the girls, you, or my parents.”
Michelle delayed her reply, her wish being to put Alan’s original question on hold, aware the answer wouldn’t come easily, uncertain as to how he would react to hearing it. “We left there in the late evening on January 15. About a year before,” she said, conveying a look of interest. “How did you know to go there?”
“You guided me.” Alan slid his hand into a pocket and retrieved two folded-together sheets of paper, and went about unfolding them. He had kept Michelle’s letter on his person since the day he’d found it inside his gun safe at their abandoned home.
Michelle covered her mouth with a palm, her lower eyelids welling up at seeing her handwriting on display in her husband’s hand. “Is that…the letter I wrote you?”
Alan nodded. “I’ve reread it a hundred times since I found it; it’s practically memorized.”
Michelle nodded and sniffled. She reached
