In the medicine aisle, Peggy grabbed a box of Theraflu and some throat lozenges, then made her way back up front. Odell had finished with Jack and was checking out Dr. Lanningham, Peggy’s longtime veterinarian. Behind Dr. Lanningham was a young man in his mid-twenties, whom Peggy recognized from the lumberyard. He asked, “You got it too?”
She glanced down into his basket and saw a similar assortment of medicines.
“Yeah,” she said. “Hit me hard about thirty minutes ago.”
The front doors opened and a man walked in.
Neil Felding.
Peggy and he had gone to high school together. He’d been valedictorian if she remembered correctly. She heard he’d recently moved back, though this was the first time she’d seen him.
Right behind Neil was a second man.
The hairs on Peggy’s arms pricked.
It wasn’t the gun in the man’s hand, though that was frightening enough. It was the look on his face.
Rage.
He smashed the butt of the gun into Neil’s back, sending him flailing into a bin filled with an assortment of Halloween merchandise.
“Lowry!” yelled Odell. “What the hell are you doing?”
Lowry Barnes, Peggy realized.
He was in his late twenties. Thinning brown hair. Freckles. Vacant brown eyes. The last time Peggy had seen him was three weeks earlier when he’d still been working at Save-More and had bagged her groceries.
Peggy wasn’t sure why he’d been fired, but she assumed it was either drugs or alcohol. At least that’s what landed Lowry in jail. Or so went the gossip.
“Over here!” Lowry screamed, waving the gun. “Everybody over here!”
Odell.
Dr. Lanningham.
The woman in the cowboy hat.
The young man from the lumberyard.
Neil.
And Peggy.
Everybody.
“You don’t have to do this, Lowry,” Dr. Lanningham said calmly. He was in his late fifties, with a head of salt-and-pepper hair. It was the same voice that had told Peggy it was time to put her golden retriever, Betty, to sleep.
“Yes I do!” Lowry screamed.
He pointed the gun at Odell and said, “You never should have fired me. You should have just given me a warning or something.”
“I did give you—”
“No! You just threw me out on the street.”
Odell didn’t answer.
“Now move! Everyone to the back of the store!”
Peggy waited for someone to dart toward the door or make a run into one of the aisles.
No one did.
Everyone obeyed.
Everyone but Peggy.
Her legs seemed incapable of moving.
Lowry pointed the gun at her chest and shouted, “I said move!”
The young man from the lumberyard gave her a reassuring nod, then took her arm and guided her toward the rest of the group.
Lowry ushered the six of them to the back of the store and into the freezer bay. It was the size of a small bedroom, half filled with frozen items.
Lowry told them to sit on the floor, and Peggy fell to the cold concrete. The young man was to her left, Dr. Lanningham to her right.
Lowry stood in front of them. “I didn’t deserve it,” he said.
He pointed the gun at Odell and pulled the trigger. Odell’s head flopped backward, and he fell to his side.
Peggy screamed.
Lowry pulled the trigger again, the bullet hitting the young man next to her in the throat.
Peggy closed her eyes and said a quick prayer.
It would be her last.
Chapter One
Friday, May 27th, 2016
Seattle, Washington
I got fat.
Capital F.
Capital A.
Capital T.
FAT.
There were a lot of variables. Lack of exercise. Netflix. That new Dairy Queen Blizzard with all the fudge in the center. But those all came after the fact. After Gina moved back to Bolivia.
I met Gina Brady under dire circumstances the previous summer in South Africa. She was a doctor with the World Health Organization and had been living in a small village in Bolivia for the couple of years before we met. After we started dating, she moved to Washington and took a job at a clinic. Everything was going great, we were even talking about moving in together, when there was an outbreak of tuberculosis in her old village. That’s when she dropped the bomb.
The B-bomb.
She was moving back to Bolivia.
And she wanted me to come with her.
Let’s see, stay in a beautiful house overlooking Puget Sound or live in a hut in the freaking Amazon.
So I went with her.
Just kidding.
I declined her offer and watched a Naked and Afraid marathon on television. And I ate an entire pizza.
That was the beginning.
Of the fatness.
In the past, I would have been able to dig myself out of the funk that I found myself in. I would have gone for a couple of long runs, maybe phoned up an ex-girlfriend, maybe shot down to Tahiti for a couple of weeks.
But I couldn’t.
Get my legs to work.
I loved Gina. And to be honest, I considered moving with her to Bolivia. It would only have been for six months, just until the WHO could get a couple more doctors down there who spoke the language. But I couldn’t leave Harold. He could die at any second. I mean, when you looked at him, you would think he already had.
So I stayed.
On the rare occasion that my legs did cooperate, I let them carry me to the Willow Springs Nursing Home, also known as Fake Key West for People Who Are Like Seriously on Death’s Doorstep.
There isn’t a whole lot to do at a nursing home, and if Harold and I weren’t watching horse racing or playing chess—which Harold would unabashedly cheat at, constantly swapping his dead queen for pawns and thinking I wouldn’t notice—we were eating at the cafeteria.
Salisbury steak.
Macaroni and cheese.
Beef Wellington.
Pizza.
Tacos.
Salisbury steak.
Apple pie.
Cherry pie.
Peach pie.
Salisbury steak pie.
And then there were the cakes. Someone was always celebrating something. Mable is one hundred and ten, get her a cake. Wally’s third hip isn’t making that weird creaking sound anymore, get him a cake. Blanche’s niece just had a recital, get her a fucking cake.
By February,
