Last Day
He would have much preferred to send her an e-mail or even a text but he owed her the truth. The last 24 hours or so had finally awoken him to the reality that guided their lives and he had been much happier when he was still clueless about how bad things really were. He was a little surprised that tears had formed in his eyes and were making their way down his cheeks as he composed the letter on the computer.
Dear Amanda,
This note is as hard for me to write as it will be for you to read and my hope is that someday you will forgive me my many and hurtful mistakes. I still love you as much as anyone in the world and I feel pain that your opinion of me may be altered forever. Let me now offer an apology for what I have done and assure you that I am very sorry. Now on with the terrible news.
This week without you went terribly bad and I now realize that I have a problem or two that a few sessions with a shrink will not make a dent in. While the shrink did confess that he found it unlikely that I was depressed he did say that my occasional drug use has become a barrier to my happiness. In fact what I have referred to as occasional drug use has spiraled into flirting with outright addiction. I can face that reality now and have decided that the only way to regain control of my life and repair the damage I have done is to attempt to clean up my act and have scheduled some time in a facility that specializes in my particular problem.
As if my coming to realize that I am indeed a drug addict isn’t bad enough I have to tell you that I was unfaithful during your absence this week, have gambled away over half our savings and sold the contents of your emergency closet. I know that the stuff had a place in your life even if I didn’t understand why you needed it. The good news is that I couldn’t remember or find the combination to the gun safe and the guns are still safe inside it.
Please try to forgive me and I will contact you after my treatment and we can discuss our situation.
Love Always,
Chester
6 months, 2 days and 8 hours after Amanda read the letter from her husband.
Chester walked into the kitchen carrying a long thin box and set it gently on the kitchen table. Amanda was at the stove making pasta for their anniversary dinner and turned just as Chester was setting the box on the kitchen table.
She turned all the way around and saw the company logo stretched across the box. She wiped her hands on the towel hanging from the oven door. “Is that what I think it is? It looks like what I think it is. Is it? Answer me or I’ll hide your remote and not tell you where I hid it.”
Chester looking better than he had in years smiled at his wife’s excitement. His stint in rehab had started turning his full head of black hair grey at the temples and added to his almost rugged handsomeness. “My lovely wife I don’t know what you’re talking about. I found this box on the street and haven’t even looked inside to see what’s in it. I think it just fell out of somebody’s car or truck and is likely a collection of Justin Barber posters or plumbing supplies.”
Amanda stepped to the table and took a deep breath and smiled at her husband. “You lie; I can see it on your face. And besides the marginally talented and over-exposed asshole’s name is Beiber not Barber.”
Chester smiled. “Happy Birthday. I hope this will be the best 29th Birthday you’ve ever had. Now are you going to open the box or just stand there looking cute? And remember that later on you’re going to get your birthday spanking.”
Amanda touched the box and ran her fingers over the corrugated cardboard that held her birthday gift. She slowly swung the lid of the box up and looked inside hoping that it was the model she wanted. She lifted the lid to the black case that the rifle came in next and she stood there with a grin on her face. “Chester this is exactly the rifle I wanted, you did great. You even ordered it with the winter trigger guard. Prefect, this just might end up being my best 29th Birthday present ever.”
Chester smiled at his wife’s obviously delighted reaction to the present he had pondered over for over a month before ordering. “Well, the good news is that that isn’t all I got for your Birthday. Please follow me Birthday girl. Your birthday adventure continues.”
Amanda didn’t know what else her husband had planned for her special day and followed him into the garage. He stepped around to the bed of his truck parked in their small garage and pulled down the tailgate and stepped back for her inspection. Underneath the bed cover sat 6 plastic pails of supplies from their favorite LTS provider and next to it laid a concealable bulletproof vest that looked like it was in her size.
Amanda picked the vest up and checked the size and was happy to see that the sizing indicated that the vest would accommodate her larger than average bust and her slightly Rubenesque hips. She quickly swung the garment around and flipped it over her shoulders cinched the top straps and did a turn and moved around to see if it fit properly. She ripped the Velcro at one shoulder and then the other and adjusted the fit; she then did a strange dance to get a feel of the fit.
The fit was almost perfect and she turned toward Chester and kissed her husband on the lips. “It fits like a well made glove. Thank you, I love it and yes this is the best Birthday I’ve had for as long as I can remember. You did good Chester and I guess you bought another year in my fabulous company. Of course you still owe me that spanking and I’m going to hold you to it.”
Amanda was kidding about letting him stay on for another year and their relationship had never been as peaceful and fulfilling as it had been for the last 4 months since Chester had gotten back from rehab. Rehab for him had been the best thing to happen to their relationship in 5 years and had taught both of them how much they treasured their life together. The strange thing for Amanda is that all the stages of being mad at him had morphed into understanding and even his infidelity was forgiven like it had never happened. She knew that his mistakes were supposed to signal the end of their marriage but for her the healing process was a thing of beauty and an inspiration to her. If they could work it out then maybe more people should work at repairing their relationships instead of taking the easy way out and getting divorced.
2 years, 2 months, 2 days and 1 hour after Amanda read the letter from her husband.
Amanda stood over the dead body of her husband. One bullet had entered his chest low and was marked by a bloodstain. Another bullet had entered his head and made a small pucker at his temple and had taken a chunk from the back of his skull as it had exited. Blood and visible bone lay in an arc from where he had sat defended her and their baby and possibly saved her life. A stinging sensation still throbbed in her chest where a round had been stopped by the bulletproof vest she had been wearing. She was a tad short of breath from either a broken rib or the shock of what had happened in the last 2 minutes.
Since things had gone to hell in a hand basket life was cheap and she appreciated not only the gifts that had saved her life but her husband’s insistence that she slid her vest on and grab her rifle when the doorbell had rang at 10 o’clock at night. Her husband who her mother had called a loser when he had squandered half their life saving and ended up in rehab had died saving her life and her son’s life.
It happened so fast it seemed almost like a dream. Chester had his weapon out of the holster on his hip as soon as the two tall stinking men had pushed the door open. He killed the first man dead in his tracks almost instantly and winged the other in the leg before he caught the shot in the chest and fell to their imitation wooden floor. The second home invader had administrated the coup de grace as soon as Chester hit the floor and was perforated by Amanda’s AR 15 seconds after the man had killed her husband.
A single tear tracked down her face as she looked at what was left of the two men that lay next to her dead husband’s body. One of the men was familiar and she was trying to place him. He had a beard and hadn’t bathed for awhile and then it hit her. The men that had broken into their house was her husband’s old golf partners Evan and Phil. Chester admitted when he returned after rehab that the men had made a weekly habit of getting high and then hitting the links. Evan and Phil had been the people that had convinced Chester to try coke for the first time and Chester had made it a priority to avoid them like the plague since he had gotten back home and worked things out with Amanda.
Amanda reached into the med pack on her hip and extracted a pair of surgical gloves and felt for a pulse to insure that the men were all dead. As she stood up she noticed that the Glock that Evan had dropped looked familiar. She clearly remembered the day she had let the slide tumble to the floor while she was cleaning it after a day at the range and recognized the small scratch in the weapon’s durable finish. The gun had been stolen out of her car last month in front of the library and the Police hadn’t recovered it yet.
She reached down and searched Evan’s pockets and found a tactical knife that had been in the preps Chester had sold before carting himself off to rehab. He never told her who had bought the contents of her ‘emergency closet’ and now suspected it had been his former drug/golfing buddy Evan.
An idea formed in her head that shocked her. She wanted her preps back from the man that had almost ruined her life once and ended up killing her recovering husband. As far as she was concerned she had bought them back for the price of her husband’s life and she intended to collect if it was at all possible. She reached back into Evans pocket and pulled out his keys. If her ribs were broken her plan wasn’t going to work but if they were just sore she could do this.
Amanda called her mom and told her that something had come up and asked if she could watch Justice overnight. Her mom agreed assuming that her and Chester wanted alone time to further celebrate her birthday and promised to head right over. She went to the cabinet in the kitchen that held their medications and found the pain killers and split a Vicodin in two. She took the half pill and swallowed it with some water.
After 10 minutes the pain was better and she decided that most likely a rib was bruised and not broken as she had feared. Her mother showed up about them and Amanda met her at the door handed a sleeping Justice to her and followed with his bag to her minivan. At the minivan she leaned down and kissed her precious son and thanked her mother again for taking him. She wept silently as her mother drove away understanding that they had dodged a bullet and again was thankful her wonderful husband that lost his life defending her and her baby. She went back to the door and entered the house.
Amanda slowly and carefully went upstairs and waited to see if the shots had been reported and if the cops would show up. After another 30 minutes she changed into a pair of black overalls she had never worn and threw a set of comfy clothes into a duffle and left the house to search for Evan’s truck. Before she left she cranked up the AC and doused all the lights.
Evan’s truck was 2 blocks away sitting on the side of a road next to a line of bushes and she hopped in, set the duffle on the seat and plugged Evan’s address into the appropriate app on Phil’s smart phone. Then she stuck the key into the ignition and tested that the lights, blinkers and turn signal all worked like they were supposed to. She then hopped out of the truck and was pleased to see that the tags were current. Satisfied she had done all she could to keep from getting pulled over she took off to drive the 3.2 miles to Evan’s place. Off she went risking a heap of legal trouble and yet was compelled to follow this task to the end regardless of what happened. Her brave husband was dead, how could it get any worse?
Amanda cruised by Evan’s place and saw the place looked empty. The condo was in an older community and the feeling even at night was that it was maintained poorly. She had no idea if he had roommates or a live-in girlfriend so she parked the truck a block away and made her way to the front door and knocked. As she listened at the door the place had the feeling that it was empty and nobody moved around inside. She walked back down the street and retrieved Evan’s truck and drove around to his garage and hit his clicker. The doors rose in fits and starts and clanked loud enough to wake up every light sleeping retired person and dog on the block. The garage was thankfully empty and she whisked into it and hit the button to close the door.
As the door creaked its way back down the ill-maintained track she took a few deep breaths and summoned her courage and pushed the door of the truck open. Before she had clicked on her flashlight and the overhead light died she saw her small generator sitting under a workbench beside where the truck was parked. She walked toward the door to the house and flipped up the hood on the jacket she had found in the truck.
Most of all she was interested in finding what she had lost and getting the hell out of there so that she wouldn’t have to explain to the cops the delay in calling them. She hoped that her injuries would allow her the opportunity to claim she had passed out from the pain and called as soon as she had awoken and found a phone in the carnage that had been her family’s home.
She had walked into an unfinished area next to the garage and instantly saw some of her preps. Two one thousand round boxes of surplus .308 that was supposed to be Lake City sat on the floor. A grain mill she had paid $400.00 sat on a set of shelves next to her water purification supplies. They were still sealed in the bucket she had put them in three years ago and her hand written notes were affixed to the side written in Sharpie.
She decided to quickly explore the rest of the house and spend 30 minutes scouting the place out. She wore latex gloves the whole time and found what looked like Evan’s drug stash sitting in the walk-in closet of his bedroom on the floor. The room had the spartan look of somebody that was either just moving in or had recently been forced from their main residence. And while the coke held no interest for her the bottles of pain killers did and she took them and slipped them into her pockets.
While she had been nosing around in the kitchen she had found a receipt for a Glock in Phil’s name from 5 years ago and sitting next to the drugs was a Glock in 45 ACP. She ejected the magazine, cleared the chamber and pocketed the handgun and two magazines. 2 minutes into moving stuff around in the closet she found a small hidden panel in the back of the closet and yanked it out. She shined her flashlight inside and saw a wrapped bundle of coke that wouldn’t fit inside a softball. But the thing she was interested in was the familiar cloth bags that junk silver often times was sold in.
Next to it was 2 clear tubes that held what looked like gold 1 once coins. She didn’t take the time to examine her haul she just picked them up and headed back to the garage and unfinished area to get her stuff back and get gone.
The struggle to load her stuff into the truck was brutal and almost drove her to tears from the pain but 15 minutes later the creaky garage door was rolling up again and she was on the road back toward her house. She was trying to figure out where to stash her stuff or if she should just drive up to it and unload everything and change and get 911 on the line. When she had loaded the generator it had almost caused her to pass out from the pain near her ribs and she decided that the decision was simple. Park the truck in front of the garage at her house and unload her preps. Then she would walk 1/8 of a mile into the nearby park and stash the gold if it was gold, the silver that might be in the cloth bag and the Glock she had found. She’d strip off the overalls and tie a rock around them and throw them into the small lake that was there and sneak back home naked wearing just her shoes. Also Phil's phone would need to be tossed in the lake. If she could manage to rinse off in the backyard she’d then walk inside and put on the clothes she was wearing when the shooting happened.
All that unpacking and hiking around took 45 minutes and when she slipped back into her clothes she was exhausted. Exhausted as she was she walked to where she had fired from and hoisted her AR back onto her shoulder and squeezed off two more shots into the wall next to the doorway. She saw a fly land on Evan’s face as she dialed 911 and held her husband’s hand for the last time.
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