The Morning I Asked for My Rifle

The Phone Call

I didn’t call Amber that night. People have asked me since why I didn’t, and the honest answer is that I wanted her to hear it from her husband, not her mother.

I have seen a marriage break when the news came in through the in-laws.

It turns into a fight about who told, and the real thing gets lost. I wanted to give Chad the chance to be a man about it first.

So I called him. He picked up on the second ring, and I could hear the television and Lily laughing in the background. “Hey, Mom. You need something? I can come by tomorrow.”

“I went to the bank today, Chad,” I said. “I printed the statements. I saw the rifle, and I saw Las Vegas. I saw all of it.”

Then I didn’t say anything else, because I wanted to hear what he’d say.

He was quiet so long I thought the call had dropped. I could hear him walking, a door closing, then the cold sound of outside. He’d gone out on the porch so they wouldn’t hear him.

“Mom,” he finally said. “I can explain it. I swear I can. Please don’t tell Amber yet. Let me come over this week, before the opener, and lay it all out for you. Please.”

“All right,” I said. “This week.” I hung up and sat at the kitchen table until the furnace kicked on twice. I didn’t sleep much.

He didn’t come Monday. He didn’t come Tuesday. On Wednesday I baked a coffee cake out of habit, in case.

Thursday afternoon I got a text that said, “Mom can we please do this after the season. I’m sorry. Please.”

I read that text maybe twenty times. After the season meant after Thanksgiving. It meant sitting across from my daughter at her own table, passing the potatoes, knowing what I knew while she didn’t.

I couldn’t do it. I’m not built that way. On Friday night I laid out my long underwear, my barn coat, and the blaze orange hat I bought years ago to walk the road during season, and I set the alarm for half past four.