The Exact Nature of Our Wrongs by Janet Peery

Author:Janet Peery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Seven

On a night in late June, while Hattie lay sleeping soundly in the big bedroom, Abel was startled awake in his daybed in the back bedroom by the roar of an angry mob that milled in the south yard. The mob was bent on murder, preparing to storm the house. Doom was imminent. Calmly, with utmost stealth and a sense of mission, he rose from his bed, went to his gun cabinet, unlocked it, and took out his Sig Sauer P238. With great effort he strapped the gun belt over his boxer shorts, checked the gun’s magazine, and holstered up. Then he went to wake Hattie.

“Get dressed,” he whispered. “Put on your coat.”

She stirred under the bedclothes, confused, only half awake. What was it now? she wondered.

“At once!” he ordered. “Put on your coat!”

She gaped at him, but gathered the bedclothes and turned them back so she might get out of bed.

Under his breath, his eyes wide, his teeth gritted, he said, “Hurry! Japanese!”

She decided to try reason. “It’s summer, Abel. It’s hot outside. I don’t even know where my coat is. Japanese what?”

“Breaching the walls,” he shouted. “Call the police! I’ll cover you!”

She came fully awake and saw that he brandished a handgun. Her heart seemed to jump into her throat. “Abel! It’s all right. There’s no one out there.”

He shushed her. He stood at the alert, gun at his side. “Listen. Hear them?”

Hattie sat up in bed. It was a warm, breezy summer night and she heard the wind soughing in the cottonwoods along the creek behind the house, their stiff, fletched leaves clattering in the usual sound they made, a bit like rainfall, but that was all.

When he repeated, “Call the police!” she realized that he was in a delusional state, that he was hallucinating. Sundowning. The horror of their situation overtook her.

“I will,” she said, hoping to placate him. “Just let me find the phone.” She got out of bed and started toward the kitchen.

“Company, halt!” he barked.

She halted.

“Let me go in first.” He held the gun up, two-handed beside his face, the way they did in television shows. She let him lead.

The kitchen was dark and quiet. Outside the big window the trees tossed in the wind. Suddenly the refrigerator kicked on. He pivoted toward it, taking aim at the magnet-studded door.

Hattie groped along the counter for the phone. Her mouth was dry and when she spoke she could hardly get enough moisture to say, “Let me turn on the light.”

“Negative. Ix-nay.” When he was assured that the refrigerator presented no threat, he lowered the gun.

In the darkness she found the phone but couldn’t think of what to do next.

“Nine-one-one,” he provided. “Dial nine-one-one. Tell them we’re under siege. I’m going to check the perimeter.” Stepping cautiously around the corner, he moved toward the foyer and the front door.

Hattie made the call. “Help,” she said when the dispatcher asked what her emergency was. “We need help. My husband has a gun. He thinks there are people trying to get in the house but there aren’t any at all.

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