The New Husband(38)

I grabbed a fold-up chair and positioned it in front of a storage unit that was pushed against the back wall. If it were a dangerous weapon, something that could shoot more than one lead slug every three minutes, Simon might have kept it locked up in a safe. But we kids were older, and supposedly knew better than to play with guns or mess around with things that didn’t belong to us. Besides, I didn’t see any ammo around.

I got Simon’s antique musket down with ease. It was wrapped in a soft fleece blanket, along with the bayonet, which wasn’t attached. I didn’t see any gunpowder or ancient bullets nearby, but I wasn’t about to load the stupid thing and shoot Simon dead. I’m not a maniac.

The gun felt lighter than I expected, about the weight of a baseball bat, maybe a bit heavier. I stepped down from the chair and lifted the musket to eye level, picking up a faint scent of oil, like engine oil, or WD-40, some treatment to keep it in working condition. I examined the various components and saw there wasn’t really much to it. The wood was dark and rough, like the hull of a ship that sailed in cold seas. The long gun barrel had some rusty spots, and plenty of dings, like it had seen some action, but it looked to be in pretty good condition.

I was mostly interested in the trigger mechanism. It was pretty cool to see it up close, I had to admit. Kids went bonkers to touch Mr. Fitch’s rifle, and here I was holding it in my hands like I was playing soldier or something. The metal of the trigger was silver-colored and badly tarnished. There were some letters carved into a silver plate—HENSHAW, I think it read. I could barely make out a date, 1772, that had also been etched into the soft metal.

I called Ben at home, and he answered right away, expecting my call.

“I got the gun,” I said.

“Well, yeah,” he said, because that really wasn’t the hard part.

“I’m just letting you know,” I said, a bit annoyed.

“Okay, but where are you going to do it?”

“I’ll do it right here, right now,” I said.

“What about your phone, the proof?”

“I’ve got that taken care of.”

“So do it,” Ben said.

If he had a phone, I’d probably Snapchat him, or we might use Talkie, which was the new new thing, because there always had to be a new thing when it came to social media. Instead, I pressed the speakerphone icon and set my cell phone on the same chair I’d used to help me get the gun.

“Can you hear me?” I asked.

“Loud and clear,” Ben answered, his voice calming me.

“Okay,” I said, taking in a breath and holding it for a bit. “Here I go.”

“You know he’s going to have a right to be mad at you,” Ben said.

I paused. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean you might record him freaking out, but won’t your mom say he had a good reason to be angry?”

“If I’m right,” I said, “it’s not going to look like normal anger to her.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Ben. “Go for it.”

I began to pull hard on the gold-plated loop that arched over the trigger. At first, it wouldn’t budge, but then I tugged it from side to side, harder and harder with each yank, until I eventually heard a crack of old wood splitting and the piece of metal snapped right off the gun with some splintered wood still attached.

Immediately after, I felt a lot of relief because I’d done it. Then, about two seconds after that, I felt sick to my stomach, because, you know, I’d done it.

“Wow. I heard that crack!” Ben cried out.

“Yeah,” I said, sounding shaky, my words catching in my throat. I could feel my heartbeat going way too fast. “Now for the fun part.”

And upstairs, I went to look for Simon, to tell him what had happened.



* * *



I FOUND Simon out in the yard, rake in hand, but he wasn’t raking up anything. Instead, he was again eyeing the branches of the oak tree that extended from the neighbors’ property onto ours. I didn’t know what to make of that, but my bigger concern was the torn-up hunk of metal and wood I held in my left hand. Of course I was worried. Would Simon be pissed off to just the right degree of mad, enough so that I’d get grounded and that would be that? It was too late to try out a plan B, even if I had one. I couldn’t exactly glue the broken part back on.

I had my phone in my hand because phones were always attached to teenagers’ hands, like an extension of our palms. No suspicion there, no reason for Simon to think I might be recording his reaction to the bad news I was about to share. I still had Ben on the phone, just in case Simon started murdering me or something. At least Ben would be a witness to the crime and I’d have justice from the grave.

But the truth was I didn’t think Simon was going to hurt me. My only goal was for Mom to see that angry look, get some video evidence, proof that her sweet Simon wasn’t at all who he pretended to be. He was a showman, a liar, and someone we had to get out of our house right away.

I crossed the lawn, approaching Simon with the apprehension of a dog that had just gone potty in the house. I carefully held my phone so the display was facing me, the camera lens facing out toward Simon.

“Simon,” I croaked out, realizing this was my second big acting job in nearly as many days. “I have something to tell you.” The nervous edge to my voice wasn’t faked in the slightest.