Glen Tate - 299 Days - The Visitors

During the past three weeks of debate and frustration, he spent a lot of time thinking about whether he had to continue to be a gunfighter. He loved waking up with Lisa like he was this morning; he needed to figure out how to make that happen for the next several decades instead of getting himself killed during some raid.

Grant wasn’t a quitter, though. He thought about what he could still do for the community, but that didn’t involve breaking down doors and getting shot at. He could be the judge and administrator. He could keep the community together, politically. He could train gun fighters during the day and then come home for dinner. He could do a lot for Pierce Point. He had already done a lot. He had been the political and administrative leader they needed during those critical first few days. He started the Pierce Point meal cards and the FCard lottery. He got the ARs to Bennington so they now had medical supplies and safe passage into Frederickson. He helped train and motivate the guards at the gate. He masterminded the brilliant head fake that let them keep a semi load of food. Grant smiled. He’d done plenty. Plenty.

Lisa began stirring. She put her arm out and felt for him. She smiled. He was home, and safe. She felt safe with him there. She tapped him on the shoulder and they did something they’d been doing a lot since after the raid.

The day was starting off well. Grant got up and began to make pancakes, which he never got tired of. He laughed. He thought about that famous line in the movie Apocalypse Now: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like victory.” Well, Grant loved the smell of pancakes in the morning. It smelled like victory, only this time, “victory” meant that he was with his family and had food for them. Napalm and guns and killing weren’t victory.

This is how it was supposed to be. The kids were up. The grandparents were up. It was sunny. Grant wasn’t going to work today. He started to put his pistol belt on. He decided not to. Not today. It felt weird not having it on, but he was a father and husband today, not a fighter. The pistol belt would go back on tomorrow.

He hadn’t had a day off in…he had no idea. He honestly could not remember the last time he took time off. His last day off had been too long ago. A lifetime ago. In fact, the new Grant—the guy out at Pierce Point, as opposed to his previous totally unrecognizable self in Olympia—had never had a day off. He hadn’t fully relaxed since before the Collapse started which was…who even knew. It really seemed like a lifetime ago. Everything was so different now. Everything.

However, the important things were the same. His family. That was the same. Different location, different conditions, but the same people.

Grant ate about a dozen pancakes. He hadn’t eaten dinner the night before because he’d had another one of those long community meetings at the Grange. He didn’t want to eat the whole family’s daily amount of pancakes, so he got some leftover red beans and rice from the fridge. Thank goodness the microwave still worked, even after the end of the world as they knew it. He grabbed a can of chicken from the food he had stored in the shed and threw that in. He was a little embarrassed at all the food he was eating, but no one said anything. They knew he had been working amazingly hard for the past few weeks.

There was a light knock at the door. It was Pow. Manda opened the door and let him in. “You coming to the truck, man?” he asked Grant. “We’re leaving in a few minutes.” Pow noticed that Grant didn’t have his pistol belt on. He had never seen Grant out at Pierce Point without a pistol belt on.

“I’m not going,” Grant said. It sounded weird. Not going? What?

“Come on, man,” Pow said, thinking Grant was joking.

“No, seriously, I’m not going,” Grant said. “I need a day off, man. I’ve been going full speed for weeks. I’m taking the day off.”

Pow thought about it. That made sense. Grant had been working non-stop ever since Pow got out here.

Pow sensed that Grant had changed a little since the raid. With his family there, Grant was no longer just a guy on the Team. He was a husband and father, too. Pow got that feeling that comes when a member of the group had a new girlfriend and would suddenly become scarce. Pow didn’t like it, but he couldn’t fault Grant for taking a day off or scaling back with the Team. Grant had set things up beautifully for them out there and deserved a break. Pow knew Grant would soon be back with the Team.

“No problem, dude,” Pow said. “You do your thing here and enjoy it. We totally have it covered. So, we’ll see you tomorrow?” Pow asked. He wanted to get a commitment from Grant. He was an insurance salesman, after all.

“Yep, you’ll see me tomorrow,” Grant said. Lisa smiled, indicating that she was OK with that.

Lisa said, “Tell them at the Grange that I’ll be in late unless there’s an emergency.” Pow nodded. She deserved a little time off, too.

Drew and Eileen were downstairs with them, listening to the conversation. They realized that Lisa, Grant, and the kids needed some time together. They would go do their things today and leave the family alone.

After Pow left, Lisa said, “So what do we do with a morning to ourselves?”

Grant looked back at the bedroom. She smiled and shook her head. “No, Mr. Greedy.”

Grant shrugged and said, “I tried.”

“How about hanging out here with the kids?” Grant asked. “Just, you know, hanging out.”

The kids heard that and couldn’t believe how lucky they were to have their mom and dad both in the same place for more than a few minutes. That hadn’t happened in…a long time.

So the family just sat on the couch and talked. About what they did over the past few days. What they wanted to do that summer. They didn’t talk about food shortages, corruption, gangs, killing, or politics.

Manda talked a lot about all the kids in the area who she was gathering to play together and all the things they liked to do. She wanted to start working with Mary Anne Morrell, the retired teacher, to start teaching the kids to read. Manda loved that.

Cole talked a little, which was a lot for him, about playing with Manda. He wanted to go fishing sometime.

“Like how about now?” Grant asked him.

Cole’s eyes lit up. “Now? Well, yes, father,” he said.

Lisa said, “You guys go and have fun.”

“Sure,” Grant said. “We’ll fish right on the beach here.” He winked at Lisa because he knew that they wouldn’t catch anything on the beach. It was too shallow. But what the heck. It wasn’t about catching fish.

Cole was excited. “I’ll get the fishing pole,” he said, heading for the basement.

Grant realized that the basement was locked and said, “Wait up, little buddy,” and got his key. He made Cole wait upstairs so he wouldn’t see what was in the basement. Grant found two of the basic fishing poles and the small tackle box he had down there. When he first got the cabin, Grant took the fishing poles and tackle box they never used in their Olympia home and brought them out.

The tackle consisted of merely some hooks and little spinners. They weren’t calculated to actually catch saltwater fish, especially from the beach, but what the heck. Cole was getting to do something he wanted to do, and was doing it with his dad.

The tide was about halfway in. Grant showed Cole how to cast. They fished for about an hour. They mostly talked. Well, with Cole, that meant Grant talked and Cole nodded or shrugged, but Cole was saying a little bit.

Grant told Cole a story about giant octopuses – friendly ones – out in the water in front of their cabin. There weren’t any out there, but it made a good story. He told Cole about how the octopus families loved each other and took care of each other. That made Cole happy. He felt like a little octopus in a happy octopus family. He knew that his sister and parents, and grandparents, took good care of him. He appreciated it, even if he didn’t say it.