Glen Tate - 299 Days - The Collapse

“And I don’t like the implication that I’ve been wrong about things,” she said. “You are yelling at me and telling me I’m wrong and I don’t like it. I’m not going out to your stupid cabin just because there’s some protest.” She folded her arms. “I am staying here, and so are the kids. You can go if you want. Don’t ever come back.”

That stung.

You know what you have to do. This is when you need to leave.

This couldn’t be happening. Grant needed to convince her. “No, honey,” he pleaded. “You need to come with me to a place that’s safe with food. You need to come with me. We need to go tonight.”

She started to cry. “I’m not leaving!” She fully expected him to give in. He always did when she cried. Always.

“Not this time, honey,” Grant said in an amazingly calm voice. “Crying won’t do it.”

Lisa was stunned that Grant just said that. She started bawling. She was shaking and crying harder than he’d ever seen her.

All during their marriage, arguments ended when Grant hugged Lisa. She always interpreted the hug to mean she won; he interpreted the hug to mean he was doing the right thing by getting the argument behind them. Usually Grant didn’t really feel like hugging her after an argument. But he did it because he loved her.

Grant could feel that this was the “hug moment” and he almost started to hug her, out of habit. But he stopped. He couldn’t hug her. Not this time. Things were different. The country was falling apart, there was a riot occurring three miles away from them, and he had just killed several people attacking their neighborhood.

Hugging her would mean he agreed to stay put. And that meant dying. He had tried so many times to talk sense into her. If she couldn’t see why going to the cabin was the only thing to do, then she never would; hug or not. The outside thought was right. He had to go.

“Too bad, dear,” Grant said with a sigh. “I’m leaving. I won’t take the kids, even though Manda wants to come. I won’t use the kids as leverage to get you to come. If anything happens to them…” As mad as he was at her, he couldn’t make her feel guilty for what he knew was going to happen in a few days in the city, so he stopped short of saying what he meant.

Lisa wanted to yell out, “Hug me, stupid! If you hug me, I’ll go out to your stupid cabin for a few days.” She needed the hug because that meant things were like they used to be. Things would be normal if he hugged her, and she desperately needed some normal. She needed that hug so badly. She waited for it. She didn’t think she needed to ask for it; he should just do it.

*****

“Bye,” Grant said. “Please come and join me. Please.”

She just cried.

Grant remembered what his Grandpa said back in Oklahoma. “Don’t ever want something so much you’ll do anything for it. You’ll pay too high a price, in money or something else. Maybe your soul.” That was exactly right. Grant wanted Lisa too much. He wanted to be with her and the kids so much. Too much. He could feel himself actually thinking about staying in the house—even with the riots, looters, and maybe the police after him—because he wanted them to be together. How stupid was that? Talk about paying too high a price for something. No.

Grant wanted Lisa to come with him, but he wasn’t willing to pay a price like death or jail to be with her. People could say he “abandoned” his family if they wanted to. Lisa was making a choice. She was choosing to stay in a place where they would die or Grant would go to jail. Grant couldn’t live with that choice.

He had tried several times over the years to change her mind. He did amazing things to make it possible for her to have a safe place like getting the cabin and stocking it with supplies. What else could he do? Seriously. What else could he have done for her?

Grant wasn’t going to put a gun to her head and tell her to get in the car. People make stupid choices every day. She was making one today. He wasn’t going to die for her. He would die to try to save her but not for ballet rehearsals.

It was weird. After Grant finally decided in his head that he would have to go to the cabin without her, everything became clear. He was relieved. He could actually think just about fighting off criminals, getting past any checkpoints that might be out there, securing enough food, roadblocks, and other “little” things like that. They were little compared to the mental weight of trying to constantly convince Lisa to come with him. He actually smiled. OK. This is how it’s going to be. Play the hand you’ve been dealt and survive. Don’t live by the “normal” rules because there is no more “normal.”

Grant had a plan for this. Of course. He went out to his car, walking past Lisa, who was crying, and got his list of things to take with him. He started gathering them up, including stealing Manda’s cell phone. He had a use for that. He hoped that she didn’t mind that he had stolen it. Given what was happening, it seemed like a small thing.

Grant’s plan for the possibility that Lisa would not come to the cabin was to leave her some food and the .38 revolver with the red laser dot. He went to the garage and got the food out of his trunk that he purchased at Cash n’ Carry earlier that day. Twenty-five pounds of pancake mix, a few big jars of peanut butter, twenty pounds of pasta, a case of big cans of pasta sauce, several hundred individual oatmeal packets. He put the food in a pile in the garage and put the .38 carrying case on top. He put an ammo can of .38 ammo at the base of the pile. He looked at the pile and said to himself, “So, twenty-five plus years together and it comes down to this.”

The pile was a symbol of how Grant had failed. He couldn’t convince a woman who supposedly loved him to leave a dangerous situation and come to a safe place. He had failed.

Deal with it, Grant thought. Deal with it because there will be more heartbreak and disappointment coming in the next few…however long this lasts.

Grant found Lisa in their bedroom crying. He said, “Come to the garage. There is something you need to see.” She didn’t want to come. She probably thought it was a dead body. That actually made him laugh to himself. Dark humor in a dark time.

“Fine,” he said. “There’s enough food for a month or so, even stuff you like to eat. It’s in the garage.” He added, sarcastically, “I’m so crazy that I got you all this stuff. Boy, you have a shitty husband, don’t you?” He couldn’t help it. It was so absurd. He was pissed at her. “I’m leaving you a gun. Manda will show you how to use it. You’ll need it. Of course, you and the kids could be with me far from the rioting and with neighbors who will look out after us. But, no.” He felt guilty for saying something that mean. But he was done trying to persuade her. He’d held back for years. He had nothing to lose. She was forcing him to leave. Making her mad was the least of his concerns.

Lisa just sat there crying. She couldn’t believe this was happening. After a few seconds, Grant realized he was being mean to her. He didn’t mean to do that. He had just slipped. Years of frustration were coming out. He regretting being sarcastic like that.

The fact that he had all that food and a gun picked out just for her made her mad. What an asshole, she thought. He was just trying to win an argument. Trying to make her look bad.

Grant was getting impatient. “I gotta go,” he said. “I will load up my car with the last of my stuff and head out.” That was it. The goodbye to their whole lives. Twenty five years of being inseparable. Having kids. Struggling through having an autistic child, law school, medical school, all the normal marriage bumps in the road. Dreaming about living the American Dream together and hopefully retiring some day in wealth and comfort. And it came down to this. Grant just walking out of the bedroom, leaving her crying. Leaving her and packing his stuff into the car. And, he didn’t regret it.