HOME | DD

Description
Wake up.

I snapped awake when my head fell forward; I was sleeping while standing. It was the third time this morning.

Pay attention.

Exhaustion had long ago set in, so it took several minutes before I realized I wasn't dreaming and that I recognized the voice. I was surprised when the pirate entered the kitchen through the side door. I hadn't seen her in months.

"Something's wrong."

She had crossed to the receiving window without greeting me and poked her head through, looked both ways, then came back.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you're here, and I haven't seen you in months."

She narrowed her eyes at me, then leaned back through the window.

"You were sleeping," she said over her shoulder. "You really should pay attention."

I followed the tilt of her jaw in time to see a person walk by outside. People had been walking by all morning; the kids were leaving and the place was crawling with parents.

But none of the other parents were wearing bullet-proof vests.

"Who's that?"

"Go see."

So I wiped my hands on my apron, found them dry, and wondered how long I'd been sleeping when she woke me up. The big room was empty but through the window I could see a black vest labeled "sheriff" in white letters.

Two dads were yelling for their girls to get in the truck NOW. The assistant looked stricken, then she hopped in her car and fled. That left me and my gut with the sheriff and her walkie.

"Get inside," she told me.

"I need to understand what's happening." My kitchen. My camp. My responsibilities.

"There's a man with a gun in the woods. You need to stay inside."

And she was gone. Maybe she got in her car, or went around the edge of the building. Maybe she vaporized. I didn't notice, because I couldn't tear my eyes from the wall of woods in front of me.

"Come inside."

I couldn't make my feet move. My gut felt cold and my eyes darted, seeing everything and nothing. Every moment I waited to feel a bullet in my chest.

"Get inside right now!"

It was the pirate, grabbing my arm and steering me back through the door. I watched it swing close with a familiar squeaky sigh, daylight streaming through every edge and the cracks in the middle. Then I looked through the windows: floor to ceiling on two sides, fifteen feet up to a section of slanted roof, then a tower of window and skylight.

I was alone in a building of wood and glass with doors that didn't lock and nowhere to hide.

I was the first line of defense between a man with a gun and a camp full of parents and kids.

Kids.

I was alone.

"Where are my kids?"

"The baby's in the kitchen." She was checking her blasters. "The kid was with your husband."

I turned around to look through the other glass wall; my husband was casually strolling toward the bridge, the lab trotting beside him.

"Oh God..."

I sprinted back into the kitchen to grab my phone but first I couldn't find it, and then I couldn't remember how to use it.

Music turned off and back on. Pictures of my kids, Facebook, and recipe websites.

"Give me that," the pirate said, scrolled, and handed it back.

"It went straight to voicemail."

"So dial again."

She was rocking the baby with her boot. He was sleeping soundly.

Four tries later and I got him. Yes, he knew. Yes, stay inside. Our daughter was in cabin 3 and I could leave her there because she was behind him.

"What?"

The cabins were behind him. Through the window I watched him pointing, gesturing. He was leaning on the fender of a red-striped cruiser next to a man in a bulletproof vest. The man stooped to stick his head through the window. The cabins were behind him. Everything behind him was safe. I needed to get in the kitchen, away from the windows.

"I want to go home."

Take the road to the cabins, that should be fine. Get the kid or don't. Love you.

I put the phone in my apron pocket and looked at the pirate.

"We're in between the gunman and the sheriff. We can stay or go home. My kid's at the cabin."

She nodded and waited.

"I want to go home."

"Alright."

I grabbed the baby. She checked the windows. I tried to look nonchalant dashing to the minivan, not buckling my infant in his seat. The sunlight was filtering down through the leaves and I wondered what a bullet felt like.

"Drive."

I stared at the dials set in the dash; my hand swiped empty air between the seat where the gear-shift should have been.

"Drive!"

I found the stick on the dash and shifted park through drive before landing in neutral, revving the engine, and finally finding reverse. The pirate looked over her shoulder and steered me through the trees because I couldn't look myself.

Every moment I saw a man bursting through the trees.
Every moment I felt a bullet in my shoulder blade.

And there we were, navigating the sand in what we called a parking lot, squeezing between two trees to avoid a gully, swerving around the potholes. Quickly as I dared, slowly as I dared, doing my best to look normal and not frantic.

Can gunmen smell fear?

"No," she answered my unspoken thought. "Are we getting the kid?"

"Yes."

"Want me to go in?"

"No."

"I can potato-sack her."

I knew. It'd already happened a few times that weekend, the potato-sacking. But this was my kid. My kid. My camp. My responsibility.

"I'll get her. I'll be right back.

Three steps up to the cabin. I didn't knock. They were playing cards, the 15-18 year olds and the two twenty-somethings.

Babies.

I grabbed my kid, told her to tell them bye.

"But please can't I stay?"

Nope. And we were on the porch, and on the pine needles, and I was tossing her through the open door. I heard the door lock behind us.

"The cruiser's moving."

Panic.

"Husband's not in a building. Oh God, he's not inside."

"And now he's running. Watch out for the cruiser."

I took the Y without slowing; he went the other way. Five yards from the driveway we saw the line of cars coming through the gates.

"Parents."

So we stopped them. Go straight to the cabin, get your kid, and get out. We'll mail anything you want. My phone buzzed: husband.

They're chasing the guy. He can hear the dogs barking.

"Police dogs or the dogs that live behind us?"
"Every dog in the world."

I keep talking to the parents. My phone buzzed: text.

The .38 is beside the bed. The bullets are in the drawer. Love you.

When the parents drove back out of camp, none of them bothered waving. We went home, locked every door, drew all the curtains. Put the kid in the bath. Sat down in a recliner to wait.

That's when I got the shakes.

"Relax," the pirate said and poured herself a drink. "It's done. You'll be fine in a minute."

The shakes were done by the time we went back to the kitchen to finish cleaning. They'd caught the guy a few hours before that.

Two weeks later and I can't stop looking over my shoulder at the trees.