Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Sassy answers on the first ring. “Lowyn, my girl. How are you doin’ today?”
“I’m just fine, thank you. I’m calling to let you know that Collin and Amon have a plan for your doggie.”
She squeals. “That’s great! How soon can we do it?”
“They tell me there’s a jet scheduled for this Wednesday. We’re all goin’ to the Bahamas on vacay. Would you like to come along?”
She gasps. “That would be the highlight of my life, Lowyn McBride! I would love it.”
“Pack your things, Sassy. And be here at six a.m. on Wednesday.”
She squeals again. Then we say our goodbyes and hang up.
Her toys are what I’m cataloguing today. It’s a gold mine. A 1978 Luke Skywalker Action Figure. A Monopoly game, but not just any Monopoly game. This is the very first one ever made—hand-drawn on oil cloth—and owned by the game’s inventor. This is just the start. Sassy gave me four trunks of comics that together are worth more than three million dollars.
A gold mine in exchange for the safe return of one teeny-tiny chihuahua called Prissy.
Sassy thinks this is an even trade because part of the deal is that I have to put it all online so she can send the links to her ex-husband and picture him crying his eyes out as I sell it all off.
“He’ll probably buy it all back, Lowyn!” she told me with bright eyes. “Wouldn’t that just be the most ironic thing ever?”
It might not be the most traditional version of happily ever after, but it certainly is satisfying.
THREE WEEKS LATER
Prissy the chihuahua was delivered via basket. This was Sassy’s idea. “She has been sleepin’ in this basket since the day she was born. Trust me,” Sassy told us. “If we lower it down, she will hop right in.”
Amon wanted to use some kind of claw attachment for the drone that didn’t come with it, and therefore set us back another five thousand dollars. So I was a little bit hot that we bought that thing and didn’t even use it. But Amon said, “Relax, Collin. It’s a writeoff. And a claw really comes in handy.” Then he slapped me on the back and went back to whatever the fuck he was doing.
Sassy was right about the basket. We took a jet down to the Bahamas, rented a yacht for a day from a guy Amon and I knew once upon a time, and flew that drone right down to Mr. Former Sassy Lorraine’s boat dock where the dog was sleepin’. We put a little speaker on the basket, just in case, with Sassy’s voice callin’ Prissy to go to bed.
“That’s all ya got to say,” Sassy said. “‘Go to bed’ and she’ll jump right in.”
She was right. The whole thing took about thirty minutes. Then we had a nice lunch on the deck and were back at our hotels by dinnertime.
Sassy and Amon went home, but Low and I stayed for a couple days to relax a little. We’d never been on a trip together and it was nice. And when we got home, our house was ready for us to move in. We don’t barely have any furniture yet, but we don’t mind.
Mercy stays inside at night, but during the day she guards our porch. Amon says I’m wastin’ her. “She’s only two, Collin! She wants to work!”
Maybe. But personally, I think she prefers the porch. So that’s where I let her spend her days. Amon should’ve kept her for himself if he wanted to boss her around.
McBooms is still open and Lowyn still goes into town for that, but when she gave Rosie a free house to live in, it came with a full-time job. Rosie minds McBooms now, and Lowyn spends her time doing consultations and picking people’s junk and puttin’ it online.
I took Amon’s advice on that pickin’ trip and now we do that together. One week a month we get to take a little vacation. It might not be fancy-fancy, but it’s more than enough for us.
But today isn’t about any of that.
Today is about our men.
Two buses pull into the compound at three forty-five in the afternoon. They stop right in the middle of the road, about halfway between Nash’s house and our house.
There are sixty men inside those buses and Amon, Nash, Ryan, and I are waiting when they all pile out. Big men. Dangerous men. Unstable men. They don’t fit in anymore. Every single one of them was found either in a homeless shelter or in jail.
This is their second chance. A fresh start using the skills they built so carefully over the years. They were giants in the military. The best of the best. They came home from things no one ever wants to talk about.
And that’s the problem, really. You gotta have someone you can talk about that shit with. That’s the whole point of a war story. That’s why old men tell those stories. They can’t just file them away and forget.