Wavering Convictions

by Erin Dutton

  “Sure. Say, do you mind bringing my plate up and putting it here in front of me so I don’t have to get up?”

  Maggie laughed. She shoved off the bed and, still holding Ally’s hand, pulled Ally with her. “Let’s go. I’ve worked up an appetite.”

  * * *

  “Would you pour the wine? I have a white chilling in the fridge.” Maggie bent to remove the lasagna from the oven.

  “Sure.”

  Maggie straightened and pivoted to set the casserole dish on the trivet on the counter. Ally stood in front of the fridge with a wine bottle in one hand and a small card in the other, looking at Maggie quizzically.

  “The opener is over there. It’s one of those electric gadgets.” Ally didn’t move. “I got distracted and didn’t put the bread in. But I’ll do it now. We should let that pasta cool so we don’t strip a layer off the roof of our mouths anyway.”

  “What is this?” Ally held out a business card. “Why do you have a card for a gun shop?”

  “I stopped by there one day, and the saleswoman gave me that.” She’d stuck it under a magnet on the fridge and, frankly, had forgotten about it, even after she went to the range with Charlie.

  “And you forgot you had it?” Ally’s condescending tone grated. She seemed to expect Maggie to deny the intent behind the visit.

  “I put it there on the fridge so I’d know where it was when I was ready to make a decision.”

  “Are you thinking about purchasing a gun?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “For self-defense.”

  “No, no.” Ally raised a finger in front of her. “One of those classes where you learn to beat up on the dude in the overly padded suit. That’s self-defense. This,” she waved her hand away from her body as if the card itself was as offensive as what it represented, “this is just stupid.”

  Ally’s self-righteous tone riled Maggie, not to mention her use of the word stupid. “While I appreciate your opinion, sleeping with me doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do.”

  “Whoa. I’m not trying to tell you what to do. This is just—not what I expected. Why would you want a gun?” Ally tossed the card onto the counter. But Maggie imagined that she’d rather have thrown it in the trash can.

  “I don’t ever want to be just a victim again.”

  “The odds of that happening to you again—”

  “It won’t. Next time I’ll fight back.” Maggie smothered the urge to try to explain what she’d felt like that evening. Ally would probably never be able to understand what it was like to be powerless. And it didn’t matter. This was her decision, not Ally’s. “Can we table this discussion in favor of dinner? I really am starving.”

  “Sure.” Ally turned away to open the wine, but given the stiff set of her shoulders, Maggie didn’t think this conversation was over.

  By the time Maggie had plated the lasagna, the bread was ready. Ally set a glass of wine on the counter beside Maggie and wandered over to the eat-in area on the other side of the L-shaped countertop. The small rectangular table with two chairs on one side and a narrow bench on the other had been one of Maggie’s favorite furniture purchases when she first moved in. But she didn’t use it when she ate alone, so the corner of it had ended up as a catch-all for mail and bills she needed to pay later.

  She brought their plates over and returned for her wine. Ally sat on the bench side and folded her hands in her lap. Maggie considered taking the other end of the bench, to be close to her, but thought that might be awkward, so she pulled out one of the chairs.

  “This is good. Thanks for making it,” Ally said after a few bites.

  “I’d cook more, but I abhor going to the grocery store. So I often just grab takeout on the way home. There’s a little deli on my route that does great subs and salads.”

  “You should try one of those meal-delivery services.”

  “I’ve thought about that. If I do, I’ll let you know what I think.”

  Ally made a small sound that could either be agreement or simply a lack of anything else to say.

  They ate, in the midst of the longest lull in their conversations since they first met. Maggie’s frustration built along with the tension between them. They’d been having this amazing weekend. She had a myriad of physical and emotional stuff to dissect later, but she’d been feeling good about everything between them and had even started to hope they could figure out a way through the inevitable complication of the criminal trial. And gun control would be their insurmountable barrier?

  She lifted her napkin off her lap and dabbed at her mouth, then dropped it on the table next to her plate. “Why is this such a problem for you?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Then why are you pouting?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are. Since you seem intent on ruining our evening, we might as well talk about it.”

  “Okay.” Ally set her fork down a bit too forcefully on her plate, wincing as it clanged.

  Maggie made a go-ahead motion with her hand.

  “For starters, I’m not a fan of private citizens arming themselves.”

  “I’m not asking you to buy a gun.”

  “Just to be okay with you having one?”

  She started to remind Ally that since they didn’t have a future, it shouldn’t matter to her if Maggie bought one. But her chest ached just thinking about losing this amazing connection just when they’d taken it to the next level.

  “You should respect my right to own one under the laws as they currently stand. Especially if it makes me feel safe. I got robbed.”

  “The gun wasn’t even loaded.”

  “I didn’t know that when he threatened me, did I?” In fact, she hadn’t found out until later that Carey Rowe had claimed the gun wasn’t loaded. Charlie had told her when she called to inform Maggie that he’d been arrested. She tried to remember if she’d told Ally. Or had Ally learned that from Carey?

  “So, if you’d had a gun, would you have shot my brother?” Ally looked like she immediately wanted to pull that question back, and Maggie almost wished she could, so she wouldn’t have to consider it.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Should you really be carrying around a gun if you don’t think you could use it?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “Well, then what are you saying?”

  “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d had a gun that day. But I’m not the same person now that I was then, either.” She’d changed in so many ways. Whereas before she’d let things happen and accepted them as fate, now she wanted to take control of her life.

  “And now you know what you’d do?”

  “I don’t want to shoot anyone. The thought that I could take a life—”

  “That’s just great. He’s done some stupid shit. But he’s still my brother, and I don’t want him dead.” Ally surged off the bench and strode to the living-room area, pacing in front of the coffee table.

  “I don’t want anyone dead, either. But if it’s them or me…” Maggie followed, though more slowly. She stopped behind the couch, leaving it as a barrier between them. She wanted to understand Ally’s family stress around Carey’s actions, but how could that compare to what she’d gone through? Carey had made a decision to do what he did, and maybe his addiction had contributed to it. But not all addicts committed robbery. Maggie hadn’t had a choice in her part of their interaction. She’d been in the wrong place, and for whatever reason, Carey had targeted her.

  “Are those the only options?”

  “I didn’t think so. Before.” She picked at her left thumbnail, worrying a piece of dry skin. “Now, in the aftermath of what happened to me, I feel the need to examine what will make me feel secure again.”

  “And you think a gun will do that? How many times do you really hear about someone justifiably defending themselves with a firearm versus the people who commit crimes with guns?”
>
  “So we’re back to a gun-control debate?” Maybe they would be on more solid ground if they returned to a purely political conversation, because letting Ally’s emotions get inside her was nearly as bad as examining her own feelings on the subject.

  “How do you think the bad guys get them? They aren’t out there buying them legally.”

  How many questions was Ally going to fire at her? And why did she have to be the one with all the answers? “I don’t know. How did your brother get a gun?”

  Ally made a sound like a growl in her throat as she turned away. Whatever she mumbled, Maggie couldn’t make it out.

  “Ally?”

  “I can’t.”

  She couldn’t what? She couldn’t believe that her brother had committed a crime? She couldn’t believe Maggie? “I thought we were past the point of pretending this didn’t happen. I get that he’s your brother, but even if you don’t want to believe he’s capable of robbery, he had a gun on him when he was arrested. So where did he get it?” Her voice rose as she spoke.

  “From me.” Ally spun around and jerked to a stop, her expression a mask of agony. “It was my gun. Er, rather, my father’s. But he stole it from my mother’s house, where I’d left it.”

  Maggie stared at her. Even when she played the words back in her head, they still didn’t make sense. The pistol that Carey Rowe had used to rob her had belonged to Ally. She said he’d stolen it, right? Ally didn’t put the gun in his hands. Not really. So then why did she feel like that’s exactly what happened?

  “Maggie, I—oh, hell, what am I doing?” Ally rubbed two fingers and a thumb across her brow. “I should go.”

  “Yes. I think you should.” Her voice sounded distant, like she heard herself from underwater.

  Ally bit her lip, then gave an awkward nod before she went to the door.

  The soft click of the latch as Ally carefully closed the door annoyed Maggie more than if she’d just slammed it behind her. Maggie circled the couch and sank down onto the center cushion. Why had she ever thought she could separate her feelings for Ally from what her brother had done?

  * * *

  Yes, I think you should. Maggie had seemed so composed when she said the words. But given her shocked expression, more emotions might have been brewing below the surface.

  As Ally got in her car and backed out of the parking spot, she was experiencing a cauldron of feelings herself—none of them good. She’d gone from having the best sex of her life, to arguing, to not knowing if she’d ever see Maggie again in a little over an hour. If she hadn’t been in the middle of it all, she wouldn’t have believed her evening could turn to such shit so quickly.

  She left Maggie’s apartment complex still picking apart their conversation. In the beginning, she hadn’t known why things were getting so out of hand. The idea of Maggie buying a gun had stirred a visceral reaction in her that she had trouble sorting out. Yes, she was generally anti-gun. But that felt a bit hypocritical since technically she’d had a gun herself.

  She’d held on to it because it belonged to her father. She had thought once about getting rid of it, but how did one dispose of a gun they no longer wanted? She remembered feeling funny at the time about selling it, not knowing who might eventually own it or what they would do with it. Which was ironic, now, given what Carey had done.

  And Maggie was right. She really had no authority to tell Maggie she couldn’t own one. She’d never been one of those people who had to force their opinions on other people. So why was this different?

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Ally grumbled as a white pickup truck pulled out and into her lane. She slammed her hand against the steering wheel and cursed again, both because of the idiot in front of her and because, damn, that hurt.

  At the next stop light, the idiot put on his signal light for the same right turn that Ally needed to make. She considered going straight instead and taking a longer route home. But maybe extending her drive in her current mood wasn’t the best idea. She turned and fell in behind him. When their side of the road split into two lanes, she whipped her car into the left lane and floored the accelerator to fly by him, sparing him only one glance in the rearview mirror. Once she was clear of his truck, that stress disappeared, and she could focus again on the other issue burning an ulcer into her stomach.

  Why did she hate the idea of Maggie owning a gun so damn much? Maggie was afraid, and a gun might make her feel safe. The answer was clear, even if she didn’t want to acknowledge it. Because her brother had germinated that fear. And he wouldn’t have had access to that firearm if she hadn’t been careless with it. She’d treated it like any piece of memorabilia instead of with the respect it deserved.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “And you haven’t heard from her since?” Kathi asked when Ally finished filling her in on most of their disagreement. She’d glossed over her part in Carey obtaining the gun and focused on their difference of opinion on gun control.

  “No.” She’d been avoiding her friends, pretending she had a deadline on a project. But after a week of Ally dodging their calls and texts, Kathi had cornered her in the garage.

  “Have you reached out?”

  “I texted her. She didn’t respond.” After moping around the house for two days, binge-watching romantic comedies, and eating too much chocolate, she’d made herself get up and move. She’d forced herself to go for a long walk in her neighborhood every morning in order to define a start to her day.

  She’d borrowed her friend’s trailer and gone back for that load of barn wood. Then she’d spent hours in the garage, churning out small projects that didn’t need a lot of focus. She’d already sold two of the reclaimed-wood serving trays online. And she’d worked out a cool design for a side table using scrap wood.

  “One text?”

  Ally didn’t have to say anything to confirm the answer.

  “Come on, Al. This woman isn’t worth more than one text?”

  “It’s complicated.” The guilt about that damn gun was going to destroy her. She couldn’t even bring herself to admit to Kathi where Carey had gotten it.

  “It’s really not. You’re afraid, and you’re hiding behind this bullshit about your brother being the guy who mugged her.”

  “It’s not bullshit.”

  “Except that it is. If you didn’t believe you could get past all that, you wouldn’t have let yourself get in this deep.”

  “It’s not serious. We—aren’t—weren’t serious.” Ally picked up a small triangle of scrap wood and toyed with it.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Stop saying that.” Kathi had her on that one. She could try to lie to herself, but the truth was, she wanted to be serious about Maggie.

  If they’d met under different circumstances, Maggie was exactly the kind of woman she was looking for. Maggie was an amazing mix of sweet and sexy. She made Ally laugh. On the way home after their trip to the barn in Smith County, Ally had let herself daydream about more weekends together.

  “Why are you arguing for Maggie now? You were against me being involved with her.”

  “Sure. But that was before I met her. I’ve never seen you happier than you’ve been since you two started spending time together. And she won over my kids, which says something. Those two are surprisingly good judges of character.”

  “They really are.” For a second Ally’s heart felt lighter, until reality settled back in. “But none of that changes our circumstances. Can you see me introducing her to Ma? And how could she ever feel safe around Carey?”

  “You think he’s dangerous?” Kathi had been around Carey when he worked on the same crew as Ally.

  “No. I mean, I never thought so before. But when I separate him from the situation and think about someone—anyone—pointing a gun at Maggie—”

  “Like you’d do anything, including physical violence, to keep that from happening. Like a lifetime behind bars wouldn’t be punishment enough.”

  “Yeah.” Ally nodded. She sta
rted to straighten the tools on her worktable, putting them back in their rightful place.

  Kathi put one hand on her shoulder and the other on her arm, halting her busywork. “I know how you feel. When I think about anything happening to Dani, or the kids, I feel the same way. Because I love them.”

  “I sure hope you do. They are your family, after all. If you didn’t—” Her brain was a little slow putting together what Kathi was saying. As soon as she did, her language skills seized up, and she could only shake her head.

  “I think you care about her a lot more than you want to admit.”

  “No. I—what—”

  Her phone rang before she could gather her thoughts. She glanced at the screen, and her mother’s name reminded her of the many reasons Kathi had to be wrong. She didn’t love Maggie. She couldn’t. She held up the phone so Kathi could see before she pressed the button to answer the call.

  She couldn’t make out Shirley’s words through her crying, but she thought she heard her brother’s name. “Ma? What’s going on? You have to slow down and breathe so I can understand you.”

  This time she definitely heard Carey’s name and—was that a hospital? “Ma? Where is Carey?”

  “Ms. Rowe?” Another feminine voice came on the phone. Ally could still hear Shirley crying in the background.

  “It’s Becker. Ally.”

  “Right. I’m sorry. I’m a nurse at Skyline Hospital. Your brother was brought in to our emergency department by ambulance. We have him stabilized, and the doctor is in with him now. Your mother is asking that you come down here. Do you think that’s possible?”

  “Of course. What happened?”

  “The doctor can advise you further when you get here. But I can tell you it appears to be an accidental overdose.”

  “Okay. Would you tell Ma I’m on my way.”

  She hung up and turned to Kathi, suddenly at a loss as to what to do next.

  “I heard. Do you want me to drive you?”

  “Thanks. But I’m okay to drive. And I’ll probably have to take Ma home at some point. I’m sure she rode in the ambulance.” She stood in the living room glancing around. Where were her keys?