Free 299 Days: The Collapse by Glen Tate Page B

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.
    He was just calmly doing what needed to be done. It was simultaneously the end of the world and a relief. He told himself, you tried. You tried hard. People make choices. She is making a choice. Dying is too high a price to pay for a pretty girl. Then he thought about what would probably happen to her in the city as it slipped into even more lawlessness. He knew what it would be. But he couldn’t think about it. It was like she wasn’t his wife anymore; she was just a woman crying in his bedroom.
    Grant couldn’t face the kids. They knew something was up. The sound of a mom crying will do that. He needed to talk to Manda. She needed to understand that he wasn’t abandoning them. Good luck with that, he thought.
    Grant popped his