299 Days: The Visitors (30 page)

And that was what he was pissing away. It was bad enough to piss away your family once. But to get them back and then do it again?

For what? Politics?

Then Grant remembered the words just before the “lives, fortune, and sacred honor” line in the Declaration of Independence: “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

Exactly. You have a job to do. I picked you and a few others. You will be doing My work. You won’t lose everything.

Wow. That was the clearest outside thought he ever received. He was instantly at peace. He felt a calm that couldn’t be described. A joy.

Grant knew what he needed to do. He needed to keep Ted and Sap secret from Lisa as long as he could. He needed to work with them and simultaneously do all his normal things at the Grange. He needed to help build up the best possible guerilla unit out there. He needed to fight with them. They needed to win. He needed to help rebuild Washington State after the war. If this cost him his family, then so be it. Lives, fortune, and sacred honor. That’s what was required in the past, and it was required now. Besides, he had just been told he wouldn’t lose everything by a voice that had never been wrong. Never. Not once.

Time to put your big boy pants on and go do your job, he said to himself. This’ll be a hell of a story for the grandkids.

Grant looked at Lisa in the living room of the cabin. She was so beautiful. They’d been through so much together. She would be such a fabulous person to grow old with. The catch of a lifetime. The perfect spouse. She was smiling and so glad to see him come home. She thought he was still just doing office things at the Grange. She had convinced him to stop the “gun stuff” and just be safe at the Grange. That’s why she was so happy to see him. He had listened to her and decided to be safe.

But now he was lying to her. Grant couldn’t stand that. He would have to lie to her much more in the coming days, weeks, or however long he decided to keep the Ted thing a secret. She would eventually find out he had been lying the whole time. Repeatedly lying to her. She would hate him forever. How could she forgive him? He had promised to stop the dangerous things and then went off and signed up for a guerilla unit. She would never understand.

Lisa didn’t care about political nonsense from over 200 years ago like “lives, fortune, and sacred honor.” All she cared about was having a husband, and her kids having a father. She genuinely cared about Grant. She wanted him to live. To not get maimed. To not be crazy from all the violence he would see. And all the violence he would commit. She wanted a normal husband and normal family. Was that asking so much?

Maybe not from the majority of men. Most men in America were trying to get by with as little risk as possible. But for Grant—who had these useful skills, had extensively prepared for this, and had the Team, the people at Pierce Point, and the trust of Ted—it was asking a lot of him to just try to get by with as little risk as possible.

Grant was different. He didn’t want to be. He just accepted that he was. So if Lisa had married a normal guy, it wouldn’t be asking much.

“Daddy!” Cole said. “How was your day?” he asked, practicing his social questions. He was grinning from ear to ear. His dad was home. Safe and at home.

Lisa looked at Grant and smiled her warmest, happiest smile ever. Lisa and the kids were so perfect. So wonderful.

Might as well enjoy them all I can, Grant thought.

“I had a good day,” Grant said, lying. The day you decide to commit treason and sign up with a guerilla unit is not a “good day,” even if it needed to be done.

“How was your day, lil’ buddy?” Grant asked.

“Super,” Cole said. “Sissy and I went to the beach and dug clams. We got lots of them and Grandma made soup,” he said with a smile. That must be the great smell in the cabin: clam chowder.

“Cole was talking up a storm today,” Manda said. She told Grant all the new things Cole had said that day. It was amazing. He was doing so well out there. He might be the only person thriving in these conditions.

Grant was so happy. For a little while, right then he wasn’t thinking about war or killing or losing everything. Instead, he was thinking about the new words Cole was saying.

“Were you a good boy today?” Grant asked Cole.

“Roger that,” Cole said.

What? Did Cole just say that? They’d never heard him say that. Autistic kids weren’t supposed to be able to spontaneously say figures of speech.

Everyone burst into joyous laughter. Cole had just said slang!

“Where did you learn that?” Grant asked Cole, knowing the answer.

“You and the Team,” Cole said. “The men with guns who protect us.”

Grant started to cry. It was happy crying. Cole had just summed up exactly why Grant was doing all this. An autistic kid who supposedly couldn’t talk had just said it all.

- End Book 5 -