Heaven Should Fall by Rebecca Coleman Page B

nuclear explosion. If anybody drops a dirty bomb on Lake Winnipesaukee, your thyroid is safe and sound.”
    “Are you serious?”
    “Dead serious. Did you get a good look around the cellar? They’ve got enough water stored up to float the house to Canada.”
    I chewed two of the antacid tablets, then asked, “What do you think of all that?”
    “I think it’s not a bad idea.” He dragged on his cigarette, held the smoke in his lungs for a moment and exhaled out his nose. “If we learned anything from 9/11, it’s that when the shit goes down, you’re on your own. And that goes for normal stuff, too. Out here, if it snows real bad, good luck getting out of the house for a week. If somebody breaks into your house, by the time the cops get here, all your stuff’ll be in a truck en route to Canada.”
    “You guys ever get break-ins all the way out here?”
    “It’s not unheard of. And there’s a lot of people still got grudges against my dad, even now. Pissed-off renters especially. Dodge usually deals with them these days.”
    I replied with a rude little laugh. “Yeah, that must calm them down.”
    “Seriously, right? He’s got a special kind of charm. So what’d you think of that dinner party?” He flicked ash from his cigarette into the beer can beside him. “Dodge is lucky one of us didn’t come across the table and choke him.”
    “Seemed like most of the family agreed with him about your uncle Randy.”
    “They do. People around here need a hobby. Scrap with somebody one time and then you can milk ten years of conversation out of it. God forbid you just let it go.”
    I handed him the Tums bottle and he dropped it back into the drawer. The three empty beer cans lined up on the side table rattled as he pushed it shut. I asked, “What happened ten years ago?”
    Elias leaned forward a little and, with his cigarette still wedged between his fingers, cupped his hands as if to explain that this story was a whole little world. “You have two extremists. One wants to create a citizen militia with five hundred guns and a whole army of trained-up guys ready to turn Maine into its own republic if they get pissed enough. The other one wants to drink beer, shoot guns, grill burgers and fuck your daughter. There’s only room for one of them at the supper table.”
    I raised an eyebrow. “So which one is Dodge?”
    “The second one, obviously. He couldn’t organize a sock drawer, let alone a militia. You haven’t done the math on him and Candy?”
    I shook my head.
    “He’s forty-one. She’s twenty-six. Their oldest kid is nine.”
    I thought about that for a moment, then wrinkled my nose. “Ew.”
    “Dad had to sign off on the marriage license, she was so young.”
    “I’m surprised he agreed to that. If some creep wanted to marry my teenage daughter, I sure wouldn’t.”
    “If the creep is one of your friends, you would. But it’s a stupid squabble if you ask me. Randy’s not so bad. He just had a different goal for the group. It’s nothing to start a blood feud over, but people have to go and take things personally. You gotta let stuff like that go or you’ll drive yourself over the edge.”
    I sat on the arm of the chair beside his. “Cade’s like that about this guy named Drew who’s been competing with him for the same job. At some point he stopped being a rival and turned into the enemy. Except that guy really is a jerk, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt, too. Over Christmas, when I was stuck at school, I got take-out Chinese with him and he tried to get in my pants.”
    Elias stopped in mid-drag and, laughing silently, coughed out smoke. “Weren’t you already pregnant then?”
    “Yeah, but I didn’t know it yet. Don’t say anything to Cade about that. He’d kill the guy.”
    “Scout’s honor. Pretty funny that anyone would try to cock-block Cade, though.” In an ominous voice he quoted, “‘Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle