Jacob Aiello

Before the waiter returns, my dad says he wants me to make him a promise. It’s the weekend of the Fourth of July. The four of us have just sat down in a booth and my wife is assisting my stepmother with her complicated reorganization of silverware and condiments to stage the ideal dining surface. My dad’s recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer, which is one of the reasons we’ve driven down from Portland to see him. He’s been giving some thought of late to his mortality, he says now. He leans across the table and says he wants me to promise not to sell the cache of guns I’ll inherit when he dies. “They’re an investment,” he says, taking the economic tack. He adds that one day, just maybe, I might regret not having an array of firearms with which to defend myself.

Originally published as “So Very Common, So Very Sad,” Winter 2022 in Salt Hill Journal, Issue 47.

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