Jacob Aiello

Before the waiter returns, my dad says he wants me to make him a promise. The four of us have just sat down in a booth and my wife Amy is helping my stepmother perform her complicated reorganizing of silverware and condiments to present an uncluttered 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 wants me to know he’s been giving some thought of late to his mortality. 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 pecuniary tack. He says one day, just maybe, I might regret not having an array of firearms with which to defend myself.

Originally published Winter 2022 in Salt Hill Journal, Issue 47.

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