Epilogue

Editorial notes added January first, 2018.

Hi. My name is Chastity and what you already read, which Bob had to write for Judge Gardner, is pretty true. I remember us saying things a little differently in spots, but it’s mostly an accurate description of what happened.

What I’m doing here is adding in what happened after Bob wrote that. Nobody’s making me do this. It’s just that I think someday it might make a good story so I want to get it all down.

First, I need to explain why I said Bob’s description of things was mostly accurate. It was all true from his point of view, but there were some things he didn’t know. Well, one thing he didn’t know.

I lied to him about how safe it was to be having sex with me. It wasn’t the wrong time of month to get pregnant. It was actually the best time.

I know I shouldn’t have done that. Mom really yelled at me, but I thought it would be the best way to make sure he had to marry me. I mean he’s sweet, and I know he loves me to death, but he’s also got a stick up his butt about following rules. I get that. He runs a gun range, and rules there are a matter of life and death. But resisting being in love with me was just stupid, because he was going to ask me to marry him. He didn’t know that and no matter what I did to make him think about it, he just kept on trying to be my uncle.

I didn’t tell anybody else about my fertility, either, especially not Mom. Bob had nattered on about the morning after pill, and I knew Mom would go berserk if she found out I was pregnant. So I just didn’t tell anybody. In fact, I was able to hide it until the end of the trial.

I tried to get the trial stopped, but nobody would listen to me. So I went online and used some of the money I earned by working at the range to get an online lawyer to give me advice about what to do. I had to go through three of them before one would take me seriously, but I finally had a plan.

That was, basically, waiting until it was my turn to say what I thought should happen to Bob, during the pre-sentencing phase of the trial.

That was when I told Judge Gardner I was three months pregnant, and that it seemed like a crime to put the baby’s father in prison.

My mother about had kittens, but I guess the judge had seen it all, because all he did was stare at me for a while. Then he asked me how long I’d known about this, and why I hadn’t mentioned it before. So I told him nobody - including him during the trial - had given one hoot about how I felt about things. I mean I’m not a hostile person at all, but that’s what the stupid prosecutor called me. And I helped him sight in a scope before deer season last year!

Anyway, Mom calmed down and she and Judge Gardner had a long conversation - in private - about me, and Bob. And I am happy to report that Bob got a suspended sentence. Judge Gardner arranged it so that, if Bob doesn’t get in any more trouble for five years, the sentence will be expunged. I guess that’s important since, until then, Bob is technically a convicted felon, and therefore, can’t touch a gun. Bob’s attorney also talked about there being a process for a convicted felon to get his constitutional rights re-instated, in case there are any snags when the five years is up. Until then, though, Bob doesn’t have any second amendment rights.

That sounds like a bad thing, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.

That’s because another part of Judge Gardner’s sentence was that Bob had to marry me, and stay married to me for those five years, at a minimum. Which, by the way, was the best Christmas present I ever got in my whole life. He also ordered Bob to put the ownership of the range in trust, because while I’m fine and dandy to be a wife and mother, I can’t own the business until I’m 21. Bob asked that my mom be appointed as the trustee. Bob can still be there, and teach classes and give advice and run things. He just can’t touch any guns.

I, of course, can touch all the guns I want to. That’s good because it’s going to take at least five years of practice to catch up with Bob’ skills.

And it’s only fair. After all, Bob used his personal long gun to hit a target that was only one cell big.

And his gun was in total darkness when he did it.

That particular shooting match wasn’t a competition, but we both won a prize.

I plan to enter him into that kind of shooting match many more times over the next ten or so years.

After that I’ll let him shoot blanks.