Chapter Text
“Okay, buddy, before we go into the range, what are the rules?”
Jamie knelt down to his oldest, who was turning 8 today. It seemed impossible that Joey was already 8. On Jamie's eighth birthday, he'd made his first visit to the firing range with his dad. New generation, same tradition. It was time for Joey to experience the gun range for the first time. However, Joey's mom didn't have a problem with her first baby going to the gun range. Eddie had a problem with not being the one to do it. She'd already claimed dibs for next year, when Maggie turned 8.
“Always think a gun is loaded until you check yourself,” Joey recited.
Jamie nodded and hummed agreement.
“Never point a gun at anything you don't want to shoot.”
“Okay. . .”
“Check the area around your target, so you don't shoot somethin' you don't wanna.”
“Good. Aaaaaand?”
Joey searched the ceiling for a minute and said, “Keep your finger off the trigger 'til you wanna shoot.”
“Exactly!” Jamie and Eddie had drilled gun safety rules into the kids until they could parrot them back. Jamie had a feeling that Maggie could have said them faster, but she wasn't quite seven, so she wasn't there. He wanted to make sure Joey knew them before he was allowed to touch a gun; not that Maggie knew them.
Maggie was completely furious that she hadn't been allowed to come with Jamie and Joey. She didn't CARE that her hands weren't big enough to wrap around the butt of Jamie's gun! She knew the rules better than Joey and she should be allowed to go, too!
Eddie had headed off the temper tantrum that was about to follow Maggie's tirade that morning by taking Maggie and Vince out for a special treat of their own. They left before Jamie and Joey, so the younger two couldn't be exactly sure where they were going, but Maggie had her suspicions. “What would you like to do, Maggie?” Eddie asked after they were in the SUV.
“Go shootin' with Daddy!” Maggie shot back.
“Sorry, baby,” Eddie said. “Your hands aren't big enough yet.”
“Not fair,” Maggie muttered from the back seat.
“You're right, lambchop,” Eddie agreed. “Life isn't fair. Now, what would you like to do?”
“Can we get ice cream?” Maggie asked slowly.
“Ooooh, we might be able to do that. What about playing at the park playground?”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand get ice cream?”
Damn, this kid's good, Eddie thought. “Yes. We'll go to the park and get ice cream.” Maggie and Vince both cheered.
In the meantime, Jamie fitted Joey with ear protection and eye protection – both of which were crazy big on him – and helped him aim his first shots. Even though he was tall for 8 years old, Joey still had trouble seeing over the counter at the target. Jamie found a stool for him to stand on, and Joey was an even happier kid. He was enjoying one-on-one time with Daddy.
Jamie wrapped his hands around Joey's on the gun, helped him aim again, then guided Joey's finger to slowly pull the trigger. Even with ear protection, the discharge of the pistol (Jamie's off-duty weapon) was enough to make Joey's eyes widen in surprise. He loved it. “Cool, Daddy!!!” Jamie laughed. He'd had the same reaction the first time Frank had taken him to the gun range.
Joey was not ready to go home, even when his hands hurt from holding the gun and pulling the trigger over and over. After the first few shots, Jamie had let Joey hold the gun by himself – although Jamie had hovered very close, just in case. Joey had remembered his learning well, and did a better job handling the gun and watching his target than some experienced cops did. Since he was only 8, he did well to even hit the target at all, but he did manage to put a couple of shots in the silhouette.
Jamie was sure Eddie was going to hear all about this experience, and that Maggie was going to be furious some more when they got home. Eddie had texted him when it was decided the younger two wanted ice cream and playground time. Ice cream made Maggie a happy girl – as long as she didn't think about what Joey was doing with Daddy.
Sure enough, as soon as Jamie and Joey walked in the door, Eddie heard, “Mama! Look what I did!” as Joey brandished his silhouette target with holes in it and showed it to Eddie. He tried to show it to Maggie and Vince, too. Vince was interested, but Maggie got mad all over again and stomped up the stairs to her room.
Jamie looked at the ceiling and muttered, “If you slam that door, you're gonna regret it.” Luckily for Maggie, she didn't slam her door. She wasn't quite 7, but she did know a little about self-control.
Jamie gave Maggie a few minutes to cool down. He saw Eddie headed for the stairs but stopped her with a, “Let me talk to her.” Eddie and Maggie were a lot alike. Sometimes what was needed was Jamie's cool head to step between the firecrackers that were his wife and daughter. He climbed the stairs and knocked on Maggie's door. “Maggie? Can I come in?” he called through the door.
“Yeah,” he heard Maggie mutter. Jamie opened the door and walked into Maggie's pink retreat and perched on the side of her pink bed.
“You know, I get why you're mad.”
Maggie rolled over to look at Jamie. “You do?”
“Yeah. I remember being the little one and watching Aunt Erin and Uncle Joe get to go to the range with Grandpa and I couldn't.”
“Why not?”
“I was too little. My hands weren't big enough to wrap around Grandpa's gun yet.”
“So, what did you do?”
“Waited 'til I got bigger and I could hold Grandpa's gun by myself.” Maggie considered this – unhappily, but she considered it. “But you know what I didn't do?” Jamie asked.
“What?” Maggie asked suspiciously.
“I didn't try to get Grandpa's gun out without him, to see if my hands were big enough yet.” Jamie watched and he saw the thought cross Maggie's face. The thought was, 'there goes that Idea.' “I knew that if I got Grandpa's gun out without him to help me, he'd never take me to the range when I was 8. He'd make me wait till he knew he could trust me.”
Maggie pouted a little.
“See, Mags, the thing with guns is that we have to be able to trust you with them. So, you got a year till you turn 8, and in that year, you have to prove to Mommy and me that we can trust you. Got it?”
Maggie nodded her head.
“That means that if you want to look at one of our guns, we'll show them to you, but it also means that you're not going to try to get one of them out of the gun safe by yourself. Agreed?”
Maggie knew there was no choice if she ever wanted to get to the gun range, so she said, “Agreed.”
“All right. So, how about we go downstairs, and you let Joey brag a little about his afternoon, and we see what Mommy has for dinner?”
When they made it back downstairs, the whole family had descended on the house for Joey's birthday dinner. Joey was in the middle of showing Pop and Grandpa his first silhouette and talking non-stop about his first experience at the gun range. “I wanna go back tomorrow!” he exclaimed.