Can't Breathe: A Novella

Can't Breathe: Chapter 1

Chapter One

Six months later...

Robin curled her bare legs into a pretzel as she lowered herself into one of her new kitchen chairs.  In fact, everything around her was less than a few months old, but with her case award money, she bought a house and new furniture and asked her mother and grandmother to move in with her.  Robin really didn’t care to have all new things.  They were just things.  But the house was more for Denise Brooks -- her mother -- and Hessie Brooks -- her grandmother.  The Brooks women had always stuck together, since the men in their lives never saw fit to do the same.  Since Robin could remember, it had been her, Mom, and Grammy Hess...and Lucy.

Her grandfather, Charles, took off when her mother was only six years old, deserting Grammy Hess and his country in hopes of avoiding the draft during the early years of the Vietnam War.  Robin’s father had only been a few hours of weakness and pleasure for the very prim and proper Denise, and the man that fathered Lucy stuck around long enough to make sure he wasn’t liable for any parenting duties.  It was the Brooks Curse, going back six generations, to be precise.  Robin’s family tree resembled a lightening-struck, half-flowering topiary.  Despite the way events turned out, she was immensely glad Lucy had been saved from the pain of a man walking out of her life.

Robin’s thoughts strayed to one particular man...they always did when she mused over her family curse.  Deputy Poole.  He didn’t come across as a walker, or a runner, or a sprinter.  He looked kind of stable, and she remembered the protective way he hovered around her when he dropped her off at her home six months back.  However, as always when he popped into her mind, she popped him right back out.  Men were useless, and she had a cruise to plan.

“Honey,” her mother began from across the table as she shelled peas and watched Antiques Road Show on the small television that sat on the kitchen countertop.  “Are you still thinking of going on the cruise?”

Robin refrained from clenching the pamphlets and literature that she held up in front of her.  “Yes, Mother, I’m still thinking about it, and I’m still doing it.”

“But alone?”

“Yes,” Robin confirmed.  “You’re terrified of the water, and Grammy Hess is too old to come with me.”

“Who’s too old?” Grammy Hess shouted as she shuffled into the kitchen, peering at them through her thick glasses -- jewel-framed and hanging on a dainty, silver chain.

“Mom!  You’re shouting!” Denise shouted back.  “Turn up your hearing aid!”  Robin’s mother jerked her thumbs upward, showing Grammy Hess what she needed to do since she couldn’t hear a turbo jet if it crashed into the living room behind her.  Grammy Hess adjusted the dial behind her ear.  A piercing wail followed.

Robin winced, sighed and hopped up to help her grandmother come back to the land of sound and hearing.  It never ceased to amaze Robin that Grammy Hess couldn’t hear anything spoken to her, but if they whispered something about her, she heard every word.

“Damn thing,” Grammy Hess muttered when everything was normal again.  “Don’t work right half the time.”

“We can still get you a new one,” Robin said, going back to her chair and her cruise pamphlets.

“I don’t want a new one,” Grammy Hess said, “I don’t want you to spend your money on such stuff.”

“I have more than enough money,” Robin said, for like the hundredth time that week.  “I’ll never spend all of it, and the trucking company owes me more later on.”

“Never you mind my hearing aid,” Grammy Hess deterred, coming over to drop clumsily into a kitchen chair next to her daughter.  “You spend your money on that cruise.  I think it’s a wonderful idea, you getting away from everything and having fun.”