Can't Breathe: A Novella

Can't Breathe: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“Brent, darling,” his mother called out when Brent stepped through the gate to his parents’ backyard later that day.  “You’ve finally made it.  And just in time.  Go help your father before he burns the hamburgers.”

Brent paused a moment to kiss Florence Poole’s cheek and nod to his sister and brother-in-law, and to wave at some other people he knew.  “How’s he doing?” he whispered in her ear.  

    “Not resting, is what he’s doing,” his mother replied scowling lovingly at her husband.  She turned to smile up at her only son.  “So, why are you late?”
    A flame shot out of the charcoal grill, causing his mother to groan.  “I’ll tell you about it later,” he said, rushing to save his father and his eyebrows before Isaac Poole scorches the yard again.  “Pop,” he said, closing the lid to the grill and shutting off the air flow to calm the fire.  “This isn’t a race to see how quickly you can cook the meat.  Slow and easy does it on the hamburgers.  It’s the steaks you can blacken if you want.”
    His dad grunted.  “Ain’t got any steaks this year.”  He lifted the lid to a plastic container.  “Chicken breasts,” he pointed with a sour tone, then mimicked his wife’s cheerful voice,  “‘Low in fat and cholesterol.  Good for the heart.’  She won’t even let me have a brat.”
    Brent chuckled.  “Momma’s just worried.  Get your health under control, and then you’ll be able to splurge on an occasional steak.”
    “It wasn’t the food,” Isaac muttered.  “It was the stress.”
    Brent recalled his day, and the whole past three months of days, and he nodded.  “Yeah, I’m getting that impression, too.  I think it may be time to divvy up some responsibilities.  I don’t know how you managed all these years, but I’m not going to be able to keep up.”
    “It ain’t been easy,” his father agreed.  “I’d been thinking that Paul out of Sacramento might be a good choice for a commander.”
    “And Cindy,” Brent added.  His dad frowned, “Cindy?  She doesn’t have any experience with the hands-on stuff.”
    “She’ll surprise you,” Brent said, lifting the lid to the grill a bit to see if the flames died down.  He started shuffling the coals around under the hamburgers, spreading them out and burying half of them under ash to smolder.  It looked like his Pop dumped the whole bag of charcoals in the grill and sprayed them with a whole bottle of lighter fluid.  That could also be Isaac’s problem and the reason behind all his heart attacks.  Wanting it all done fast and trying to pour all his resources into one pit.  Brent didn’t work like that.  
    Slow and easy, that was his style.  The job will get done, but he was going to make sure the job was done correctly.
    In that case, only he should accompany Robin on her cruise...to make sure the job was done correctly...
    “Hey, Pop,” he began, flipping the burgers and checking for doneness.  “Have you ever gone on a personal security mission?”
    “A few times,” his dad admitted, handing a plate over to scoop the patties on.  “But I tend to trust my guys to know what they’re doing, so I never took on many.”
    Brent nodded as he laden down the plate with hamburgers and opened a package of kosher brats.  “But were you ever personally asked to be someone’s guardian or escort?”
    “Once,” Isaac said.  “Why do you ask?”
    “Remember that woman I told you and Mom about a few months ago, Robin Brooks?”
    “Oh, yeah, the one from that accident all those years ago,” his dad mused.  “Whatever happened to her?”
    “Well, she’s taking a vacation on a cruise for two weeks, and she wants to hire me as security,” Brent answered, closing the grill lid again.
    His father’s brown eyes narrowed shrewdly.  “Yup, I can see how that would be an issue, with you still new to the workings of the business and two weeks away from everything...on a boat, too...So, you want my advice, or you just asking to hear some war stories?”
    “Advice,” Brent said, dropping down into a folding lawn chair a little distance from the grill.  Friends and neighbors milled around, and Janet’s oldest son trotted by.  Brent caught him by the sleeve and pulled the six-year-old into his lap.  “Hey, Harrison, whatcha been up to?”
    “I got an A on my science project,” the boy piped up, wiggling.
    “Science project?” Brent asked, raising his eyebrows.  “I thought you were in kindergarten.”
    “First grade,” his sister informed him as she dropped the baby in Pop’s lap.  “You’d know that if you called me more often.”
    “I called you last week,” Brent told you.  “You set me up with Josie for last night, remember?  Don’t ever do that again, by the way.  She was a nightmare.”
    “Josie is a very nice person,” Janet demurred, but she smiled mischievously.  “But she is a bit...”
    “High maintenance?” Brent asked, tossing Harry over his shoulder as he stood up.  “I don’t like those kinds.  And back to the original point here.  What’s a first grader doing science projects for anyway?”
    “It wasn’t a project-project.  It was a report about the types of nature he saw during the summer,” Janet said, taking Brent’s chair.
    “Hey, now...I’m just going after a beer,” he told his sister, stumbling a little from Harry’s wiggling on his shoulder.  “I’ll want my chair when I get back.”
    “Bring another with you,” Janet cheeked and leaned back  like she wasn’t going anywhere when he got back with his beer.  
    Brent tossed Harry into the air a couple of times before letting to boy go back to his play.  He grabbed three bottlenecks of light beer -- so light and clear, it could almost be called fermented water, but Pop couldn’t drink anything heavier until he got his heart condition under control.  He handed one to his dad, one to his sister, and then unceremoniously dumped her out of his chair.  “You go get another chair,” he told her, setting the aluminum-framed seat in another spot.
    “You’re such a brat,” Janet groaned, picking herself up from the ground.  She stuck her tongue out at him, and their dad chuckled, bouncing the baby on his lap.  
    “You two will never grow up, will you?”
    “Nope,” Brent said, grinning and clinking his bottle with his sisters.  She grinned back and leaned over to plant a kiss on his forehead.
    “Don’t let him tire himself out with Emma,” she murmured in his ear.
    “My hearing works just fine,” Isaac said, smiling and cooing at the baby.  Janet kissed her father’s head, too and wandered off to help with the rest of the meal preparation.  “So, about this advice?  What exactly are you looking for?”
    “I want to know what you would do,” Brent answered, sucking from his beer bottle.
    “I’d hand her off,” his dad said, “but I’ve got a feeling that’s not the answer you’re looking for.”
    Brent sighed and ran a hand through his hair.  “She said she’s got some trust issues.  Something about all the men in her life not being dependable.”
    “Did you tell her you’ve got female guards in your employment?”
    “Yup, but she wanted me to come with her on this cruise.”
    Isaac’s bushy eyebrows rose, wrinkling his forehead.  “She got a romantic notion?  Because that won’t be wise.  Never mix business with pleasure, son.”
    Brent waved at some grill smoke that drifted over to them.  “No, no...it’s not like that.  I think it’s because of how we met that one day.  She’s self-conscious about some things, and I’ve never made a big deal about them.”  Except for that afternoon in his office, he reminded himself quietly.
    “So, she trusts you,” his dad summarized.
    “It think it’s more than just that,” Brent said.  “I think she trusts me to be the job and not get involved.”
    Isaac nodded thoughtfully.  “Yup, I can see how she’d come to that conclusion.”  Brent frowned, wanting to ask what his dad meant by that, but he went on with, “So, why would she need protection, if you don’t mind me asking.”
    Frankly, everything said to this point broke his confidentiality procedures, but this was his dad, and Brent knew he’d keep it to himself.  “She’s been getting some threats from the guy who killed her little girl.  He’s out of prison now, and I also think her family is a little over-protective and don’t want her to go along.”
    Isaac snorted, and Emma giggled from the sound.  “Then the solution is simple.  They should go with her.”
    “I don’t think she wants them to,” Brent replied, hopping up to check the brats on the grill.  “She wants to go alone.”
    “Then she can do what so many other people have done,” Isaac said.  “Tell her family she hired a bodyguard and go alone anyway.”  Brent peeked over his shoulder at his dad.  Isaac Poole was playing with Emma, but Brent knew the old man better than almost anyone.  He was helping Brent make a decision.
    “She’s not like that,” Brent said, twisting the brats with a set of tongs.  “If she says she’ll do it, then she means it.  If she can’t get someone she trusts to go with her, then she won’t go, and I think she really, really wants to go on this cruise.  It seems important to her for some reason.”
    “Seems like you got this woman pegged,” his dad commented vaguely.
    Brent sighed and dropped back to his chair.  “Yeah, I guess I do.  I’ve known her only a few hours, and I’ve already got her figured out, but to anyone else, she might seem a little kooky.”  He eyed his dad.  “You do this on purpose, don’t you?”
    “What?  Walk you through a problem until you figure out the answer?” his father asked, grinning.  “Been doing it my whole life.  I can’t believe you’re just now figuring that out.”
    Brent took Emma from his dad and raised her up like an airplane in the sky.  Her chubby legs kicked crazily, and a trickle of drool just missed landing in Brent’s eye.  “Nah...I’ve known about it for a while.  That’s why I still ask for your advice.”
    “And here, I thought it was because of my infallible character and good looks,” his dad joked.  Brent laughed, “Yeah, that, too.”
    Two weeks on a boat in the middle of nowhere...here I come, Brent thought.