Rules of Escape

Chapter 4 - Peter

Peter stops just inside his apartment and sets the cloth grocery bags on the floor. He hangs his coat on the coat rack and places his shoes carefully beneath it.

"Chantelle?" Peter calls. He picks up the grocery bags and takes them to the kitchen and hears Chantelle in the living room, typing on her computer, sighing loudly.

"Dinner's going to be good tonight," Peter says, rifling through the grocery bag he holds. "Prawn linguine and a spinach and hemp seed salad. I got avocado oil and coconut vinegar, too. For the salad, instead of olive oil."

Hearing no reply, Peter peeks into the living room, more of an office actually, and sees Chantelle, hunched over her computer, listening to her earbuds. He pulls one earbud out. "Hey there. Dinner in an hour."

"Mmm," Chantelle says, reaching back to touch him, her eyes not leaving her computer. "You're awesome. I'll just be a minute. Almost done here."

"No rush," Peter says. He returns to the kitchen and sets a pot of water on the stove to boil for the pasta.

He turns on some music, pours himself a glass of wine, and places a stool in front of the kitchen sink. He sits down on the stool and drinks a mouthful of wine. The dinner ingredients, lined up on the clean countertop, are a mix of garden fresh vegetables and homemade pasta from the farmers market. The prawns, caught earlier today, are from a seafood store. As extravagant as the food seems, it is cheaper and healthier than eating out, or so Peter rationalizes. And Chantelle is always so appreciative of his cooking.

He begins the tedious task of peeling prawns, a time-consuming task, which results in an enjoyable, mess-free dinner.  While he works on the prawns, he ponders the next steps in his dinner creation. It's an easy dinner for Peter, and before long, he's topping baby spinach and kale with homemade salad dressing.  

Chantelle closes her laptop with a snap and walks over to the dinner table just as Peter comes in with their plates of food.

"It looks amazing!" she says. "I'm so hungry. I've been working all day, getting ready for the trial in a few days."

"How's it going?"

"I'm done. I've got good explanations to every question we could imagine the defense raising," Chantelle winds pasta around her fork and stabs a prawn. "Now, I just have to meet with my boss and go over all my research with her."

"She's lucky to have you as a research assistant. You work so hard."

"This is absolutely delicious. Oh my god, Peter, you could be a chef. Seriously. At a five star restaurant." Chantelle stabs eagerly at the salad. "I think she knows I work hard, still I'm surprised she puts so much trust in the students. Once I'm a lawyer, I think I'll still do my own research. Probably a control issue I have, or something."

"Speaking of control, the guy I look after has hardly any control over his life. Just having a visit with a friend, is an arduous task. A girl came to see him – it didn't go very well. She ran away from her caregiver..." Peter says.

He realizes there's so much to this story that he wants to tell Chantelle. But it's complicated, the story, and difficult to explain. He's not sure about how much he can tell her either, what with the confidentiality agreement he signed when he was hired. What were the terms of that agreement? He can't remember. When he signed it, he never thought he'd be wanting to share details about his work with anyone. It was just an easy job after all, a bit of income while he attended school.

"That's sad they can't be together," Chantelle says. "But I guess there are safety rules about males and females in care spending time together."

"I don't think so. Some homes have several people in care, both male and female. At Evan's house, they just sat together, not talking but they seemed really happy. And the way they looked at each other, it was weird," Peter says. Maybe sharing information with a partner is okay. "After she left, I went to the beach with Evan. We swam with porpoises. It was crazy. Then he told me he's only allowed to swim in areas with lifeguards. So I messed up there."