Breathing...Chapter 3

*Before…

We start walking in and I keep hugging her but I shift so it’s the girlfriend around the waist hip to hip walking together thing and we get a few feet before her eyes show that she’s realizing that we’re walking like that and she gets this look in her eyes that has all her smile lines in play and she starts back up walking with me and she even seems a little bouncy.

Uh-huh...Okay Mom’s really getting she’s just meeting Robin.

And I’m kind of excited to because this is Mom that Rob doesn’t get to see.

*And Now…

It’s actually even nice to hear Mom say as we’re walking hip to hip. “I used to do this with my friends y’know i didn’t think this was still a thing that girls did anymore.”

I smile a bit bigger. “Yeah it was a thing back at Moon Lake, a lot of the girls did stuff like that only it was a lot different with the lesbian girls.’

She laughs. “I can imagine...well know I can’t.” she looks at me as we’re taking the stairs up. “You know I just realized I really don’t know any out gay or lesbian people. I mean we have a few in town home but i really don’t actually know them.”

I sigh. “Yeah me either even at Moon Lake we all sort of knew each other is but I found myself getting in pretty deep with my cabin and most of they were trans girls.”

“And you were allowed in with them?”

I nod. “Actually because of me question my stuff like I am it’s okay or it was okay. It was a lot of shocks and learning though.”

“Shocks, yeah living as a girl could definitely be shocking.”

I nod. “Still is but at the same time Mom it was really like nothing like the shock I had of the girls that I met there and all the shitty stuff they got to deal with. You and Dad are flipping angels sent from heaven compared to some of those assholes.”

Mom’s looking at me and we stop just after we get in through the door from the stairwell.

“I’m seriously proud of you Robin, it’s hard, really hard to trust and make friends when you come from abuse. I’m so proud of you for doing that.”

“Proud enough for me to maybe have my best friend over sometime?”

“Best friend?”

I look her in the eyes. “Yeah...and I’ve never really said that before with anyone but Jess is my best friend she lives up in Hillsborough and that’s pretty close like somewhere around Moncton or something.”

She smiles. “I think we can figure something out. Heck I haven’t been to Moncton in ages so maybe a good reason to visit might be some different Christmas shopping, maybe a girls trip.”

I hug her tight. “Thanks Mom that’s seriously cool.”

She grins as we head to Aunt Chris’s apartment. “That’s right I am and don’t you forget it.”

We head inside and join the others and I can’t help but to smile as we’re greeted with the scent of lobster.

Okay a lot of people don’t like that smell but even living in Nova Scotia it’s a treat. It’s expensive and one of those things that we might get to have or afford once a summer and depending on how things go we sometimes have them around Christmas too.

And it’s a whole feed of them and Aunt chris has them in these big steel bowls and Terri and her have rolls of paper towels out and her table is covered in a plastic table cloth and there’s a really big pot set out for the shells and the bodies and she went out with all these fixings that i guess might be a town thing.

Butter, butter with lemon, butter with garlic, vinegars of different kinds, shrimp cocktail sauce and a bunch of other things.

Home it’s usually two things and that’s apple cider vinegar in a dipping dish or plain melter butter.

The couch is actually moved out of the way some too and we have lots of space and Aunt Chris is happy that she has the leaf in her table.

And there’s sides too….like for food.

Lobster just isn’t lobster without potato salad really and mom makes great like really great potato salad.

I think i actually really want to learn how to make it from her and there’s a bowl of potato chips out the thick Ms. Vickie’s kettle cooked salt and vinegar ones too.

And there’s coleslaw which Dad and Terri are both giving the evil eye to.

Yeah neither one like that very much.

And there’s lemonade.

Okay it’s really good all of it and we’re talking and as much as i’m telling them what Moon lake was like Dad and Mom are talking about the cousins being over and some of the stuff that they did from some cool things to the screw ups and things to Terri talking about working at Aunt Chris’s shop and people she’s met and working as a shampoo girl and things like how halifax isn’t really like she thought it was.

Oh and yeah the chip thing a Cape Breton this from where Aunt Chris’s grandparents lived and it’s frigging good just scoop some potato salad on the chip like one of those salsa dips and then pop a bit of lobster meat on there and it’s really good.

Dad and Aunt Chris squick the rest of us out as they eat and clean out the bodies of the lobsters with the eggs and the green stuff but Aunt Chris holds some of it aside for making lobster soup.

Which got Mom and her going on soup versus chowder and and Dad’s hopefully being diplomatic saying/asking for. “Both?”

Which had us all laughing.

Then once the feasting was over it was cleaning up and washing things down and shells and bodies and things going into pots on Aunt Chris’s stove with yeah one for her and one for Mom.

And Dad taking out the trash so it doesn’t smell of seafood and then dessert.

And dessert is the three of us me and Terri and Mom learning how to make Lemon tonic cake.

Apparently it’s another one of those things that comes from Aunt Chris’s side of things.

And being cut off from her family, and being trans and not having any kids and no one else but us.

No matter what’s going on in my head in my life I want to give her that.

And it is a simple recipe… Lemon boxed cake mix and a pre-heated over and greased pans with flour...but the actual cake is boxed cake with grated lemon peels added and juice squeezed in it then replacing the oil with olive oil and the liquids with a can of tonic water. Then right in the over after a quick mix because the tonic activates the baking powder.

I’ve never had it before and I kinda like it actually.

“I thought this was just for making like drinks with gin.”

Mom shudders. “Eeeeeww...Gin’s gross.”

Aunt Chris laughs at her. “That’s a reaction that speaks of a story, you’re so going to tell us right?”

I’m looking at Mom and so’s Terri and Mom’s looking at us and has this look on her face. “Holy...you two look so much like you’ve always been sisters.”

I look at Terri and she’s looking at me and she has that looking at me harder like she did before I left.

I step up and hug her. “I’m not sure about so much but I learned that I really want to get to know my sister a lot more…”

She hugs me back and she sniffles. “Me too!...I...I actually missed you when you went away for the summer…”