A Shot at Freedom Read Online Free PDF Page A

she pulled the blanket over her head, it reminded him of a game of ghosts they’d once played as kids with her mother’s white sheets fresh off the line. They copped it that day, but it was fun at the time. Brooke bent forward, the blanket began to slip. He caught sight of her back and forced himself to help hold the blanket in place.
    “Thanks,” she mumbled.
    It was hard not to laugh when her back bumped the roof, then her elbow knocked into the window. “So much dignity,” he said. 
    Emerging, her usual smooth straightened hair was straggly and damp and dragged down her face. She brushed it back, smoothing the long fringe with her fingers.
    David settled back against the window. It was one of the few dry spots in the cabin. He watched Brooke spread her clothes neatly out on the back seat.
    “We’ve got to keep going . But let’s slow it down a bit,” he said, starting the engine.
    “You want to share the blanket with me?” she asked, holding an edge out to him.
    He lifted his arm and she shifted across the bench seat and nuzzled into him. Inching forward, he flicked the lights on high, hoping to stay on the track.
    She flattened her fingers and palm over his thigh, lifting one finger at a time , gripping him tight. It was a pattern. He could tell she was amusing herself, passing the time, avoiding how uncomfortable she really was.
    “What happens if I can’t make life any better for you? What happens if our life is just one struggle after another struggle, after another struggle… ”
    She covered his mouth. “I get the picture. You take on too much responsibility for me David Banks.”
    “I can take you back anytime you want.”
    “ I’m not going back. We’re free now.”
    He shifted and she resettled herself against him.
    When David began to trace the cut on his lip, she pulled his hand away. “Don’t. It’ll get infected.”
    “Shut up,” he groaned.
    The ute plunged and rolled along the muddy track. David felt Brooke relax. In the quiet, flashes of his father kept snapping through his brain like old photos. The tired face of a man sitting on the top step taking one worn work boot off at a time, looking out to the trees, catching sight of David walking towards the house.  It was the rare smile that triggered more memories. He didn’t deserve to die.
    It’s what people in town wouldn’t know about his dad. He worked hard. He tried. It wore him out. He only went to town when he needed supplies. And he only needed supplies when he needed a drink. So it happened a lot. The first few drinks settled his dad’s nerves, calmed him way down, made him laugh out loud sometimes. But he drank them way too fast, and by the time anyone knew it was too much he couldn’t stop. When he couldn’t stop, he lost control. When he lost control it was never good for anyone.
    What David hated most about the drinking was that his dad had no remorse when he woke the next day. It was always business as usual. And regular business was David had to take the bus into town and face a world that lumped him in the same basket as his father, mean, angry and up to no good. The humiliation of it was too much. Regular business meant his mother scrubbed, cooked, cleaned, and worked hard on the farm until her hands split and bled, and deep lines of worry gouged her face. Regular business meant that no matter how hard his father laboured he would know that he could never have Brooke’s mother to go home to. He’d lost her a long time ago, after another careless, drunken night when they were all so young. Drinking destroyed everything.
    Brooke tapped at his temple . “Thinking?”
    He smiled down at her. “No.”
    “Liar.”
    “ What do you think life would have been like for my dad if he and your mum had’ve got together?”
    “We wouldn’t be who we are, and maybe we wouldn’t exist. Someone else would be here.”
    “Maybe we would have been brother and sister.”
    “Maybe ,” she muttered.
    “Maybe I wrecked