Chapter 14
14
H e seemed reluctant to do any of it, Carlisle thought. It shouldn’t hurt. Why wouldn’t he let her just change the damn bandage?
For that matter, why had he seemed so reluctant to just say why he had a flashy car and an old house and no furniture?
Though Jane had said Carlisle’s red flags weren't necessarily red, they still could be. She was following up, trying to find out about the damn flags. Maybe it would be better if she found out he was awful or did really stupid things. Then she could turn this crush around, because it was nosediving right now and she was about to hit the ground hard, but she didn’t know if she could shake the feelings, even if those were serious red flags.
Carlisle dove in. “So why the fancy sports car and the old house?”
“Hey! That house has good bones!”
“I know,” she replied drolly. He hadn’t answered the question. “So does mine.” She waved her hand up and over her head, even as she began to wonder if they maybe even had the same floorplan. “But it's older, not in the best shape. You don't have furniture and you don’t seem to be paying anybody to fix it up. But you’ve clearly spent a lot of money on the car.”
The car was a recent model. She didn’t know a lot about cars, but she could tell it wasn't something he'd gotten after the good years had passed. Maybe he’d gotten it second hand, but as new as it was, that would still be very expensive.
“The car is for work,” he said, finally offering a real answer. “I drive into Atlanta a couple of days a week. I go to other businesses and consult. When I show up, I need to look like I know how business works. I need to look like the kind of thing that the business or the CEO wants to become or already is.”
“So you blew all your money on the car?” Carlisle watched as he struggled. Simon’s expression looked like it wasn't quite the right answer to say yes, and it wasn't quite the right answer to say no. Interesting . She’d offered him an acceptable answer, but he wasn't taking the easy way out.
When he still didn’t answer after a minute, she softened her tone. No more playful banter. There was something here. “You can tell me.”
Simon sighed, leaning back as if he needed more space between them. “I provide most of the support for my family.” He said it with the kind of cadence and speed that told her he had just come up with that phrasing.
“Wife and kids?” Her heart was sinking. That would be so bad. For her.
He immediately laughed. “No. Mother and sister.”
Jane was right. Not a red flag. In fact, it was a green one. “And that was why you lived at home for so long?”
He nodded. “I would do anything for them.” His eyes darted away, there was a layer of guilt there somewhere. Though Carlisle wasn't quite ready to poke at that bruise.
“They don’t work?” He was in his thirties, his sister had to be an adult .
“My mother works as a billing clerk for a doctor. That way she can work when she can. That’s really been a lifesaver, but it’s not the kind of career that will ever put her even in the middle of middle class.”
“And your sister? Is she a lot younger than you?”
“Eight years.” He paused, then settled in as if resigning himself to telling her the story. “When she was thirteen, and I was just beginning to get out of the house on my own, things started happening. Her behavior was erratic, she yelled sometimes, and we didn’t know why or at what.” His face frowned as if just from the memory. “Mom and I thought it was just teenage stuff, and it took us probably too long but she was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia, then obsessive compulsive disorder. But they dropped that and added Bipolar a handful of years ago.”
“Oh no.” Carlisle felt her heart drop more. It would have been less devastating if he’d just been an asshole or an idiot. Schizophrenia and the other diagnoses were all difficult to control. There were no good medications to take care of it, or at least no great ones. None that didn't have serious side effects and require additional drugs for the side effects, and then more for those side effects.
“Is she on a cocktail of medications?” Carlisle asked thinking that might be the best way to ask.
Simon nodded. “Of course, and my health insurance doesn't cover everything because it's mental health. She’ll age out of being on my family plan next year. I don’t know what we’re going to do then.”
Carlisle felt the hope leave her body. She had seen it so many times in the ER. Anyone who wasn't wealthy simply couldn't afford the care that somebody needed with severe mental health diagnoses. Bipolar disorder could cause that kind of problem, or OCD, if they were severe enough. But schizophrenia was always on the severe list. There were no mild cases. Few manageable ones. Just the money to see a therapist on a regular basis was draining and very rarely completely covered.
She wanted to say she was so sorry, but that wasn’t the right thing to do either. There was every possibility that they were managing it. Maybe his sister was living a full life thanks to modern chemistry.
“She's supposed to be on the cocktail.” The way he said it, Carlisle could guess what was coming next. “Sometimes she takes herself off. It's an ongoing cycle.”
Carlisle had seen that, too.
Simon added, “I try not to judge because I have no idea what it's like to live with it, only what it's like to see it from the outside.”
“It’s a lot,” she acknowledged. She didn’t know everything, but she knew more than the average citizen. But she also mostly saw people at their worst, so maybe she was over inflating the problems.
“And I can't fix it.” The catch in his voice made her heart crack for him. No wife and kids somewhere, just a man who loved his family and wished he could do more.
The silence grew heavier, though Carlisle wasn’t the one adding to it. She’d learned from all the patients through the ER that the silence meant she should wait them out and listen.
“Darcy was hospitalized for seven days right after I moved here.”
“That must have been terrifying.” Carlisle leaned forward. Even as she thought more about her experience, she realized, she was ER. They didn’t follow up with cases. The patients were gone by the time she started her next shift, and none of them had been her immediate family.
Though she wondered what shape her brother might be in when he returned, given that the unit he was with had decided to send him home .
“It was a lot, not being there. Mom and I always feel out of control when these things hit. Like we have to put out fires, but we got good at it.”
Ouch . It must have happened frequently.
“But then I was over a thousand miles away. I couldn’t get home. Mom had to handle it by herself. All I could do was make a few calls and find her a bed.”
“That’s still a lot.” Carlisle knew that much. And she knew it must have been hard to watch a crisis unfold and not be able to do anything. He was different than the people who’d stood at the edge of the water when her car went down. They’d looked and yelled. But only Ever had just run right in to save her.
“It turned out okay, but we got hit with a huge set of bills for it. It hit some sweet spot where it was too long to just be an involuntary hold, and too short to be covered under long term.”
Carlisle was catching on. “So, the furniture waits.”
“Exactly.” He shrugged. “I might get some anyway. I feel like I need it.”
“Do you want me to help pick it out?” Carlisle almost laughed at her offer. “Okay, my taste is nowhere near Emma Kate’s.” Then she laughed harder as he waved his hand around at her house.
“Looks like you've done pretty well for yourself.”
“Also Emma Kate,” she admitted. “Well, I picked some of it, but I was given a design plan and clear color choices and help along the way. Hey! I can maybe hook you up with my designer cousin. She might give you a discount if you let her film it and put it on her social media accounts.”
He laughed at that, and she was glad the conversation had turned. Also glad that she understood the reasons behind the odd choices.
“I'd be more than willing,” he grinned. Then his tone changed. “But I was hoping maybe we could go out to dinner afterwards, maybe see a movie. I wasn't intending to invite your cousin along on a date.”
A date .
Carlisle felt her insides flutter and bloom, but what was the right thing to say?