Chapter 49
49
T he South has her faults. But those who truly love her admit her flaws and work to make it a better place for everyone.
Carlisle stood in her garage next to her brother, her hands working as she packed red kits into boxes. She felt the pull of cramps and tried rolling her shoulders. “We should get something for dinner soon.”
“Whatever,” Charlie answered from the other end of the table as if even food wasn't enough impetus to make him join a conversation.
She had told her brother about Darcy being missing. About Simon leaving to find her. But not the rest. She hadn't told Jane either.
For two days Simon had been gone. He would be missing work again starting tomorrow morning, but gave no indication of coming home. Carlisle had tentatively texted a few times. — Please tell me you found her.
He'd messaged back only a single word each time. — No .
If they didn't find Darcy, he was going to blame her for the loss of his sister.
There was nothing she could do from here, so she printed labels. Lesson learned, she let them dry before she tore them apart. She lined up addresses and boxes, letting Charlie move back and forth across the garage, carrying kits. He counted them out and put the right numbers into the different sized boxes.
Once they had the table covered with boxes, they added packing materials. The lightweight foam peanuts Charlie had brought were scattered across the floor, but he didn't care. It wasn't his place. He was simply the voluntary help. Carlisle couldn't bring herself to clean it up.
She held the flaps of the box down as her brother strapped the packing tape in place and immediately applied the label, making it impossible for them to get boxes mixed up. They carried the batch to the back of her dad's truck, which her brother had brought today for just this purpose.
“Leave them,” she sighed. “Let me buy you pizza.”
“Joey's?” he asked. “God, I haven't had Joey's in . . .”
“Really? You've been home for a while.”
“Mom is trying to feed me back to health or whatever.” It was more than he'd said in quite some time. When his words trailed off, she let the conversation fade.
“My car,” she told him, leaving the truck where it was. She was operating under the assumption that no one in Breathless was going to steal all those car safety kits from the back of her dad's truck way up in her driveway. They called in an order and headed out to pick it up.
As she got out of the car—which no longer fit in the garage—she felt the evening air hit her. Too chilly. She motioned her brother inside and set the pizza down on the Antique dining room set that now always made her think of Simon. If she hadn't been so upset, she would have had to work not to blush in front of her twin.
Charlie opened the lid out of habit, and for a moment Carlisle forgot that she was now the proud parent of Kitten, who immediately hopped onto the table and began investigating.
Carlisle told her a firm no before picking her off the table and closing the box.
Her brother had already headed into the kitchen and was grabbing them drinks. She pulled out paper plates, seeing that the stack was getting low. There had been a time when she wouldn't even bring herself to wash dishes. She told herself she was doing better now, but Darcy being missing hadn’t helped. Simon’s accusation made it even worse.
At the table, she saw Charlie had brought bottles. A beer for him—one that she stocked because she knew he liked it—a fruity hard lemonade for her. She was a little too depressed to be drinking and honestly Charlie wasn't in any shape either, but she wasn't about to argue.
She was biting into her first slice, watching as her brother did the same. At least because they’d driven it home it didn't have that super-hot quality where it could blister the roof of your mouth.
Though he seemed to enjoy it, Charlie didn’t eat with his usual gusto for Joey's pizza. She almost wanted to ask, Not as good as you remembered? But she held her tongue. What kind of pizza had he gotten in the middle of a foreign war? Maybe none.
Whatever had happened, Charlie still wasn't talking.
She was halfway through her piece when he reached into the box for a second, laid it out on his plate, and picked up his beer. He looked at her, lifting the drink. “I don’t know what Mom and Dad are going to do.”
She had no idea where that comment came from .
He continued. “I mean, Christian’s fine now.”
Mama had worried about Christian, but he was with Riley now and incredibly happy.
“But look at us: the two of us getting pulled under at the same time.”
She hadn’t put two and two together, but it was a good way to put it. She had literally been pulled under. He'd been sucked into something and spit back out. Their parents were trying to feed them, tell them it would be alright, and when that didn’t work, just ignore it away.
She lifted her bottle and clinked the half-full glass against his. “Amen, brother.”
“You want to tell me about it?” he asked.
“What? That I nearly died?”
“No. The new thing.” Of course, he realized there was something different now. Damn, she must have different depressions now.
She took a deep breath. “Darcy went out and apparently she went into the city with a portfolio of her work. It was a good couple of hours away from where they found the car.”
“How far is this city?”
“Further than us to Atlanta,” she told him. “She's been without her meds for several days now. And Simon blames me.”
Charlie frowned, set down his bottle and lifted the pizza from his plate. But before he took a bite, he asked, “How could this possibly be your fault? She's— what —ten states away?”
“I talked to her on the phone last week. I told her how amazing her artwork is.” She motioned to the piece still propped against the sideboard. She wondered if she would ever be able to bring herself to frame it or even look at it if Darcy didn’t come back.
“That's Darcy's?” He was surprised. Just as she had been.
“Yeah, not a hobby artist. ”
“Wow.” The pizza was set back down on the plate as Charlie admired the work.
It was large, vibrant and yet the colors blurred in certain places and spoke of something lurking just beneath the surface. Carlisle loved it. And she almost hated it. Because she would gladly have never seen it if that would bring Darcy back.
“It's not your fault,” Charlie said. “Even if your words were magic, and your suggestion set her off on a spree to avoid her medication and get lost, you couldn't have known that.”
In her head, Carlisle understood. It was harder to absorb it. She tried to go back to eating her pizza, but she couldn't quite forgive herself. “I just hope they find her.”