Not so. Her painful joints and extreme fatigue made doing most everything a challenge. She also experienced mild cognitive issues and forgot important things. Things like taking her meds on time. Or eating.
Dev walked up behind Colin and dropped into the chair at the table where his Glock and cleaning supplies sat. “Didn’t think it would come to this.”
Colin took a better look at his mother’s face. Her body. She’d aged well on the surface, still a fit, beautiful woman with the same dark hair color shared with Colin and Dev. By looking at her, you would never know she’d suffered from lupus for so many years. But shehadsuffered. Majorly.
Still, she was a big-time believer in not letting her disease define her, and she refused to give in to it. Sure, she had a lot of days when the choice wasn’t hers to make, but for the most part, she’d found workarounds.
Until now. Now her suffering had taken over. Colin hated to see her suffer. Would do anything to take it away. Scared him to see it. And her willingness to give in and come live with them scared him even more. She was far too self-sufficient to accept losing her independence unless she absolutely had no choice. Which meant she was even worse off than she was letting on.
Colin looked at Dev. “She looks just fine sleeping there. If only…” He let his voice fall off. “I don’t know what I was going to say. There’s noif only. With no cure for lupus, that’s not changing.”
“We can fix this,” Dev said. “For now anyway. Keep working with her doctor and insurance company to get her back on the meds that work.”
“Stupid insurance company, suddenly denying coverage.” Colin gritted his teeth. “Hopefully her doctor’s latest appeal will work, and they’ll approve the right drug no matter the cost.”
Dev slammed his fist into his other palm. “Give me five minutes with them, and I’d change their mind.”
Colin rolled his eyes. “All that would result in is you going to jail, and then who would take care of Mom?”
“Too bad Jada just re-upped, or she could be here too.” Their little sister had gone straight into the Navy from high school and, at the age of twenty-five, already had seven years in.
Colin nodded. “She was one of the last people I thought would make a career in the Navy.”
Dev raised an eyebrow. “You don’t give your younger siblings credit for growing up. You just see us as kids who always wanted to hang out with their big brother.”
Colin winced. “There could be some truth there, but all I’m certain of now is that it’s taking both of us to care for Mom, and we’re failing on all counts.”
“Not all counts. She’s looked after.”
“But what about all the hours we’re missing at work? At this rate, the Maddox brothers can only keep us employed for so long.”
“But they’ve been great about it.”
“Yeah, while having to pick up our slack, and that’s not fair to them.”
Dev picked up the cleaning rod. “Too bad one of us can’t afford to quit and take care of her full time. Or even pay for the meds ourselves.”
“That wouldn’t help Shadow Lake Survival. At least not right now We’re in peak season, and classes are fully booked through August. The guys can’t lose our expertise without losing revenue.”
“You got a better idea?” Dev worked the rod through the barrel of his Glock.“We still can’t afford to hire a nurse, and her insurance won’t cover that either. And ditto on the home health care worker.”
They’d looked into paying the cost themselves and were shocked at what a nurse was paid. Not that they should be surprised. Nurses were highly trained and worth the care they provided.
“Mom doesn’t need a nurse,” Colin said. “We can just keep trying to hire a caregiver with less training.”
Dev blinked. “You losing your memory too, bro? We’ve tried that for weeks. Failed to get anyone to apply that we would even consider.”
“Then we try again. Keep at it. I’ll place an ad in the paper as soon as I can. I’m heading out now to do a joint class with Eryn Sawyer at Blackwell Tactical. I’ll be spending the night in Cold Harbor at their compound, so you have Mom duty.”
Dev increased the speed of his rod going in and out of the gun barrel. “I don’t get it. Why do you need Eryn’s help to teach a basic class on eliminating an online presence? Not when you were once a big-time cyber expert at the FBI and all.”
“I don’t need her help to do the training, but you know class participants can now choose to have us delete their online footprints, right?”
“Right. But it’ll cost them.”
“Money they appear willing to pay, so most of the participants sign up for the service. Means it takes two people to complete the work in the week we have them in our training program.”
“Why can’t Eryn come here?”
