Page 119 of The Lies I've Told
His hands flew up in a calming manner. “He’s fine, I can assure you. Well, as fine as he can be.”
My brows furrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
His gaze went to the living room and then to me.
“Oh, right. Come in, please. I’m sorry.”
I stepped to the side as he made his way in, and I allowed myself a moment to take him all in.
He was taller than Aiden’s six-foot-two-inch frame and had a bit less bulk. But he was handsome in a very sophisticated,Fifty Shades of Greysort of way.
“You said you’ve been trying to find me?” I asked as he took a seat on one of the two sofas in my living room. I held up the bottle of rosé I still held in my hand, offering him some.
He shook his head before answering my question, “I flew to Virginia Beach and then Ocracoke, but my very chatty pilot, after finding out who I was coming to visit, said you weren’t on the island any longer—that he’d flown you to the airport just hours earlier.”
“That would be Jimmy. We go way back.”
He nodded as I helped myself to a glass of wine, listening as I popped the cork.
“He actually flew me down here.”
I stopped mid-glass. “To Florida? Jimmy? He flew you all the way down to Florida?” My mouth gaped open. “But that man doesn’t even like to fly to the other side of the state. He does tours for tourists and airport runs, and occasional trips to the hospital in a pinch. But that’s it. He likes to stay close to the island.”
“That’s what he said—until I told him why I needed to get to you.”
My heart beat a little faster in my chest as I took my glass of wine to the living room and sat down. “And why is that?”
“I’m about to violate HIPPA privacy rules for what I’m going to tell you—not to mention, if it ever got out, I could lose my medical license—but he’s my brother Millie, and for a good portion of my childhood, I didn’t have any sort of family. He and Ben were it for me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, my head spinning the second he started mentioning HIPAA.
“I know you don’t. My stubborn brother has made sure of that. And, right now, he’s miserable because of it.”
“You said he was okay. Has something happened with his hand?” I asked.Oh God, did he reinjure it?Maybe it had been too soon to travel.
“His hand is fine,” he reassured me as his gaze leveled with mine.
In that moment, I knew something was about to change. It was like all the air had been sucked out of the room.
“Aiden is going blind.”
“What?” I felt my body react to the news quicker than my mind. Tears welled in my eyes as a sob tore through me. “Are you sure?”
He took my hand in his, and it felt warm and comforting. He didn’t answer right away, giving me a second to breathe. “Yes, I’m sure. I’m the doctor who diagnosed him.”
“He never told me what kind of doctor you were,” I said.
He smiled. “No, he probably would have kept that to himself, too. I’m an ophthalmologist. A pretty damn good one too, if you ask me.”
“Is there a cure? Can you fix it?”
He shook his head. “What he has is degenerative. I can help with prescriptive eye wear to help him see at night, or even some medications have been found to help slow it, but his is happening so fast and at such a young age. It’s really like—”
“Working blind?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” he answered.
I let out a staggered breath, remembering all the times he’d seemed nervous about going out at night… the picnic at the beach, my damn carving lesson.
