Barclay, Linwood Novel 08 - Never saw it coming

But we do need to talk about some things.”
    “Okay.”
    “When I go back to my own house, I’m going to be worried about leaving you here on your own.”
    Thomas shook his head, like there was nothing to worry about. “I’ll be fine.”
    “Dad did everything around here,” I said. “He made the meals, he cleaned the house, he paid the bills, he went into town to get the groceries, he made sure the furnace was working and called the guy if there was something wrong with it. Anything else that broke, he fixed it. If the lights went off, he went down and flipped the breakers to get them back on. Do you know where the breaker panel is, Thomas?”
    “The furnace works fine,” he said.
    “You don’t have a driver’s license,” I said. “How are you going to get food into the house?”
    “I’ll have it delivered,” he said.
    “We’re out in the middle of nowhere. And who’s going to actually go to the grocery store and pick out the things you like?”
    “You know what I like,” Thomas said.
    “But I won’t be here.”
    “You can come back,” he said. “Once a week, and get my food and pay the bills and see if the furnace is okay and then you can go back to Burlington.” He paused. “Vermont.”
    “What about each day? Let’s say you’ve got some food in the house. Are you going to be okay making your own meals?”
    Thomas looked away.
    I leaned in a little closer to him, reached out, and touched his arm. “Look at me,” I said. He turned his head back reluctantly.
    “Maybe,” I said, “if you made some changes in your routine, maybe you could take on some of these responsibilities yourself.”
    “What do you mean?” he asked.
    “Well, maybe you need to manage your time better.”
    He adopted a puzzled expression. “I manage my time very well.”
    I took my hand away and placed both palms down on the table. “Tell me about that.”
    “I do. I make very good use of my time.”
    “Describe your day for me.”
    “Which day? Like, a weekday, or the weekend?” He was stalling.
    “Would you say your Monday-to-Friday routine is very different from your weekend routine?”
    He thought on that. “I suppose not.”
    “Then any day would be fine. You pick.”
    Now he eyed me with suspicion. “Are you trying to make fun of me? Are you picking on me?”
    “You said you use your time wisely, so tell me.”
    “Well,” he said, “I get up around nine o’clock, and I have a shower, and then Dad makes me breakfast around nine thirty, and then I get to work.”
    “Work,” I said. “Tell me about that.”
    “You know,” he said.
    “I just don’t think I’ve heard you call it work before. Tell me about that.”
    “I go to work after breakfast, and I take a break for lunch, and then I go back to work until it’s dinnertime, and then I do some more work before I go to bed.”
    “And that’s around, what, one, two, three in the morning?”
    He nodded.
    “Tell me about the work.”
    “Why are you doing this, Ray?”
    “I guess I’m thinking if you spent a little less time on this work, as you call it, you’d be in a better position to look after yourself. Thomas, it’s no secret you’ve got issues you’ve been dealing with for a very long time, and that they’re ongoing, and I get that. Just like Dad and Mom did. And, compared to plenty of other people who have the same thing as you, who aren’t able to shut out the voices or deal with other symptoms, you manage very well. You get up, you dress yourself, you and I can sit here and have a rational conversation about things.”
    “I know,” Thomas said, somewhat indignantly. “I’m perfectly normal.”
    “But the amount of time you spend on your . . . work stands to interfere with your ability to look after this house on your own, or live here by yourself, and if you’re not able to do that, then we’re going to have to look at some other arrangement.”
    “What do you mean, another arrangement?”
    I hesitated. “Living somewhere else. Maybe an apartment, in town. Or, and this is something I’ve only just started looking into, some sort of housing where you’d live with other people with similar issues, where there are staff who look after things you can’t look after yourself.”
    “Why do you keep saying ‘issues’? I don’t have issues, Ray. I’ve had mental problems, which are very much under control. If you had arthritis, would you want me to say you had an issue with your bones?”
    “I’m sorry.