It's no secret that lately there ain't no escape

 

Carson felt he was stuck in a hard place. However, he was elated which left him bitter-sweet when his mom left him the house.

"But, but I  have to pay you rent," he didn't want to listen to her about how he needed a place for him and the kids. Besides, she wasn't doing that well lately with all her illnesses that had caught up to her. She couldn't even smoke anymore. 

"Easy bought a premade ranch-style home," she told him they'd found a place for it not too far out of town near the Platt River.

Carson knew it was no more than a bona fide double-wide trailer, but it was beautiful inside, and his mother, Clare, wouldn't have to walk up the stairs anymore in the three-level home she was in. 

Easy was her partner. Honestly, Carson couldn't remember his mom staying that long with anyone. He was a little younger than her and drove a bus at the nearby assisted living home. They'd been good for each other, and now they'd both stopped smoking. Fortunately, they never smoked in the house.

Carson felt a little out of it with the news. He'd talked with Brit's mother, Betty, about it, who thought it was a great idea. Especially since the place wasn't all that far from her place, and Gage, his brother, lived close. 

"I know you never expected much out of me, all these years, and I know I leaned on you a lot when you were growing up." She rehashed all those time when she was in rehab, and he'd survived the Foster System in those days when they lived in Florida.

His mom smiled about it now, who had become frail. "But if it wasn't for you, I might not be here today." She said she was happy that both her sons were wonderful Dads.

Carson nodded, even though he felt he was in a sea of unrest, trying to hang on with the job at the ER and being a paremedic a couple of days a week. He still wasn't sure he had enough time for the kids, these days. Usually, Friday nights were their night. As summer played on, he had too much to do to worry about Brit. After all, he'd been told more than once from Gage, and even her mother, he had to let her go.

Things were looking up, and then the security at the hospital gave him a call to look at some footage in the hospital parking lot.