Chapter 9
I knew:
Carla would leave me. While I was visiting my father in New York along Lake Samoy, Carla packed two of her suitcases with her belongings and made the hour drive to Shermont, Ohio. There, she was protected by her mother and father, a Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Benning, and her seventeen-year-old sister, Laura Jane. And there, Carla was soothed and coddled because of Lock’s unfortunate demise. Safely under her family’s care, unharmed and confined in a place where I knew she could grow again, becoming emotionally healed.
She had the decency to contact me before departing our city home. Between her unsteady gasps of air, I listened to Carla cry into her cell phone. Half-delirious, she explained, “Nick, I can’t stay here without you. I have to go home. I’ll be with my family.
