Page 43 of When People Leave

Carla

W hen Carla first arrived in Los Angeles, she lived as if Brian might pop up at any time.

Whenever she left her home, she stayed vigilant of her surroundings.

During those first few years, she’d shudder if anyone got near her or the girls.

Once, she almost punched a man when he approached them to say how cute the girls looked in their Halloween costumes.

As the years went by, she began feeling safer. Brian had not found them.

When she got close to women friends and they asked her about her past, she would tell them she divorced her husband when the girls were young.

She said he had met someone else and then, a few years later, passed away.

She talked about her life as tragic, explaining that after her divorce, her parents died in a car accident.

When she was called upon to relay these stories, she made her chin quiver so the person would feel sympathy for her and change the subject. It always worked.

Ginny was the only person Carla had told that she had grown up in Brooklyn, gone to college there, and moved to Los Angeles when she got divorced. Carla didn’t mean to divulge all that information, but one night, when she and Ginny had too much wine, her mouth forgot to stop talking.

Carla’s life with the girls made all the secrecy worthwhile.

She loved being a parent and wished they never had to grow up.

One night, she told Ginny that one of her biggest fears was that the girls would someday move away—and that’s exactly what eventually happened.

One by one, her daughters left Los Angeles.

It took Carla a while to accept their absence from her life, but she looked forward to their annual weekend away together.

She also visited each of them as often as she could, or they came to see her.

She began driving down to Abby’s every other month when she became a grandmother.

She loved her grandchildren as much as she loved her daughters.

Everything changed for Carla on the night of the fire. She didn’t have a moment’s hesitation about saving Martha but never considered that someone would film her or that her picture and identity would be broadcast across America.

All those years she had spent hiding from Brian and the loan sharks who were chasing him had gone up in smoke when she got an email from Brian on her office account.

Carla read his first email many times over.

She waited two days to answer him, trying to figure out what to say.

When she finally wrote back, she told him that too much time had passed, and it was a bad idea for him to see the girls.

She knew Brian and that he wouldn’t stop asking, but maybe it would buy her some time so she could figure out what to do.

Carla didn’t sleep that night and felt weary and delirious when her alarm went off. I have to get out of here, I have to get out of here , her brain kept repeating. She hoped Brian would leave her alone if she disappeared again.

She pulled two large suitcases out of the garage and packed as much as she could fit into each one.

Then, she drove to the bank, pulled her passport out of her safety deposit box, and withdrew over three thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills.

When she got home, she googled foreign countries where they spoke English.

She sat down to make a plane reservation when it hit her that what she was doing was insane. Was she really going to be able to outrun the past? She hid all the money in her clothes and shoes in her closet in case someone robbed her.

Her computer dinged to announce an email. She had a sick feeling it was from Brian. She didn’t want to read it but couldn’t stop herself. He was determined to see the girls.

There’s no way I can tell the girls that for their whole life I lied about their father. I know how much damage not having him around has done to them. Even if I explained that I was protecting them, they’d hate me for all the nights they mourned their father when I could’ve given them hope.

Carla felt a panic attack coming on. She hadn’t had a bad one in years.

She got down on the floor with her legs pulled up to her chest in the fetal position.

Feeling as if she was about to pass out, she took deep breaths, blew them out slowly, and worked on steadying her heart rate.

Then she grabbed a bottle of vodka and wrote back to Brian.

She told him that Morgan and Charlie were fine without him and that meeting them would do more harm than good.

At least he doesn’t know that Abby exists .

The subsequent few emails only got worse.

In Brian’s final email, he threatened that he would see their daughters no matter what, even if he had to have her arrested for kidnapping them across state lines.

Carla knew from police shows that there was no statute of limitations for kidnapping.

She clutched her chest. I’m going to lose my daughters and go to jail. There’s no way to fix this; it’s too late, and my girls will never speak to me again. I’d rather die than have them all turn against me.

Carla was sobbing so hard she could barely find her way to the bathroom.

She pulled out the new bottle of Xanax that she kept for emergencies.

Things had been going well, so she hadn’t taken any in a long time.

She took a blanket and curled up on the couch with a pad of paper and a pen.

Since the pills were so small, she popped four at a time in her mouth and swigged the Vodka before she could think about what she was doing.

Ten minutes later, there were no more pills and much less Vodka.

Albert jumped up on the couch next to her.

“Forgive me, Albert,” she said, gently patting his head. “I promise you’ll find a nice home with someone who’ll love you as much as I do.” She leaned down and kissed him.

Albert snuggled up into her as if he knew something was off. As she continued talking to him, her words became slurred, and her speech slowed dramatically. Albert licked her face. When she tried to push him away, she couldn’t pick up her arms anymore; they were dead weight.

Right before she fell unconscious, her eyes fluttered open. She had a moment of regret for what she was doing.

“ I’m so, so tired. Good night, Albert.”

Carla closed her eyes for the last time.