The Test by Patricia Gussin

Bunky.”
    â€œNo,” Sara said, this time looking directly at Carla. “I’ve packed his things. And I’m changing the locks. He’s trouble, Miss Carla, real trouble.”
    Carla figured she could get word to Bunky somehow. Sara would get over this high moral ground, and become her supporter again. If only her mother were here,
she’d
make them all go away. Or Rory, who’d always rescued her.
    â€œSara, one more thing” Carla said. “And this is important. It’ll take hours to get to this place upstate. I need my stuff. Just to get by. I need it real bad. I thought I had some, but I can’t find it. Did you see it? Please Sara. After today, I’ll be in treatment. This will all stop, but I’m desperate, just for tonight.”
    Sara shook her head.
    â€œPlease, Sara. I’m begging you.”
    â€œNothing’s left, Miss Carla. I flushed it all down the toilet.”
    â€œNo.” Carla reached out to strike her, but when Sara lifted her thin arm to shield her face, Carla dropped her hand. “You flushed my fucking life.”

CHAPTER NINE
    A PRIL 2001
    Dan Parnell set down the twenty-pound bag of dog food and punched the blinking message button.
    â€œHi Dan, this is Gina.” Her voice in his kitchen? He must be delirious from a day pruning royal palms in the unseasonable heat.
    â€œI’d like to invite you to my house for Easter dinner. I know it’s last minute, but Monica is going to be there too. Of course, if you have plans, I’d surely understand. But it would be great if you can make it. Three o’clock.” She went on to provide directions, but Dan knew exactly where she lived. In a Spanish stucco, cream-colored, one-story house with a red-tiled roof. In Fort Myers, not far from Lee Memorial Hospital where she worked.
    Taking only enough time to fill the dogs’ water bowl, he reached for the wall-mounted phone. His hand trembled as he dialed the call-back number. He needed to react before he lost his nerve.
    â€œHello.” He recognized the male voice.
    â€œTerry? It’s . . .” Dan hesitated, not knowing what he should say, “It’s your dad?” Too presumptuous. He decided on, “It’s Dan Parnell. Is your mother there?”
    â€œNope. She and Carrie are out shopping. So are you coming tomorrow?”
    â€œYes,” Dan said. “Will you let her know?”
    â€œSure thing. That’s cool ’cause I’ve got a couple things to talk to you about.”
    As Dan drove across Alligator Alley on Easter morning, he could still see it in his mind’s eye, their tiny two-room apartment in Miami. Howhe and Gina had to rearrange the cheap living room furniture to allow for the two cribs. How the walls were so thin, and how worried they were that the babies would keep their neighbors awake. How it had all come to an end. The air conditioner in his Tundra was blasting, but Dan started to sweat. Would Gina give him a second chance? He reached up to loosen his tie. Maybe he shouldn’t have worn one, but he wanted to look respectful. He cranked the air-conditioning up even more. He calculated carefully when to take his last smoke, so that Gina wouldn’t smell stale tobacco on him.
    Dan had returned to Lantana in January after his father’s funeral, mortified by the scene he’d made. For days, he’d simply roamed his property, talking to no one. His foreman stepped in and took over all the decisions about the trees. His only company was Lucy, his yellow lab, and Lucky, his black one. In the end, he decided to write to Gina. In that first letter, he groped to find the right words to express all the pent-up guilt, all the years of loneliness. He apologized for his embarrassing tears in Pennsylvania. He wrote of his pride, totally undeserved, in the children. About what a magnificent job she had done. He’d never been much of a writer, but the words that he’d