The Color of Nothing Coming Soon #3
We continued to limp along as a makeshift family. I began my own secretarial service and continued writing. My son moved out and Darla got his room.
A lot of things happened and my memory is fuzzy about the sequence. I discovered that not only was Darla continuing to sneak out of the house at night, Dani was too. I can’t recall exactly how I learned this was happening. I was ready to send Darla back to her mother, but Dani begged me not to, insisting it was her idea to go with Darla. I know I attempted to punish them. I recall making them clean bathrooms with a toothbrush and I don’t recall what else. But it happened again, and this time, I called my son.
The girls had told me the first time that they had gone to the pier, so Matt and his roommate decided to see if that’s where they were. Sure enough, he found them with a couple of guys. And really? I don’t know why I didn’t send Darla away then. I probably should have. But I didn’t.
One of Darla’s long-time friends committed suicide. Dani was involved in an extremely bad car accident. I learned that Darla had been sexually abused by a neighbor. I’d long suspected something like that had happened to her, but when I mentioned it to her mother, she didn’t believe anything had ever happened.
A writer friend of mine who’d trained as a psychologist offered to counsel both girls. I don’t know if this helped either of them or not.
Both Dani and Darla got jobs at a new ice cream store close to our home. I started working at the coffee place next to it. The girls went to prom. I began to hope Darla could succeed. I’d been writing a fictional version (originally entitled Sneakers for obvious reasons) inspired by my experience with Darla. Neither girl seemed to think my effort to create this story was very good. But I did it because in fiction I could control Darla. I could offer her a happy ending. Something I wasn’t able to do in real life. Probably I wanted a happy ending for myself as well.
Still, by the time Darla was a senior in high school, I thought maybe we’d turned a corner. Maybe there was hope for her yet. 
Read Part 4 to find out why I was wrong about that.
Check out the next blog post to find out what happened.
The Color of Nothing releases December 1, 2021, and is available for pre-order on Amazon. And elsewhere.
