The store tag was still hanging from one of the handles.
I stared at it.
Carla noticed.
Her expression hardened. “Don’t start.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have tO.”
She picked up the bag and ran her fingers over the gold clasp. “Adults have expenses you don’t understand.”
My father had died eleven months earlier from a sudden heart attack. One morning, he had been making pancakes and complaining that the coffee tasted weak. By lunchtime, he was gone.
After that, Carla took contrOl of everything.
She controlled the house, the bills, our father’s insurance, and the savings accounts our mother had left for my younger brother and me.
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