Chapter Thirty-Nine
Karl was as nervous as a schoolgirl awaiting her first date, or a convicted prisoner about to learn his fate.
Hard as it was to fathom, he’d been here nine months, nine grueling months that seemed like a separate lifetime. And he still wasn’t healed. After everything he’d endured, some sick part of him still seemed reluctant to trade the living death of the state home for two weeks in Maui with sweet Doreen. She remained unperturbed of course. In fact she was visibly excited about finally ‘forcing him out of denial’ and instituting this dread new protocol, whatever it was.
This was both terrifying and reassuring. In a way she had bet so much on him, with potential costs far beyond just a year’s salary and prodigious individual effort. If she failed to cure him, she
