And there is nothing you can do to change that." Lisa?" Carla said a few minutes later."Hmmmm?"."Sometimes I get scared." About what?".About people le...ving." Like your father?".Carla nodded unable to speak."Hmmm. I think it is time we had some rules." Lisa said with a smile."Rule number one. If you get scared you come to me and I hold you until you are not scared anymore." Then she grinned and added "I can't think of any other rules right now, but I will let you now what they are when I think. His gaze never wavered. "I'm not leaving here. I'm staying. I know that there is a woman's heart in there somewhere, just aching to come out. You've been hurt. So what? We all have. The difference is you blame yourself for something you couldn't control. He's the one that fucked up, not you. It had nothing to do with you. He was a sick bastard and you suffered the consequences. Stop punishing yourself. Let someone love you."I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He knew! He knew everything. Keri marveled at his culinary efforts and wasn’t reticent about letting him know so. As they chopped and diced and mixed together she quite happily carried on a predominantly one sided conversation with him, further introducing herself, and he was ecstatically content to just listen and be the recipient of her verbal attentions. She told him that she had recently finished her studies as a clinical psychologist, and had just started a job at a center for troubled teenagers. She went on to. " OK. I'll look forward to it. I love you." And that was it.We met as I suggested, and we walked down the road. Suddenly I decided it was time for her to face up to some final demons, and I headed for the lime green fronted Italian. And just as suddenly she saw where I intended, and she held back."No. Not there. Not three days after he died. It's bad enough, but not now, please Chris."I turned and looked at her. Maybe I should press it. I hated the idea that there was a no go area in our lives..