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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Runaway, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Attachment, Maturity, and Stability
Relationships and Control
Escape
Independence and Freedom
Summary
Analysis
Carla is at home when she hears an approaching car and hopes it is not her neighbor Mrs. Jamieson returning from a vacation in Greece. She looks out and sees that it is, in fact, Mrs. Jamieson, and something about her neighbor’s facial expression makes Carla recoil. She wonders if her husband, Clark, is aware that Mrs. Jamieson has returned from her trip—or, if not, when he will realize. Carla predicts that Mrs. Jamieson will soon call them on the phone.
Since Carla hears the car outside before she sees it, it’s likely that she was listening for and anticipating Mrs. Jamieson’s arrival. Carla knows right away who’s in the car, suggesting that the area they live in must be fairly remote—there aren’t many cars passing by Carla and Clark’s house. Carla has a strong reaction to realizing that Mrs. Jamieson is back from vacation, implying that there’s something significant about Mrs. Jamieson being home. Since Carla thinks Mrs. Jamieson is going to call soon, it seems like Mrs. Jamieson might want something from her.
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Carla goes outside to check if the ground is dry because she is supposed to be teaching a horseback riding lesson later in the day, though she suspects the student won’t come. It’s July, and it’s been an exceptionally rainy summer so far—the trails and grass around their mobile home are flooded. The previous summer, tourists came for trail rides and horseback riding lessons frequently, but business has been much worse this summer. The rain has damaged the horse-riding ring, and Carla and Clark are both spending a lot of time and money on fixing it.
This passage paints a fuller picture of the story’s setting: Carla and Clark live in a mobile home, which means they probably aren’t affluent. They also have a horseback riding ring and trails around their property, so they live in a rural area. They make money from teaching horseback riding, and since they’re struggling due to fewer students booking lessons, it seems that this is their main income. Carla guesses that her afternoon student won’t show up, indicating that students have been canceling lessons frequently.
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Clark is inside on the computer while Carla is outside. He is looking for a way to buy roofing for the repairs. This is made difficult by the fact that they can’t go to the local supply shop, because Clark owes the owners money and once started a fight with them. Carla thinks how Clark often starts fights with people in town that result in his severing ties and relationships, much to his and Carla’s inconvenience. He got into a disagreement with a woman named Joy Tucker who boards her horse (whom she calls Lizzie Borden due to the horse’s bad temper) with them. Now Clark refuses to care for Lizzie, leaving the responsibility to Carla.
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Despite these hardships, what’s troubling Carla the most is the fact that their pet goat, Flora, has been missing for two days. Carla fears that a wild animal has killed Flora, and she recalls dreaming of Flora both nights that she’s been gone. The first dream was of Flora returning home while carrying a red apple, and next of Flora being hurt and running away, escaping through a fence “like a white eel.” Outside, Carla pets the horses and talks to them about Flora. A couple of them are affectionate and almost seem worried about Flora themselves, but Lizzie Borden bites Carla’s hand instead.
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Three years ago, when Carla moved into the mobile home with Clark, she grew excited about redecorating. Clark even went along with making home improvements for a time. Now, Carla sometimes feels down when Clark is in a bad mood, as he stares at the computer and refuses to interact with her. In these moments, she goes out to the barn with the horses. This is also where they normally keep Flora, whose friendly presence always lifts Carla’s spirits. Clark bought Flora from a farm when she was young, and at first, she followed him everywhere. As she aged, she bonded more with Carla, instead, but also gained more awareness and autonomy. Flora “allowed [Carla] no sense of superiority.” Now, Carla heads inside and asks Clark if there’s any news on the “lost goat” notice he posted online. He says no and suggests that Flora might have run away to mate.
Clark says that Sylvia (Mrs. Jamieson) called while Carla was outside and asked if Carla could come over to help clean the next day. He says that he agreed on her behalf, and that she should call back to confirm. Carla doesn’t want to call Sylvia and tries to change the subject. The two argue about it briefly—Clark is insistent—and Carla goes to take a shower. She emerges to find Clark sitting at the computer, and she hugs him and starts crying, pleading for him not to be upset with her. This annoys Clark, who hardly responds to the emotional outburst, simply telling Carla to make dinner. She obeys and starts cooking, but she keeps crying too much to continue. She goes outside, avoiding the barn so as not to be reminded of Flora. Lizzie whinnies at her with disregard.
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Recently, leading up to this rift, Clark and Carla read Leon Jamieson’s (Sylvia’s husband) obituary in the paper. Leon was much older than Sylvia, and he was a poet, while she was a professor of botany. Clark and Carla learned from the obituary that before he died, he had won a significant cash prize for his poetry. Clark responded to this by formulating a plan to threaten Sylvia and make her pay them. Carla tried to brush his idea off, but he insisted. He made Carla promise to “break down and tell Mrs. Jamieson the whole story.” This is typical of Clark, who often becomes obsessed with impractical schemes.
Carla reflects on the story Clark wants her to tell Mrs. Jamieson—the story is, in reality, a lie she told Clark. She told him that when Leon was sick and dying, he tried to sexually molest Carla when she was at their house. Carla has told Clark numerous accounts of this, finding that the fabricated story excites them both. She knows she can’t now go back on the lie and feels that sometimes she almost believes it’s true herself. It is true, though, that she regularly went to the Jamiesons’ to help around the house, but Leon never abused her. Carla has continued to go to the Jamiesons’ house even after Leon’s death, and though she hates going, she is grateful that Sylvia pays her.
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At the Jamiesons’ house, Sylvia is looking forward to seeing Carla. Sylvia enjoys Carla’s presence and is grateful for Carla’s help cleaning the house and clearing it of Leon’s belongings. One day, Carla kissed Sylvia’s head as they cleaned, which has stuck in Sylvia’s mind. Now, Carla arrives and talks about Sylvia’s trip to Greece. Sylvia gives Carla a figurine of a horse that reminded her of Carla. In Greece, Sylvia told her friends about Carla, and they called Sylvia’s fondness for the girl a “crush,” which annoyed her.
Carla seems distracted as she and Sylvia talk, and eventually the conversation turns to Flora. Carla starts sobbing uncontrollably, which Sylvia finds off-putting. Carla reminds Sylvia in this moment of her “soggy” university students. Carla’s crying is so intense that Sylvia questions whether it’s really about Flora. Carla discloses that she can’t stand living with Clark and that she feels like he hates her. Sylvia suggests that Carla leave, which Carla brushes off at first as impossible. Then she says that if she had enough money, she would leave immediately for Toronto. Sylvia offers to pay for the journey and says Carla can stay with Sylvia’s friend Ruth in the city. Sylvia calls Ruth to let her know, lends Carla clothes, and makes her lunch.
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Carla and Sylvia drink wine and formulate a plan for Carla’s departure. In a note for Sylvia to drop off to Clark, Carla mistakenly writes, “I will be all write,” leading Sylvia to believe that Carla is more disoriented than she originally thought. As they drink, Carla divulges information about her past. She shares that when she was 18, she fell in love with Clark while they were both working at a horse stable. Now she thinks maybe she wasn’t in love and that their relationship was “probably just sex.” Clark worked odd jobs his whole life, and Carla’s parents didn’t like him. They wanted her to go to college, but instead she ran away with him and lost contact with her family.
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Later, after Carla has boarded the bus to Toronto and Sylvia drops off the note to Clark in the mailbox, Sylvia goes for a walk and reminisces about how she used to go on walks with Leon. She feels irritated and anxious thinking about Carla. She calls Ruth first to warn her of Carla’s aloof attitude, and then again to see if Carla has arrived, but no one answers the phone either time. She goes to bed on the couch, not having slept in her and Leon’s bed in months, and dreams of being on a bus. She awakes to a knocking on her door.
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When Carla first boards the bus, she is afraid Clark will see her, but she relaxes as she gets farther from town. At Mrs. Jamieson’s house, leaving for Toronto seemed like the only good option Carla had. She feels that she has risen to meet Mrs. Jamieson’s expectations and doesn’t want to let her down. As the bus gets farther, Carla notices that the landscape looks nicer and has an urge to tell Clark about what she sees. But she realizes she won’t have a chance to speak to him again. Then, she realizes that she’ll never find out if Flora returns. The bus journey reminds Carla of when she first left home as a teenager with Clark. She recalls how she left a note for her parents, explaining her “need of a more authentic kind of life.”
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As Carla sits on the bus thinking of Clark, she begins to cry. She imagines being alone in Toronto, how unfamiliar everything will be, and trying to get a job. She becomes increasingly overcome with emotion as she tries to imagine a future without Clark, and she concludes that she can’t live without him—everything she does is in relation to him. Without Clark, she thinks, “How would she know she was alive?” Now extremely upset and practically in hysterics, she gets up and yells for the bus driver to stop. She gets off the bus and calls Clark to come get her, and he agrees to do so.
Back at the Jamiesons’ house, Sylvia opens the door to the knocking, but no one is there. As she looks around in confusion, she hears someone laugh. It’s Clark, who is just out of sight behind the window. Sylvia is afraid of him and realizes she should have gotten dressed before coming to the door. Clark offers her a bag of clothes, and Sylvia realizes they’re the clothes she lent Carla. Terrified, she asks where Carla is, and Clark responds that she’s at home in bed. Sylvia examines Clark’s menacing and disagreeable appearance and remembers Leon once saying that Clark was “unsure of himself.” Nonetheless, she knows that Clark could hurt her. Clark points out how scared Sylvia was when she first opened the door, and he asks if she thought he murdered Carla, to which Sylvia responds that she was merely surprised to see him.
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Sylvia explains that she was trying to help Carla, and Clark tells her that Carla called him in tears to come get her. Sylvia says Carla had seemed glad to be leaving. Clark tells Sylvia not to get involved in their lives anymore, and Sylvia retorts that Carla is an independent person. Clark takes a hostile and sarcastic tone, demanding an apology from Sylvia, to which she obliges. As the conversation is ending, Sylvia screams with shock as she notices something unidentifiable approaching. Both are frightened as they watch “an unearthly sort of animal” race toward them through dense fog, illuminated by a car’s headlights. As it approaches, they realize it’s Flora.
Clark and Sylvia are relieved to see Flora, having thought at first that there was some kind of supernatural creature. Clark is baffled, remarking that they never expected her to return, and he asks Flora if she’s been away looking for a mate. Clark tells Sylvia that goats are not as tame as they seem, especially not “after they grow up.” When Sylvia says that Flora doesn’t look matured yet, Clark responds that she won’t grow anymore. Sylvia and Clark part ways cordially, and Sylvia agrees that she won’t involve herself in his and Carla’s relationship anymore. Clark says he’s heading home with Flora. Sylvia steps inside to answer a phone call from Ruth. Later, she’s unable to sleep, kept up by thoughts of Flora’s fantastical reappearance. She wonders if the event could be related to Leon’s passing.
Clark wakes Carla as he enters their house. He tells her that he heard something in the middle of the night and went to check on things. He says that while he was up, he returned the clothes to Sylvia, but he doesn’t mention anything about Flora. Carla is alarmed and asks if he talked to Sylvia about “any of that stuff,” to which he responds that he didn’t. She pleads for him to believe that everything she told him about Leon was “made-up,” and he says he believes her. As they get into bed, Carla notes that Clark’s feet feel like they’ve been wet, which he attributes to dew. Clark tells her how upset he was to get her note and that he would feel empty without her.
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The weather turns over the next few days, and it’s finally warm and sunny out. Business starts to boom once again with trail rides and lessons. Clark and Carla are getting along much better than before. Clark jokes that if Carla leaves again, he’ll “tan [her] hide,” and Carla finds herself as attracted to him as ever. Joy Tucker, Lizzie Borden’s owner, comes back from vacation, and it seems like things between her and Clark are repaired. Joy asks about Flora, and Clark says she’s gone, simply remarking, “Maybe she took off to the Rocky Mountains.”
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One day shortly thereafter, Carla finds a letter in the mailbox from Mrs. Jamieson. In it, Sylvia apologizes for getting too involved in Carla’s life and for conflating freedom and happiness. Sylvia writes that Carla should find happiness in her present situation with Clark. To Carla’s surprise, the letter goes on to describe in detail the scene when Flora appeared at Sylvia’s doorstep. Sylvia writes that the experience brought her and Clark together in friendship, and that it was a significant and marvelous occasion. She writes that Flora is a “good angel.” Immediately, Carla burns the letter to ashes and flushes it down the toilet.
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Carla goes about her days ordinarily and doesn’t mention the letter or Flora to Clark. She shows him no contempt, though she has “a murderous needle somewhere in her lungs.” Sylvia moves to a new apartment in a nearby town, but she doesn’t sell the old house. As autumn approaches, Carla becomes more comfortable thinking about the possibilities of what may have happened to Flora. She sometimes considers going to search for the goat’s remains and imagines holding Flora’s skull like “[k]nowledge in one hand.” Sometimes, she considers the possibility that Clark didn’t kill Flora and instead took her somewhere far away to be free. Carla never goes searching for Flora.
