Response to Kady Oliker’s “If Only”

It’s great how we get a clearer picture of what happened as the story progresses and we get a more detail with each successive narrator. Sophia and Carter’s accounting of the moment the gun is fired is a little different, and I don’t know if that’s intentional or not (there’re more dialogue from Kendal in Carter’s version of the story). I’m curious what happened to Kendal and Sophia’s mother after Kendal shot Sophia. The focus at the end of the story gets pretty narrow (understandable, Carter is grieving over his dead lover), but its’ too unclear what happens to them. Maybe having Sophia’s crazed interpretation of events book-ending the piece in order to show how her story ends (a confrontation with Carter, or with the mother, or shooting herself, or giving herself up to the police). She’s the on character who we’ve only heard part of the story from (the lead-up, but not the actual incident), so it feels a little incomplete. On another note, the film noir feel of the piece was great, and I liked the use of the color red (the stilettos, the handbag).