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“So, because I procreated, you want to leave me out?”Abby’s voice went up another octave.

“I think we both assumed it would be hard for you to get away for a week or two,” Morgan said, sitting back down.

“She’s my mom, too,” Abby said.“I loved her, and besides, I haven’t had a break in years!”

“Will Alex be able to handle things if you leave for that long?”Morgan asked.

“He’ll be fine,” Abby said, unsure if she believed it.She clicked on the notes app on her phone and began typing furiously.“I’ll go to the grocery store, cook a week’s worth of meals, and put them in the freezer.Then I’ll pay all the bills, clean the house, and hire someone to watch the kids during the day.”

“I’m exhausted just listening to you,” Charlie said.

“Great, then we have a plan,” Morgan said.“We all head home and get our lives under control,” Morgan said.

“So, we meet back here in four or five days?”Charlie asked.

“Or, in Abby’s case, a month,” Morgan said.As Morgan and Charlie laughed, Abby gave her sisters the finger, making them laugh even harder.

CHAPTER 9

Morgan

Late that afternoon, Albert, asleep on a towel in the backseat of Morgan’s rental car, was softly whistling air through his nostrils.Morgan headed south on the 405 freeway toward the airport hoping the traffic would be light, although that was rare in Los Angeles.She tried to zone out, but the music on the radio kept distracting her, so she turned it off.

How could I go two weeks with only a five-minute call with my mother?she thought.Her remorse pulled her down like an anchor plunging to the sea floor.Lately, things at work had been busy, and the little free time she had she spent working her program--the one thing that kept her sane and sober.

Morgan loved her mother, but her relationship with her was complicated.Carla had done her best as a single parent, but for Morgan, seeing her mom struggle was a constant reminder that her father had left them.The feelings of abandonment made Morgan crave bourbon.

Morgan was five when her mother told her that her father would not be joining them at their new home.

“Your dad left us,” Carla had said when Morgan got home from school.

“Where did he go?”Morgan asked.

“That’s not important,” Carla said.

“But I didn’t get to say goodbye,” Morgan said.

“We’re better off without him,” Carla said, ending the conversation.

Even at that young age, Morgan couldn’t understand that the father who left was the same man who taught her how to play the harmonica when she was four.The “music” she played sounded like a crescendo into madness, yet he happily encouraged her.That same year, her father also taught her how to ride a bike.While all the other kids her age still used training wheels, he convinced her she didn’t need them.He bought her a tiny spring-green Schwinn, and although she kept falling off, he continued to encourage her without getting frustrated.

Looking back, Morgan wondered if her happy memories were real or if her mind had fabricated a fantasy so she could torture herself on what she missed out on in life.

When Morgan turned seven, Carla told her and her sisters that their father had died.Knowing that she’d never see him again brought out all the emotions that Morgan had pushed down when he left.She became angry that her dad could no longer come to his senses and return home.Morgan refused to go to school, vacillating between sobbing and denial.

Not having any male role models affected her, Charlie, and Abby differently.None of the Weiss daughters had grown into adults without being scarred.

At twelve, Morgan started drinking with her first boyfriend, who was two years older than her.At fifteen, she smoked weed with her eighteen-year-old crush, and at seventeen, a college guy introduced her to opioids.Her desperate need for the wrong kind of male attention had not only been her downfall but was embarrassingly cliché.

Morgan dropped out of high school her senior year but had trouble keeping a job.She’d worked at a market, at a McDonald’s, and even drove an ice cream truck.Being high and moving a heavy machine that played jingles as kids ran after her was a sure way to get arrested.She got her first DUI when a group of six-year-olds witnessed her jump the sidewalk and crash into a stoplight pole.

Four years ago, she joined Alcoholics Anonymous, got sober, and received her GED.Since then, she’d struggled through completing two years of community college.

During her first year in college, when she sat across the desk from one of the school counselors, Morgan heard words that made her smile from deep inside.

“I think it’s time you got tested for learning difficulties,” Harvey, the counselor, said.

“You think I have a learning disorder?”Morgan asked.