Page 24

Story: When People Leave

“The mom we knew wouldn’t have killed herself over a man,” Charlie said.

“The mom we knew didn’t have a boyfriend,” Morgan said.

“Maybe we didn’t know her at all,” Abby said and began to cry.Morgan got a box of tissues and handed one to Abby, who sat back at the table.

“We have to figure out who that guy is,” Morgan said.

“If we knew his name, we could google him,” Abby said, blowing her nose.

“If we knew his name, we wouldn’t have to google him,” Charlie said.

“I meant to get is phone number,” Abby said.

Frustrated, Morgan went back into Carla’s office, her shoes stomping onto the floor.Albert trotted after her, with Abby and Charlie close behind.

Morgan pounded on the keyboard, trying to find the elusive password.Abby went through the papers on Carla’s desk, finding a vet bill, an electric bill, and a phone bill.All of them were overdue.“Are we going to have to pay these ourselves?”Abby asked.

“Mom’s estate will take care of them,” Charlie said.

“Thank God.I have four kids.”

“There we go,” Charlie said.

“There we go, what?”Abby asked.

“You bring up your kids any time you want to get out of something,” Charlie said.

“That’s one of the reasons I had them,” Abby said.Charlie looked at Morgan and crossed her eyes.Abby didn’t notice and continued.“If you want to leave a party early, you say your kids are tired.If you need to get out of lunch with that one friend you have trouble saying no to, you say your kid is sick.”

“Wait a minute,” Morgan said.“When I was in San Diego, and we were supposed to meet for dinner, you flaked at the last minute, saying Hudson was sick.”Morgan raised one eyebrow at Abby.

“And you said Emma was sick when I invited you to visit me.”Charlie furrowed her brows.

“My kids get a lot of colds,” Abby said.

“Right,” Morgan said, then went back to the computer.After a few choice curse words, she rubbed her neck and gave up trying to break into the computer.

Morgan angrily grabbed a piece of paper that was sitting on the corner of the desk, looked at it, opened her hand, and let it fall to the floor.With that one paper gone, a file with the word ‘Will’ that had been underneath it was exposed.Charlie grabbed the file and opened it.She took their mother’s will out of it and began turning pages.

“What is that?”Morgan asked.

“Mom’s will,” Charlie said.

“What does it say?”Abby asked.

“That we inherit everything,” Charlie said.

“Who’s the executor?”Morgan asked.

“All three of us,” Charlie said.

“Finally, being a screw-up didn’t hurt me,” Morgan said, then noticed something stapled to the back page of the will.She grabbed it away from Charlie.

“There’s a codicil here that had been notarized,” Morgan said.“Mom left five thousand dollars to some guy named Mike Perez.And it was added three months ago.”

“I bet that’s the guy in the pictures,” Abby said.

“Why would Mom leave him money?”Charlie asked.