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He stood up as though to comfort Charlie, then quickly sat back down.He grabbed the box of tissues next to him and pushed them toward the women.When Abby stopped petting Pillow to grab a tissue, Pillow raised his head and licked her hand.She picked him up and held him to her chest.

“If she never told you about us, how did you find me?”Mike asked.

Morgan told Mike how they had found a picture of him with their mom.“Then we saw that she left you money in her will, so we googled you,” Morgan said.

“She left me money?”Mike said.“Why would she do that?”

Abby watched him to see if he was genuinely as surprised as he appeared.“Is it possible that our mom fell in love with you?”she asked.

“I highly doubt it.We never even dated; we were just friends.As soon as we’d been married long enough that I could safely stay in the United States, I moved here, and we filed for divorce.When I returned to Los Angeles to sign the papers, she seemed happy and excited that she was on the partner track at the agency.”

Realizing there was nothing else they would discover here, Abby moved off the couch.Pillow jumped onto the floor as Morgan stood up; then Charlie followed suit.

“When we get home, we’ll make sure you get the money our mom left you,” Morgan said.

“You all keep it.Carla did more than enough for me.”

“Thank you for talking to us.We’re sorry to have barged in on you like this,” Charlie said.

“I’m glad I finally got to meet all of you, but I wish it were under better circumstances.”Mike led them to the front door with Pillow skittering behind him.As they were about to cross the threshold, Mike stopped them.“Wait, I just remembered something your mother gave me.You should have it.”

A moment later, he came back holding a refrigerator magnet shaped like the state of New York with the words ‘The Only Pizza in Town’ written on top of a picture of a slice of pizza.Abby glanced at her sisters quizzically.“Your mother gave this to me when we signed the divorce papers.She thought I’d get a kick out of it because every Friday night after work, we’d order pizza, and I’d once mentioned that going to New York was on my bucket list,” he said.

“Why would Mom have a magnet from New York?”Abby asked.

Charlie shrugged her shoulders.“I don’t know, she hated that place.”

“One year, I suggested we all visit New York City, and she said she never wanted to go there because the rats ran rampant, and everyone who lives there is a mugger,” Morgan said.

“I don’t know where she got the magnet,” Mike said, holding it out to them.“But I’m sure she would’ve wanted me to give it to you.”

Abby took it, bounced it from one hand to the other, then turned it over to study it.

“I’ll always be grateful to your mother for what she did for me,” Mike said.

The women thanked him and left.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” Charlie said as they got back in the car.

“No, it wasn’t.We now know that Mom had secrets,” Morgan said.

“And we did get a consolation prize,” Abby said, holding up the magnet.

“I wonder what else she was hiding from us,” Morgan said, hitting the gas and pulling away from the curb so quickly that Abby almost dropped the magnet.

CHAPTER 16

Carla

Carla didn’t share much with her daughters about her marriage to their father.When they asked how they met or about their relationship, she gave vague answers or changed the subject.She didn’t want to lie to them, but her and Brian’s story wasn’t one she wanted to discuss.

When Carla met Brian, they had an instant connection.When she wasn’t with him, she thought about him and even dreamed about him.She didn’t care that they didn’t have the same goals in life.At the time, her fascination with his athletic prowess was more important and exciting.

Brian had been the best player on the baseball team through most of college.During Carla’s junior year, she went to all his games and was proud to tell anyone who would listen that he was her boyfriend.She was enamored that Brian was on track to attain his lifelong dream of getting recruited to pitch in the major leagues.That is until the first game of his senior year when he threw a fastball, and with the crack of the opposing team’s bat came a crack in his arm and excruciating pain.The dream ended faster than Brian could stand up.

Brian was never the same after that.At the end of that year, he graduated and joined an accounting firm in New York.“This wasn’t the way my life was supposed to be,” he would complain to Carla.“I should’ve been traveling with my team and making more money than we could possibly spend in a lifetime.”

Carla worried that he wouldn’t be able to move on from his disappointment, but right after she graduated, they got married, and she convinced herself that he was past it.They rented their first apartment, and she took classes to get her real estate license.She hoped knowing the ropes would give them an advantage when they could afford to buy their first house.Unfortunately, right before Carla got her first job as a real estate agent, she found out she was pregnant.