Page 33

“Well, lady of leisure, it’s your turn to try breaking into the computer,” Charlie said, standing up and offering the chair to Abby.“Morgan and I haven’t made any headway.”

“What passwords have you already tried?”Abby asked.

“Too many to count,” Charlie said.

“I tried all of mom’s favorite things,” Morgan said.

“What about her most favorite thing of all?”Morgan and Charlie looked at her expectantly.“A-B-B-Y.”Abby’s fingers dashed across the keyboard.“Damn.”She slumped down in the chair.

“You overestimate your importance,” Charlie chuckled.

Abby tried a few more words, then shook her head, and got out of the chair.

“We haven’t found anything in here,” Morgan said.“I think it’s time to search Mom’s bedroom.”

“I’m worried that if we go in there, we’ll lose it,” Abby said.

“Then how about we open the door but not go in right away,” Morgan said.“That way, we can get used to seeing it first.”

Charlie and Abby agreed.“Which one of us is going to open it?”Charlie asked.

“You’re the oldest, Morgan, you should do it,” Abby said.

The three of them walked toward the room, but Charlie and Abby stopped at the end of the hall.

“Hey, you guys come here, I’m not going in alone,” Morgan said.

Charlie and Abby joined her outside the bedroom.

“Ready to go in?”Morgan asked, as she put her hand on the knob.

“No,” Abby said.

Morgan opened the door slowly, and the three women held hands and walked inside.As soon as they crossed the threshold, Morgan began to mist up.

“Don’t you dare cry,” Charlie said, bursting into tears.Albert ran past them joyfully, jumped on the bed, stretched out, and immediately began snoring.

Morgan picked up a library book with a bookmark tucked three-quarters in.“Mom didn’t even get to find out how the book ended,” she said, a tear rolling down her cheek.I hope the library doesn’t fine her, Morgan thought then realized how stupid that was.

Their mom’s bed was neatly made, and every throw pillow perfectly placed.On the nightstand, was a picture of Carla with the three of them from Charlie’s college graduation, and another from right before the first and only time the three of them went kayaking.They had to be rescued by the junior lifeguards after getting stuck on the rocks.

Morgan looked over at her sisters.She had always thought that she and Charlie looked the most alike.Charlie had strawberry-blonde curls; Morgan’s hair was the same color, but straighter.Charlie was five feet three inches tall, and Morgan was half an inch taller.The biggest difference between them was that Charlie’s fair skin had very few wrinkles, while Morgan had the face of someone twenty years older.Eighteen years of drugs and alcohol did that to a person.

Although Abby looked a lot like Carla, Morgan thought Abby was also the perfect blend of her and Charlie.She was five feet two inches tall, with the same golden-brown waves that her mom had.The sisters shared blue eyes and little button noses.

When Morgan was in fourth grade, she had asked Carla if any of them resembled their father.Carla didn’t answer, but the look on her face made Morgan sorry she’d asked.

As if they were out-of-sync jack-in-the-boxes, the sisters popped up off the bed one by one and began searching the room.

Abby opened the dresser drawers while Charlie looked in the bathroom.When Morgan went into the walk-in closet, she bathed in the faint scent of her mother’s perfume.Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Blue hung in the air like the fog over the Santa Monica mountains.Morgan took her mother’s winter coat off a hanger, wrapped her arms around it, and imagined Carla inside.She felt as if she’d been pulled out of icy water and enveloped in the warmth of a blanket just pulled from the dryer.

“Hey, what’s this?”Charlie said, interrupting Morgan’s fantasy.Morgan turned around to find Charlie in the closet with her.She was pulling out a wad of cash from the toe of Carla’s Stuart Weitzman pumps.The only shoes their mom had ever paid more than a hundred dollars for.It was Carla’s gift to herself after she sold her first high-priced house.

“How much is there?”Morgan asked.

Charlie counted it.“A thousand dollars.”

Abby barged into the closet, shoulder to shoulder with her sisters in the cramped space.