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“Not really.Carla didn’t meet him until college; and she only brought him here once.Then, the next time I saw her was a year later, and she was married and pregnant with you,” he said to Morgan.After you were born, Carla would come here every other Friday, and then it wasn’t long before she became pregnant with you.”He gestured toward Charlie.“And I wasn’t even aware that Carla had a third child,” he told Abby.

“Yep, I’m the one nobody seems to know about,” Abby said.

Dylan placed rolls and three small plates in front of them.

“These look good,” Charlie said, taking a bite, then grabbing her napkin and wiping off the little bit of butter that had dripped onto her chin.

“When you were two, Morgan, garlic rolls were your favorite.You’d keep eating them until you got a stomachache,” Antonio said.

“I guess things never change,” Morgan said, taking another bite.

“What was our mother like when you knew her?”Charlie asked, leaning in.

“Outgoing, sarcastic, funny.”

“Qualities we all inherited,” Abby said with a smirk.

“And she was adorable,” Antonio added.“Everyone loved her.She had so many friends; we used to call her the social butterfly because she flew from group to group.”

‘That’s not the mom we knew, she rarely went out,” Charlie said.What could’ve happened that changed her entire personality?Charlie wondered scrunching her forehead, knowing she was creating wrinkles where there hadn’t been any.

“Do you remember our mom’s old address?”Morgan asked.

“Of course.It wasn’t far from here.Give me a second.”

Antonio went up to the counter and came back with their pizza and a pad of paper.He wrote down an address and handed it to Morgan.

Even after devouring one and a half rolls, Charlie was still starving.She grabbed a piece of pizza almost before the metal platter hit the table.She took a bite and then began fanning her hand in front of her mouth to wave away the heat.She grabbed her water and chugged it.

“Sorry, I should’ve warned you that it just came out of the oven,” Antonio said.

“It’s delicious,” Charlie said, moving her tongue along the roof of her mouth, hoping she still had some skin left up there.

Abby offered Antonio a piece of pizza, but he shook his head.“Thank you, but I’ve had my fill of pizza…at least for today.”He patted his rotund belly, which poked out under his grayish-white T-shirt.

Morgan blew on her slice and took a bite.“Did you know our grandparents?”she asked after swallowing.

“Not really.They weren’t around much.I heard they both died a long time ago.”

“At least that’s one thing Mom told us that was true,” Charlie whispered to Abby.

“Do you remember the last time you saw our mom?”Abby asked.

Antonio put his hand up to his forehead and rubbed it as if summoning a genie out of a bottle.“I think it was when Charlie was almost two.Carla came in one day, and I could tell something was off.I asked if she was okay, and she wouldn’t give me a straight answer.That was the last time I saw her.At first, I thought she had gone on vacation, or one of you was sick.But after a few weeks, I called her, and her phone had been disconnected.”

“That’s weird,” Morgan said.

“I know,” Antonio said.“About six months later, I ran into one of our mutual friends who hadn’t heard from her either.After a while, I figured if Carla wanted to talk to me, she knew where I was.”Antonio had a far-off look.“I’m so sad to find out she died but meeting you all tells me that at least she did okay for herself.”

“Can you tell us anything about her life when she lived here?”Charlie asked.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad,” Abby added.

“I remember the first time your mom and I tried pot,” he said, chuckling.“Oh, I shouldn’t be telling you this story.”

Morgan laughed.“We’re all adults, we can handle it.”

“We had no idea what we were doing,” he said.“We got a joint from some kid in school and drove to the parking lot of an ice cream parlor.Every time we tried to light it, we’d get nervous, so nervous that the match would go out.Finally, we took a puff and coughed a lot.We both pretended to be high so we could stop.Then, just as we got in the car to leave, we realized the police station was across the parking lot on the street behind us.We convinced ourselves we were high, even though we’d only taken one puff, and we laughed the entire drive home.”