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“You need to go to a meeting right now,” Abby said, putting her hand firmly on Morgan’s shoulder as if she were going to drag her there.

“We’ll go with you,” Charlie said.

“It’s okay, I’ll go,” Morgan said.

“You promise?”Abby said.

“Yes.”

“Right now?”Charlie said.

“Yes.You did your job.You can go home,” Morgan said.

Morgan got in her car.She noticed that Abby and Charlie didn’t move until she had pulled out of the parking lot.

An hour and a half later, Morgan walked into the house.Charlie and Abby jumped up and ran to the door like greyhounds in a dog race.

“Are you okay?”Charlie asked.

“Is any of us?”Morgan asked.

“If anyone should be drinking, it should be me,” Abby said.“You guys found your father.I’m still an orphan.”

“You aren’t an orphan,” Charlie said.“Just because he didn’t know Mom might’ve been pregnant when she left doesn’t mean you aren’t his.Besides, you can’t be an orphan when you have us.”

Abby smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“We’re all messed up right now,” Charlie said.“But, Morgan, you can’t run away by self-medicating again.”

“I know, but I feel like I’ve slipped off the edge of a mountain, and I can’t hold on much longer,” Morgan said, shaking her head back and forth.“How are you guys okay?We have a mother who killed herself, a father who rose from the dead, and until recently, we didn’t even know our actual last names or birthdays.I’m not sure who I am anymore.”

“You’re the same person you’ve always been,” Charlie said, putting her arm around Morgan’s shoulder.“When it gets hard, you need to lean on Abby and me.”

Abby nodded in agreement.

“Thank you both for rescuing me today,” Morgan said.

“You’d be there for us if the situation was reversed,” Abby said.

“Yes, but as the oldest, I’m supposed to be taking care of you guys.Instead, I’m selfishly wallowing in my own stress,” Morgan said.

“We all handle things differently.I work through my stress with strawberry ice cream,” Abby said.“It’s not as much fun as alcohol, but at least I’d remember if I slept with a stranger.”

“That only happened once that I can remember… but you made your point,” Morgan said.She looked at her sisters, and her hands stopped clenching, and her features softened.

Morgan pulled out her phone and called her sponsor.Then, she looked for another AA meeting to go to that afternoon.She needed to double up for a while.Besides her sisters, it would be the only thing that could save her from herself.

CHAPTER 30

Charlie

Charlie’s stomach had been in knots since Rick asked her to marry him or, rather,toldher they were going to get married.The thought of marrying him is worse than a pocket-size alien coming from a far-off galaxy, shooting me with a freeze ray, and enslaving me on his planet.Morgan and Abby will kill me for letting things get this far.

Tonight was Charlie’s turn to cook dinner, so she decided to make spaghetti.Something she could make in her sleep— and thank goodness, because she felt like a walking zombie.

She poured what she thought was spaghetti sauce into a pan but then discovered it was BBQ sauce.She dumped the pan out in the sink, washed it, and started over.This time, she made sure to use spaghetti sauce and put the burner on to simmer.Next, she grabbed what she thought were mushrooms and threw them in the sauce—then realized they were carrots.

She stuck her fingers into the pan and tossed one carrot at a time, into the sink.She caught herself before she substituted matzo meal for spaghetti.