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“Who cares about manners,” Morgan said.

“No wonder you don’t have a man in your life,” Abby said.

Abby and Charlie laughed lightheartedly.

“Am I the only one who’s freaking out about finding our father?”Morgan said.“How can you both seem calm?”

“Who says we’re calm?”Abby said.

“I haven’t been able to think about anything else,” Charlie said.

“Except maybe good manners,” Abby smirked.Then she took her napkin and, daintily wiped the corners of her mouth with her pinky in the air.

Morgan narrowed her eyes into a piercing stare.“We didn’t ask enough questions when we talked to Brian,” Morgan said.“We need to ask him what happened between him and Mom.”

“We don’t even know him.Why should we believe what he says?”Charlie asked.

“Well, we know we can’t trust Mom’s version.She said he left us and then died, and now we know at least one of those things is not true,” Abby said.

“So, Mom lied about him being dead; I’m sure she had her reasons.Maybe we need to give her the benefit of the doubt,” Morgan said as she sprinkled two Stevia packages in her coffee.

“When people get divorced, there can be a nasty custody dispute.One person might not want to share parenting responsibilities,” Charlie said.

“Are you saying Mom could have wanted us all to herself?”Abby asked.

“Wouldn’t that be kidnapping?”Morgan asked and Charlie shrugged.

“Oh my God, we were kidnapped,” Abby said.

“You weren’t.Brian didn’t even know about you,” Morgan said.

Abby pouted.

“Abby, whether you’re his or not, you’re still our sister,” Charlie said, and Morgan nodded in agreement.

“Thank you,” Abby said.“And I agree that even if he’s notmyfather, we should call him again.”

Abby looked at her recent phone calls to get Brian’s number.She called him, placing the phone in the center of the kitchen table.It rang four times before they heard his deep and mellow voice.

“Hello,” Brian said.

“Hi,” the sisters said in unison, Abby’s voice not quite as loud as her sisters.

“I’m so glad you called,” Brian said.“I haven’t been able to think about anything other than all of you.Even you, Abby.”

Morgan patted Abby’s hand and Abby smiled.

“Would it be okay if we asked you a few more questions?”Charlie asked.

“Of course.”

“We need to know everything about your relationship with our mother,” Morgan said.

Brian started by telling them how he and Carla met when they got married and about Morgan and Charlie’s births.Then he paused for a moment.Morgan figured he must be gathering his thoughts.

“When Morgan and Charlie were toddlers,” he said, “I wanted Carla to be able to stay home with them, but we needed some extra money.I began betting on sports.I didn’t think it was a big deal.At first, I made small bets, but I won most of the time, so we had more than enough to pay our bills.As time went on, I got greedy.I didn’t want to just pay our bills, I wanted to buy other things that we couldn’t have afforded before.I started making bigger bets and winning less and less.Carla had no idea that I was maxing out all our credit cards and taking out new ones.”

He went on to say that Carla had been busy with Morgan and Charlie, so she wasn’t aware of how in trouble they were until the bank left a message on their home machine that their account had been overdrawn.They owed thousands on their credit cards, and their bank account was depleted.