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Chapter 1
“Your daughter threw up in our SUV, so we left her on the side of the road; we were not going to let her ruin the family vacation for everyone else.” That was the sentence my mother told me on a Tuesday at 11:37 in the morning, while I sat in a high-stakes meeting, with my laptop screen glowing and my heart shattering without any warning at all. At first, I honestly thought I had misunderstood her words because they were too cruel to be real.
“What do you mean you took her out of the vehicle, Mom?” I asked, my voice trembling.
On the other end of the line, my mother, Theresa, sighed heavily as if I were being completely unreasonable and overreacting to a minor situation. “Oh, Catherine, please do not start with the dramatics right now because little Abigail felt dizzy, threw up a bit, and your nephews were absolutely terrified of the mess. We were running extremely late for our flight at the airport and we simply left her in a safe spot near a small roadside market, and I have already sent you the exact location on your phone.”
I heard my father, Robert, shouting in the background with a tone of utter annoyance. “Tell her not to make a fuss about this because the girl is perfectly fine and we had no other choice.”
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