The Missing Man

Chapter 1

Hi, my name is Maxine, my birthday was three days ago, so I'm 15 now. I have two sisters, one is seventeen, her name is Christina. Our younger sister is Dylan. When you hear the names Max, Chris, and Dylan, you don't think of three girls, but our parents have a thing for boy names on girls. Anyways, it's my mom's birthday today and all four of us were in the living room giving her gifts.

Dylan gave her a singing card with her favorite song in it. Chris gave her a picture frame with us all together, it was silver and read "Mothers make the family" along the bottom.

"Awww, thank you Chris, I love it"

Mom said smiling at the picture,

"You're welcome, mom"

Chris answered, smiling like an idiot. I rolled my eyes and handed mom my gift, it was a new outfit from Kohls, including a pair of those skinny jeans she loved so much and a flowery blouse.

"Oh my goodness Max, how much were these?"

She asked with a grin on her face

"They were on sale"

I smiled and Dylan smiled from her place beside mom on the couch. I guess Chris couldn't help making her little comment.

"Oh great, knock offs"

I looked at her and gave her one of my famous 'shut up you bitch' glares.

She lifted one of her eyebrows real high like I'd said something she couldn't believe.

"What, you mad?"

She asked because she knew what that look meant and she was immediately pissed. I looked at her like she was crazy and said,

"Oh, I didn't say anything, but what did you say?"

She scoffed and rolled her eyes

"I couldn't help it; mom deserves to know what a cheap-ass daughter she has"

She said. Dylan's eyes got big because she heard Christina use that curse word. Mom just looked pissed.

I stood up and went over to Chris and she stood up too. She was a good two feet taller than me, but I didn't care, I looked her up and down like she was short.

"Oh, I'm the cheap one?"

I said

"I'm not the one who got her some fifty-cent picture frame! So shut up, Christopher!"

Chris turned red, visible through her light bright skin. She was my mom's daughter from another marriage. When we fought when we were younger, she liked to point out how much prettier she thought her mixed hair and skin was than my dark brown skin and kinky black hair. We stopped fighting about that after her dad died, though, now the whole topic was off limits.

Mom got between us and made us go to our rooms before we could keep screaming. Instead of going to our rooms we snuck out the back door and fist faught in the back yard.

A few hours later Chris came into my room.

"I'm sorry"

She said.

"Yeah, I'm sorry too"

I answered and we gave each other a hug. We both understand why we fight each other all the time; we're angry but never at each other, we're mad at our dad. The man our mom married after Christina's dad died left one day a year ago for no reason at all. He gave no explanation and left in the middle of the night, not even leaving a note behind. All I had left of him was a crystal necklace he gave me after one of his science conferences overseas. I wear it every day and never take it off. We hated him. He acted like the best dad ever, laughing with us and playing with us, saying he loved us more than anything and would never leave us. Was he lying? We had such anger for him we didn't know what to do with it.