Adam and Abby were Andersons but their mother was Sharon Mitchell, leaving the children with their father’s last name because she was either too lazy or too strung out to change it after he left. Sharon could be kind, charming, enthusiastic, energetic, and, on rare occasions, loving–typically when she had enough dope, but hadn’t quite used enough to slip into artificial catatonia. The woman had her demons, and her children suffered for it. Most weeks they had enough food to get by, albeit barely, and their clothing wasn’t as bad as some of the other kids at school. But there were times when Sharon was so desperate to flee from the hell that is opioid withdrawal, that she sold her EBT funds for the month as soon as they landed in the account. There were times that Adam tried not to think about, when strange men would come and go. Those evenings they would get take-out for dinner. Those meals turned to flavorless ash in Adam’s mouth, but Abby enjoyed them, and so he put on a happy face for her sake.