Family Dysfunction

Cath is a young woman who has come from a highly dysfunctional family. Her mother never wanted to be a mother. She had gotten pregnant accidentally, however, and married Cath and Wren’s father because of the pregnancy. Cath remembers her mother was already starting to show in her wedding pictures. Laura’s disinterest in her babies is shown most openly in the girls’ names. She had though she would have one daughter whom she intended to name Catherine. When she learned that she was having twins, Laura did not even put forth the effort to come up with a second name, instead dividing the one name into two, Cather and Wren.

The family dysfunction became most obvious to Cather when her mother left in 2001. She remembers her father falling apart and not even telling his own mother that Laura was gone until the following...