Excerpt: Losing Her Religion

Dori's mom had been quite devastated when Dori's father had left her when the girls were 13 and 11. Dori's father had since remarried, several years ago now, and Dori's mother had seemed to take it as a personal injury. She had had a few "boyfriends" in the years since, but none of them ever stayed around for more than a few months. Dori had no trouble seeing why. Her mother was difficult to live with, prone to bouts of depression and self-pity sessions which lasted for days on end and usually resulted in Dori having to make a frantic drive across town to make sure her mother hadn't stuck her head in the oven or something else equally bizarre. Dori recalled the time her mother had actually threatened to stick her head in the oven. Dori had pointed out that the woman's appliance was electric, not gas, and her mother had hung up on her, absolutely furious.