Chapter One

Her name was Leigh Majors and she was never going to change it. She would not even discuss switching to any of her mother’s names, especially not Hart. So, she endured the same exhausted bionic jokes the press loved to make over and over. But these days, smart critics stopped shoehorning in references to six million dollars, and even stopped padding their word count with her family history.

She was Leigh Majors. She was no longer the daughter of Bridie Hart, America’s most beloved TV mother—Bridie Love, better known as Mother Love. No one seemed to notice that the show had been off the air for fifteen years. The endless reruns were airing somewhere in the world at any hour, keeping it alive for its many fans. Space aliens capturing our satellite signals must assume that we are a warm, nurturing species with questionable fashion sense. And they probably all worship Bridie, the mother of all mothers.

Leigh was no longer the daughter of Frank Majors, the late Broadway director, who was famous and notorious in equal parts. Once a director of glitzy commercial successes, he drank himself into failure after Bridie left him. But he came back for a second act that surprised the New York theater world: he finished up his life in sobriety, doing small-scale, intricate work that bore no resemblance to his boffo box office with Bridie.

No one thought to classify her as the kid sister of Lilly Majors. Lilly, the burgeoning postpunk rock star. Lilly, whose motorcycle spun out of control on the Ventura Highway and broke her. Lilly, who died in the middle of her twenties, just as Leigh was starting hers. No one had tied Leigh with Lilly since their school days, w