When you’ve already lost too much and live in fear of more loss, that can make you disconnect. This is where we find the three sisters in Azazel Jacobs’s His Three Daughters. Disconnected. They each have a method of disconnection and each has her reasons. But disconnection is lonely and creates more loss, even if you don’t want to think so. Plus, Katie, Christina, and Rachel learned disconnection from their father. Can his death break through the barriers that keep them from each other? We’ll see.

Why Disconnection Happens

Disconnection happens because you can’t feel what you’re feeling, maybe because there’s no one there to notice how you feel. To hear you. Or, comfort you. So, it’s not bearable to want a connection.

This is what happens to His Three Daughters. Their father lost two wives. Each daughter lost her mother. His grief pushed out theirs. The girls didn’t grieve. Each became a threat to the others.

All they had was their dad. A dad who wasn’t able to connect. It felt like there wasn’t enough love to go around. They were competitors instead of allies. Disconnected instead of connected.

Christina says it about the Grateful Dead (and not resorting to drugs as Rachel has):

“It wasn’t like that. People picturing me naked in the mud and all that Woodstock stuff. The truth is the shows. It’s a group of people who look out for each other. People connected by this one love of music, which allows them to connect and relate and to care. That’s it. It’s for people who haven’t found that anywhere else, weren’t given that, and had to find it for themselves.”

It’s for the lonely children. Losing a mother is too much loss if no one, even their dad, will help.

Especially if you live in fear of more loss.

What Their Father Might Have Said

The sister’s father says (in a moment of terminal lucidity or a fantasy of what he needs to say):

“Rachel’s (Natasha Lyonne) your sister. She is my daughter. I didn’t raise her like my own. She is my own. If blood had an influence on her, she’d have had a very different father. You would have had a dad like my dad. My dad was a fucking jerk. We were related but he was no father. (To Katie (Carrie Coon), the most jealous one.) You have no idea how much Rachel cares … How much you mean to her. When you went to college, when you moved out, I’ve never seen her so sad. Well, only when her mother got sick and left us.”

” … I want you all to try when I’m gone … You will be connected after I’m gone, even more so because of it … Christina (Elizabeth Olson), I know you didn’t have it right … I never gave it to you. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. You … from the moment you could walk, you didn’t seem to need anyone … and when your mom passed, you seemed okay, too. I should have realized that was not possible… but I was in so much pain, I couldn’t see. And, then I fell in love again, and I… I … (crying). That girl of yours won’t be left wanting. I thank you for doing better than me. Damn, I love this city …”

But he can’t come right out and say: “Damn, I love all of you girls.” Still.

Is he afraid of more loss too?

Perhaps he was doing his best to show it. He says (in this dream?): “But if there’s any guilt that I have … it’s maybe I could have expressed myself better … It’s love I want you to know about.”

Maybe, this is one reason they had to find ways of dealing with the threat of more loss.

Ways of Dealing with Fear of More Loss

Here it is. The end. He’s dying. They’re losing him. And, it brings back the threat of loss they’d felt as children when “the others” were in the way. They aren’t adult daughters facing the loss of their father (Jay O. Sanders). They are once again children, in competition with each other for his love.

Each sister always felt threatened their father was being taken away. That the others were getting more. When there are competitors for love, especially with only one parent left, there are problems.

And, competing doesn’t allow the sisters to see what they are missing; from each other.

Katie, Christina, and Rachel each have a way of dealing with the threat of losing their father’s love. That threat was of a loss long ago, but the current threat of his dying brings it all back in spades.

Katie = “It’s All Your Fault.”

Katie needs to be in control but she isn’t. She’s losing her dad. Her daughter, Tracey, is a teenager. And, she feels she’s lost her too. Anger is Katie’s way of protecting herself, from feeling so much loss. Blame. “It’s all your fault.” “I know better.” Directed mostly towards Rachel. The interloper long ago. Closer to her age. A threat because her dad became Rachel’s dad too. These are her self-protections. Not good ones. She’s bitter. And, bitterness makes you disconnected and alone.

Christina = “I’m Fine.”

Christina is in a haze of disconnection from her needs. “I’m fine. I need nothing.” That’s her defense mechanism against feeling loss, or longing for connection. We hear this repeatedly in His Three Daughters: “I’m fine.” Christina is far from fine. She stays distracted from her feelings. Feelings are far too painful when you’ve felt, since very small, that you are on your own.

Rachel = “I Don’t Want Anything.”

Rachel is in a lot of pain. That is clear. Rejection by Katie, the loss of her mother, has set her on a course of feeling bad about who she is. She can’t stand up for herself. Benjy (Jovan Adepo) says it well when he stands up for her. Rachel’s defense is marijuana. “I’ll go away in a haze of smoke.” She has to tell herself, “I don’t want anything.” Yet, she deeply does.

Coming Together in the End

Maybe in the end, despite his difficulty showing it because of his dad, the sisters know his love for them somewhere deep inside.  And, perhaps, they want to do better than he did to connect. They’ve fought, they’ve forgiven each other as best they can, and they all soften. Fear of more loss won’t win.

In the end, their dad still has some life in him. He rallies, and the sisters come together to carry him into the living room to sit in his chair for one last time. The complications of this, with his IV, his monitor, and the largeness of his size (and how he lives in their minds) make them laugh.

As they giggle (moments they must have shared as younger girls), they lean against their dad, almost sitting in his lap like the children they were, and take one last photo with him. Together.

Then, the monitor goes off: “Beep, beep, beep, beep.” In panic: “Daddy, Dad! …” and he’s gone.

When he dies, they each sit in his chair, remembering him. As they cuddle on the couch with each other, Christina sings: “Five little ducks went out one day, over the hill and far away. Mother Duck said, “Quack, quack, quack, quack … but (5, 4, 3, 2, 1) …. none of the five little ducks came back.”

But it turns out, that’s not the end. They may have separated, left home, or disconnected. Not now: “Daddy duck said, “Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep! … and all those crazy little ducks come back.”

Rachel laughs. She has her sisters. Daddy’s death makes all three realize how important connection is. From their father’s disconnection and their own – they are now sisters. Maybe, for the first time.

This piece was first posted on and written for my Characters on the Couch blog.