Chapter 53

“There’s somebody here to see you.”

“To see me? Huh? It’s Thanksgiving.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I know what day it is. He’s waiting outside.”

“Who?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Just go see. I’ll stir the cranberries.”

She pushed me away from the pot on the stove and toward the exit of the kitchen.

I had zero clue who would have come to see me at my parents’ house. This was a new house to them, so it wouldn’t be any friends I’d known from growing up. Or I didn’t think so, anyway.

My father, who had been noisily watching the games on TV, seemed to have turned them all off, because the house was eerily quiet. Even Denise’s kids and husband, playing a board game, seemed to have quieted down. That had to be why I heard my heartbeat thrumming so loudly in my ears.

I glanced at the coatrack, wondering, briefly, if I’d need a jacket. But it wasn’t really a cold day. In the high sixties and a little overcast. I turned the knob and stepped outside.