Page 25 of All These Beautiful Strangers

“No, not exactly,” she said.

“Where are you?”

“In Reading,” she said.

“You haven’t even left yet?” I asked.

“Here’s the part where I need you to not get mad. I’m not coming.”

“Seraphina, what do you mean you’re not coming?”

“Listen, I just . . . I changed my mind, okay?”

“Are you worried about what Dad will say when he finds out?” I asked.

“It’s not about that.”

“Then tell me what it’s about.”

“You need to let her go,” Seraphina said. “They need to let her go. What you’re all doing, it’s not healthy for anyone.”

It wasn’t her fault, I told myself. Seraphina was only five when our mother left; she was too young to remember the good stuff. She only remembered what everyone else told her to remember, or rather, forgot what they told her to forget.

The Fairchilds lived on the other side of town from the train station, near the hospital, in one of those graying vinyl-sided houses on a narrow yard. I parked in the street because the gravel driveway was full. I saw Grandpa Fairchild’s old station wagon near the house, the same car my uncle Hank had taught my mother to drive in when she was only twelve years old. Someone’s minivan was parked behind it, and at the end of the driveway, its tail end sticking into the street, was Uncle Hank’s rusting truck.

Every light in the house was on, and I could hear the roar of a football game and Grandpa Fairchild’s staccato curses from the den as I stepped onto the front porch. My ankle still smarted from Nancy’s bite, and I limped a little as I made my way to the door. I had stopped at the Kmart on the way over to pick up some prepackaged cookies and I held the plastic tray in front of me like a shield as I rang the doorbell.

It took a while for someone to answer. But then the door swung open and he leaned against the door frame, a beer in one hand: Greyson Rhodes. He was wearing a UConn sweatshirt and a pair of worn jeans, his blond hair long and slightly wavy, a good week of stubble shading his sharp jawline. And those gray eyes. I hadn’t seen Greyson since we were kids. I had the biggest crush on him when I was little because he was tall and thick in the shoulders and played football. His mom, Claire, was best friends with my mom, and he used to babysit me and Seraphina and his younger brother, Ryder, when they would go out.

He squinted at me and then I saw recognition dawn on his face.

“Did you really just ring the doorbell?” he asked, as if my being there wasn’t weird at all, as if it had only been a week since we had last seen each other instead of years.

“What are you, like, the welcome committee?” I asked, raising my voice a bit so he could hear me over all the noise of the game and people talking inside.

“Kinda the opposite, actually,” Greyson said, taking a swig of his beer. “We thought you were a salesman or something. Or worse, the Mormons. I was elected to send you away diplomatically.”

“We don’t want any!” someone yelled from inside.

“I brought cookies,” I said, lifting the tray toward him.

“How very Martha Stewart of you,” he said.

“Greyson, who is it?” someone called, and this voice I recognized. It belonged to my grandma.

“It’s Charlotte,” he called over his shoulder.

There was a pause and then my grandma appeared behind him, gaping at me like I was some alien creature she was trying to make sense of.

“Charlotte,” she said after she had recovered herself. “Charlotte, you don’t need to ring the doorbell like a stranger. Just come in, come on in.”

She put an arm around me and ushered me into the house. She kept patting my arm as if she thought I might just be a figment of her imagination and she needed to reassure herself I was really there.

“This is a surprise,” she said. “A good surprise. It’s so good to see you. Everyone, look. Charlotte’s here.”

There were people in the living room I didn’t recognize and I wondered for a moment if I should recognize them, or if they were just my grandma’s neighbors. I recognized my aunt Caroline, Uncle Lonnie’s wife, who was sitting in the La-Z-Boy, bouncing a baby up and down on her lap. I wondered if I had another cousin I hadn’t met yet. Aunt Caroline stopped talking when her eyes met mine and hiccupped a little in shock. I gave a vague, half-hearted wave to the room.

“Hi,” I said.