“Mandy, answer me. Why is there an elderly couple I don’t recognize living in the million-dollar lakeside house I bought for you?”
Her words froze the lively Thanksgiving table in an instant. Clink.
A sharp, hollow sound rang out. Across from me, my father, George, had dropped the knife he had been gripping onto his plate. I stopped with my hand halfway to my mouth, pumpkin pie still balanced on the fork, and slowly looked up.
My grandmother Dorothy’s gaze pierced straight past me, skewering my sister Ashley, who sat stiffly beside me, and then our parents. Having just returned from overseas after several years away, my grandmother seemed far stricter than before, wrapped in an aura that allowed no one to approach her lightly. “Grandma, what did you just say?”
My voice trembled.
The words sounded far too unreal to someone like me, someone who was scraping together even the cost of today’s lunch. “Didn’t you hear me, Mandy? I’m talking about the lakeside vacation home.
The house I bought for you three years ago for your future.”
Her voice was calm, but beneath it, I could feel something like boiling magma. “Grandma, isn’t there some kind of mistake?”
I summoned all my courage as I spoke. My heart was pounding wildly.
“I don’t own any house. Not a vacation home, not even my own apartment. I’m basically homeless right now.
I was kicked out of my apartment last month, and I’ve been crashing at friends’ places ever since.”
“What?”
My grandmother’s eyebrow twitched. “I knew something was wrong. As soon as I got back, I went to check on the place as a surprise.
You weren’t there. Instead, an elderly couple I’d never seen before answered the door. They said they were the parents of Ashley’s husband, Kevin.”
She turned her head slowly.
“Ashley, would you care to explain what’s going on?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my sister Ashley’s hand trembling as she held her wine glass. “Ashley.”
I turned to look at her. Her eyes darted around, her breathing quick and shallow.
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