Then I heard movement inside.
A floorboard creaked.
The dog stood.
My stomach tightened for reasons I couldn’t explain.
The door creaked open a few inches, and I stopped walking entirely.
Standing in the doorway was someone I never in a hundred years expected to see.
“Ms. Diane?”
I stared at her.
It took me several seconds to place the face.
“Sadie?”
Her eyes widened.
Sadie had dated Caleb during his last year of high school.
She had been 17 then. Caleb had been 18.
For almost a year, she had been everywhere.
At our dinner table.
On the couch during movie nights.
Sitting beside Caleb on the back steps while they whispered about whatever teenagers believed adults could never understand.
Then they broke up.
Caleb barely talked about it.
A few months later, Sadie disappeared from our lives completely.
Now she stood in front of me, three years older, thinner than I remembered, with her dark hair tied loosely behind her head.
