Page 33 of Take Me Home

Hazel was at the gated subdivision entrance now, passing a lit sign that readEmerald Hillcrest Estates. Which had to be a joke since this whole area was naturally flat and full of brown, scrubby brush. She joined a line of cars waiting to get into the neighborhood and searched her sparse text history with her father for the gate code. But the gate wasn’t what was holding up the line. This was a whole damn procession, past the gate, down the main road, and winding from one street to the next. It snaked toward the back of the subdivision on one side and around to the front on the other. Through the line ofwindshields, Hazel could see that on their way into the Estates, drivers kept passing items to a security officer.

“Happy holidays,” the officer said flatly when she pulled up. “Food or clothing?”

“What?”

He bent to peer in her window. “Admission to see the Christmas lights is three cans of food or an item of winter clothing.”

Ahead, it looked like Clark Griswold had decorated every house. She had to squint to take in all the lights. “My dad lives here. Dan Elliot? It’s his fiancée’s house, actually. Val…” She trailed off, blanking on Val’s last name. “I can tell you the address.”

“Most residents just donate something when they come home at night, given…” He gestured past the gate. The lights on the eaves highlighted that the homes all had two stories and some had columns, Juliet balconies, or double front doors. Even in the dark, she couldn’t miss the extensive landscaping—young trees planted along the entry drive, lush winter florals surrounding the security booth, sprawling lawns with grass that was likely green in other seasons despite the arid soil—that all made good on the promise of the neighborhood’s name. She got the guy’s meaning. The people who lived here could stand to toss in a few cans of peas on their way back to their Estates.

“I don’t live here. My dad does.”

“If you don’t have a donation, you’ll have to pull in here and turn around.”

Seriously? She gripped her open window, wincing against the wind. “I drove for two days to get here. I’m just a grad student. I don’t even have three cans of food in my pantry right now.”

“I need to keep the line moving.”

“What if I bring you six cans next time?”

He pointed at a sign propped against the large donation bin. “It’s a foodandclothing drive.”

Hazel’s fingers found her chunky, red scarf. It was her favorite. “Would you take cash?”

He crossed his arms.

She unwound the long scarf from her neck and folded it over twice before reluctantly passing it through the window.

“Happy holidays,” he said, already walking away.

Hazel was trapped in the line of cars for the next fifteen minutes before she finally reached her father’s street and parked in front of the detached three-car garage at the end of the long driveway. Then she trudged back around to the front door and knocked, aware that everyone inching by to take in the lights could see her standing out here, waiting to be let in. Or maybe in her black leggings and jacket, she looked like she was casing the place. Impatient, she pressed the doorbell.

A muffled voice called out inside, “Come in!” For the second time in as many days, she let herself into someone else’s home, feeling like an absolute intruder.

“Hello?”

“In here! Come in!” a woman called again. Something crashed to the floor around the corner. Voices overlapped with a jumble of directions—“Grab it! Stop her! Over there!” A scrambling, scratching sound, then several thumps, and another crash.

“Hazel!” Her father. “Get in here!”

Hazel dropped her bags and closed the door, breathing in the delicious aromas of baked chicken and fresh bread. The living room was spacious and tastefully maximalist with colorful patterns and plants everywhere—and a massive, toppled Christmas tree, its ornaments strewn across the tile floor. The room opened around a corner into a large kitchen, where a teenager was blocking the wide opening, half crouched, her arms wide.Beyond her, Hazel’s father held a baking pan with an entire golden-brown chicken above his head. A green leash was wrapped tightly around his legs, attached to an enormous dog.

The dog’s focus darted between the chicken, a spread of sugar cookies across the center island, an overturned basket of dinner rolls on the floor, and a white cockatoo pacing and squawking on top of the refrigerator. Every time the dog lunged, Hazel’s father teetered.

Val—she assumed this was Val—was rising from the floor, rubbing her elbow. Paw prints and streaks of mud ringed the island. A plant had been overturned, the pot cracked in half and soil scattered. It was clear the dog needed to be contained first, so Hazel took the baking pan from her dad’s hands.

He muscled the dog into a bathroom down the hall, calling over his shoulder, “Hey, kiddo. Glad you’re here.”

Val was decidedly not Stepford-looking: bronze-skinned and dark-haired, the tips dip-dyed red—a match to the teenage girl’s full head of festive, poinsettia red. Val’s jeans and knotted T-shirt were covered in muddy paw prints. She wore kitschy Christmas lightbulb earrings, a full set of silver studs outlining the shell of one ear. When she swiped her hair out of her face, Hazel spotted her engagement ring—not an enormous diamond but a modest green gem on a simple, thin band. With a self-deprecating laugh, Val said, “Not the impression I was hoping to make, but welcome, Hazel.” She approached, arms opening as if for a hug, and Hazel lifted the pan of chicken to say,I would, but my hands are full. Val took the pan with another laughing apology, then turned off the stove, where green beans were on the verge of charring in a skillet.

The teenager, presumably Val’s daughter, stretched up on her toes below the bird on the refrigerator. “It’s okay, Maddie,” she cooed. It bobbed and squawked and paced some more beforefinally hopping onto her crooked finger. Full of disdain, she said to Val, “I told you his dumb dog would try to eat her.”

Hisdog? Did she mean Hazel’s father?

“I will talk to your brother,” Val said.

Sibling bickering, then. Hazel’s shoulders eased down.

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