Chapter 1 — Empty Plates

“Oh — well, we didn’t think your parents would take so long,” Wilhelmina said, with a smile that had venom in it, gesturing at the picked-clean platters.

“If they’d been on time, they might have gotten something.”

Odalind stood in the doorway of her own dining room and felt the blood drain out of her face as she looked at the empty dishes.

She had spent the whole afternoon cooking.

It was her parents’ thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, and she had wanted it to be perfect — a marinated pork roast, rosemary potatoes, a summer salad, a creamy poblano soup, a fresh strawberry shortcake she’d made from scratch.

She had set the table in their apartment in Minneapolis with the fine china her parents had given her and Ansel as a wedding gift.

Everything had been for seven o’clock, when her mother and father would arrive to be celebrated.

And now, an hour before they were even due, the table was a wreck of empty plates, and her mother-in-law was smiling at her.

Chapter 2 — We Came to Help

It had started at six, when Wilhelmina and Ansel’s younger sister Sorrel had arrived without warning.

“We came to help you set up,” Wilhelmina had announced, pushing past the entryway before anyone could invite her in.

Odalind knew that kind of help.

Within two minutes Wilhelmina had inspected the table and found the tablecloth insufficiently pressed and the salad dressing too heavy.