I thought the worst thing my mother-in-law ever did was sneak a turkey leg into her purse on Thanksgiving. This year? She walked into my house in stilettos, strutted straight past my dining room, and walked out with my entire Thanksgiving dinner—and somehow, somehow, she still managed to blame me for what happened next. I am the kind of person who waits for Thanksgiving the way kids wait for Christmas. I count down the days. I get butterflies in my stomach. I plan, I prep, I dream. Every year, the

Amanda had spent years quietly leaving handmade clothes on the doorstep of St. Catherine’s Orphanage. She never sought recognition. She didn’t need it. The act itself—slipping a sweater here, a scarf there—was enough to fill her heart. But the morning she opened her door to find two boxes waiting for her, her heart skipped a beat. Who had found her? And what could possibly be inside after all this time? At seventy-three, Amanda’s life was simple, almost lonely. She lived in a small one-bedroom apartment on the edge of town,

For twenty-five years, I truly believed my husband saved me when I was young, scared, and pregnant. But the moment I walked into his office and saw my first love hiding in the shadows—shaking, pale, terrified to even whisper my name—I felt something inside me break. My name is Angela, and I was forty-seven when I finally realized something awful: I had lived my whole adult life inside a story that wasn’t mine. A story someone else wrote for me. Everyone always said David and I were the dream couple—“relationship