Chapter 89

It didn’t take me long to finish. Poppa had asked me not to tell the rest of the family or contact any neighbors. It wasn’t a problem since I hadn’t been in touch with anyone from home for so long. I nibbled on the baklava, licked more honey off my fingers, then peeked at Wills’s list. It had already reached thirty, and that was just the adults in his immediate family. There were still second and third cousins, once and twice removed.

“It’s too bad about your other grandparents. Are you going to send them an invitation?”

“I don’t know.” He sighed, and his smile was filled with regret. He’d called them that morning when he assumed they’d have gotten home from church, but had wound up talking—if it could be called that—to his uncle instead. “I wish Uncle Tony hadn’t objected to Grandma and Grandpa being there.”

That fuck had done too good a job putting up a barrier between his parents and their grandson.