I glanced between the two of them, trying to figure out if they were full of shit, but before I could argue anymore, we came to a stop in front of a well-kept single-story house.

“Mom must have heard us pull up,” Bram said, turning off the car. A slight older woman was standing on the porch, grinning at us.

“Just leave the bags for now,” Alex said excitedly as he held the door for me to climb out. As soon as my feet had hit the ground and he’d closed the door behind me, he was jogging toward the front of the house and up the two steps that led to the porch.

“Why don’t you open my door?” Ani asked Bram as she climbed out of the car.

“Because you don’t sit still long enough,” Bram replied.

I heard them, but I didn’t see them. My eyes were glued to the man and woman on the porch. Alex was hugging his mom and lifting her off her feet to swing her around in a circle.

“Sarai,” Alex called, waving me over. “Come meet my mom.”

Alex and his mom stepped off the porch and met me halfway.

“Sarai, this is my mom, Liz. Mom, this is Sarai.”

“It’s so nice to meet you,” Liz said warmly, reaching out to shake my hand. “Alex has talked about you a lot.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Evans.”

“Please call me Liz,” Alex’s mom said with a small laugh. “Mrs. Evans makes me sound old.”

“I think it sounds distinguished,” Ani argued, joining our circle. “Like a proper mature lady.”

“Anita knows a lot about mature-lady names,” Alex said with a laugh.

“Like Alexander is much better.”

They both looked to the side and laughed as Bram walked toward us. “Abraham is worse,” they joked in unison.

“Ignore them,” Liz told me, setting her hand gently on my upper back so she could steer me toward the house. “They’re always like this at first. I swear, they won’t be quiet for a full twenty-four hours, and then suddenly they’ll mellow and things will get relatively normal again.”

“Thank you so much for inviting me,” I said, grinning as we entered the house. The walls of the entryway were covered with framed black-and-white photographs, and I made a mental note to look at them more carefully later. “I was just going to be sitting at home, watching television and eating ramen noodles all weekend.”

“Of course,” Liz said, smiling. “We love having a full house. Your family doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving?”

“They do,” I replied as Alex, Ani, and Bram came through the front door. “We’ve just never made a big deal about it, so flying all the way to New York for the weekend seemed kind of silly.”