The casserole dish is still warm in your hands when you step onto the sidewalk, breath misting faintly in the cool suburban air. You hadn’t meant to make such a big batch — you never do — but good habits travel with you. Back home, bringing food was how you introduced yourself. A sign of respect. A little kindness. Something sweet to cut the awkwardness of being the new neighbor.

Here? The silence is thick enough to chew. Perfect lawns, perfect hedges, perfect cars… and not a single person who waves back.

Three days in this neighborhood and not one welcome. Not even a “hey.” It’s strange in a Stepford kind of way, and you decide tonight is as good as any to change that. So you carry your warm dish of sweet potato soufflé, wrapped carefully in foil, and start knocking.

The first two doors get you blank stares. One person looked terrified of carbs.

But you keep going. Because someone, somewhere, was raised right.

You walk up to the white-brick house with soft blue trimming, a guest house, an impeccable wrap-around electric fence— the one you were told belonged to the Irvines. Something about it feels tense, like the house has been holding its breath.

You knock gently.

The door swings open fast.

A woman stands there — eyes swollen, hair slightly undone, sweater sleeves stretched at the cuffs. She tries to pull herself together in the doorway but can’t quite manage it. She looks like she hasn’t slept in days.

You soften your smile. “Hi. Sorry if this is a bad time. I’m new to the neighborhood — the house with the brick steps. I brought some sweet potato soufflé. I made too much.”

For a second she just stares at the dish like it might break her.

“Oh,” she whispers, voice thin and strained. “That’s… really kind. People don’t usually do that here.”

You shrug lightly. “They do where I’m from.”

Something inside her folds — not collapsing, just loosening, like you set a weight down for her. She clears her throat, embarrassed.

“I’m Marissa,” she says. “Sorry, the house is a mess. I’m not… I’m not really—” She stops, breath shaking.

You instinctively step back. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“No,” she rushes, too quickly. “No, please—just for a moment. I… I could use—” Her voice cuts again, splintering.

Inside, the air is heavy. There’s a child’s shoe by the door. A toy on the stairs. Papers scattered on a console table like they were dropped mid-thought. The kind of disarray that suggests a life interrupted.

You turn to her gently. “Are you okay?”

She exhales sharply, as if the question knocks something loose. “My son,” she whispers. “Milo. He’s missing.”

Your breath catches. “Missing? As in—”

She nods, eyes filling. “He went to a playdate. And when I got there, the woman at the door said she’d never heard of him.”

The words hang between you, heavy and jagged.

You set the dish down on the entry table — slow, careful.

“I’m so sorry,” you say quietly. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

She wipes her face, fast and frustrated, like she’s tired of crying. “Everyone keeps asking me for details. Or telling me what I should have done. Or looking at me like I’m losing it.”

You meet her eyes. “Tell me what you need.”

She swallows hard. “I just… I just need someone to treat me like a person. Not a headline.”

You nod, steady. “Then that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

Her shoulders drop the smallest amount — the first real release you’ve seen since she opened the door. Like your presence, your warmth, is the first normal thing she’s had in days.

She looks at you again, really looks. “You’re a breath of fresh air,” she murmurs, almost to herself.

You don’t say anything. You just stay where you are, offering steadiness in a house full of fear.

And for the first time since you moved in, you feel like your timing — your food, your knock, your presence — wasn’t an accident at all.