On Thanksgiving, My Father Dead for Three Years Said He'd Visit Me

"Bang, bang, bang!" The violent knocking dragged me out of my nightmare. My eyes snapped open. The back of my pajamas was soaked through with cold sweat. The knocking outside grew louder and louder. The eerie phone call from last night flashed through my mind. Could it really be Toby Dickerson, come to collect on my life? I crept to the door and looked out through the peephole. Two people in blue vests were standing outside. It wasn't Toby. I let out a quiet breath of relief, smoothed my hair, and opened the door. "Who are you here for?" The middle-aged woman gave me a smile and spoke very politely. "Hello, we're from the neighborhood association." "We're doing a census check in the area right now." "Our records show that five years ago, your father, Mr. Toby Dickerson, registered as living here with you." "We came by today to check on him. How's your father been feeling lately?" The thing I feared most had finally come. For the past three years, what I dreaded most was the neighborhood association coming around. Once they realized Toby was gone, they'd follow the trail and dig deeper. My scheme to hide the body and defraud the insurance would absolutely come out. "My dad, he..." "He went back to his hometown. He doesn't live with me anymore." The woman frowned and looked down, flipping through her form. "He went back home?" "That doesn't add up. Per the rules, seniors are required to check in with their local neighborhood association every year." "It was your father's hometown association that contacted us and said he never showed up—that's why we came." "Can you reach him right now? We need to get him on the phone to confirm." I completely panicked. My palms were pouring cold sweat, and I even started to stutter. "His... his phone's broken. I haven't been able to reach him lately." "Maybe you could come back in a few days?" The man's eyes turned sharp in an instant. He looked me up and down, his tone taking on a note of scrutiny. "How can you not reach a grown, living man? Are you hiding something from us?" Just as I was still trying to figure out how to fob them off... A familiar voice came from around the stairwell corner. "Officers, I'm right here!" I whipped my head around. An old man with graying hair, wearing a gray jacket, was ambling up the stairs. He was even carrying two boxes of holiday pastries. The moment I saw his face clearly. I felt my heart stop dead. That face was exactly like my own father's! The moment the association workers saw him, they went right over. "You must be Mr. Toby Dickerson?" The old man nodded with a smile and set the pastries down on the floor. "Yes, that's me." "I moved back to my hometown—the city's too stifling!" "Thanksgiving's coming up soon, so I made a special trip to see her." The woman breathed a sigh of relief and chided him with a smile. "Sir, you really should have told us when you moved back home." "By policy, you have to report to your local county residents' office every year." The fake Toby Dickerson nodded again and again, thoroughly cooperative. "I know, I know, sorry for the trouble." "Here's my ID, go ahead and log it." As he spoke, he pulled an ID card out of an inner pocket. The worker took it, glanced at it, then scanned the information with her phone. "Alright, the information matches." "You two have a nice holiday, then. We won't keep you any longer." They handed the ID back to the old man and turned to head downstairs. Through the whole thing. I stood nailed to the spot. Until the stairwell went completely quiet. The man who looked like my dad turned around and gazed at me with a smile. He picked the pastries up off the floor, his voice full of affection. "Good girl, Daddy came to see you for Thanksgiving." I stared at that face of his. Fear coiled around my neck like a venomous snake. Who on earth was he? Why did he have my father's ID card? And most important of all, why had he stepped in to save me?

I stood there blocking the doorway, my voice shaking so hard it barely held together. "Who exactly are you?" "You want money? Or something else?" "Name your price, take it, and get out!" The man just looked bewildered at my words. "Pansy, are you sick or something?" "Why are you talking to your dad so strangely?" "I'm your own father. I came to see you—why are you trying to chase me off?" That innocent look on his face set off every bit of fear and rage inside me. "Stop pretending!" "You're not my dad at all!" "What are you really after? Who sent you?" I was so worked up that my voice rose without my meaning it to. Across the hall, a security door creaked open. Paulette Chavez, my neighbor, leaned half of herself out, peering over curiously. "Oh my, Pansy, what's all the shouting about this early in the morning?" My heart dropped. If this old man started running his mouth in the hallway and drew the police, the secret I had hidden in the freezer would be exposed. Weighing my options, I grabbed the man's arm and hauled him inside with all my strength. Once inside, his gaze swept around the cramped living room. Finally it settled on that huge white freezer. He paused for just a moment, then turned his head and put that doting expression back on. "My daughter, you've had it so hard all these years out here on your own." "Look, Dad went out of his way to buy you your favorite—salted-egg-yolk holiday pastry." As he spoke, he set the pastry on the dining table and reached out to pat my head. I jerked back a step like I'd been shocked, dodging his hand. My own father, Toby Dickerson, was a bloodsucker through and through. He'd lived more than sixty years, and the words "feeling sorry for his daughter" had never once been in his vocabulary. All he ever did was gripe that I didn't earn enough and blame me for not giving him money to spend. How could he possibly buy me holiday pastry? How could he possibly say something like "you've had it hard" to me? The more he acted like a good father, the deeper my fear ran. The man seemed to see right through my guard. He drew his hand back and sighed. "Pansy, what is it you're so afraid of?" "I'm your father." "No matter what happens, Dad will help you." What did that mean? Was he warning me, or threatening me? I couldn't let him stay in this apartment any longer—there were too many secrets here that couldn't see the light of day. I forced down the panic in my chest. If he wanted to put on an act, then I'd play along. "Dad... I'm not scared." "It's just such a mess here, there's nowhere to even step." "Since you've come all this way, stay a few days." "Let me take you to a hotel nearby—it'll be more comfortable." The man hesitated a moment, then nodded quickly and agreed without a fuss. "All right, whatever you say." I hurried him downstairs and found a reasonably clean chain hotel just outside the complex. I booked a room and got him settled in. The moment he walked in, he sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled off his leather shoes and socks. My eyes happened to pass over his feet, and I froze all over again. His right foot. No big toe. That was the most obvious mark on my dad's body! When I was seven, I'd been out playing with him in the fields. A venomous snake suddenly shot out. My dad shoved me out of the way, and his own right foot got bitten. Because he wasn't taken to the hospital in time, in the end they had to amputate the whole toe. How could this be? Looking exactly alike could be explained away by plastic surgery. But even a hidden bodily defect like this was identical. How could something this insane exist in the world? Could he really be my dad? Or my dad's ghost? I felt my sanity crumbling, piece by piece. I couldn't stay here any longer. I had to confirm one thing. I pretended to take a phone call, cupping my hand over the phone as I spoke to him. "Dad, go ahead and take a shower and rest a while." "Something urgent came up at work that I have to deal with. I'll come pick you up tonight for a big dinner to celebrate Thanksgiving." The man waved me off happily. "Go on, go on, work comes first." Once I'd calmed him down, I bolted out of the hotel like my life depended on it. I ran all the way home. I locked the door behind me and went straight to the freezer. With trembling hands I lifted the lid and pushed back the frozen, stiff trouser leg on Toby Dickerson's body. Under a coating of frost. On that bruised, bluish-purple right foot, the spot where the big toe should have been was empty too. The amputation scar was plain to see. I dropped to the floor and buried my face in my hands, sick with despair. There was one Toby Dickerson lying in the freezer. There was one Toby Dickerson sitting in the hotel. Which one was the real one?

I gripped my hair with both hands, hard. My mind was a tangled mess. Could parallel worlds really exist? Had a Toby Dickerson from another timeline crossed over into this one? Absurd! Utterly absurd! But if that wasn't it, who could explain everything in front of me? No, I couldn't just sit here and wait for the end. I had to go to the hotel and confront that old man to his face. I snatched the fruit knife off the coffee table, stuffed it into my pocket, and stormed downstairs, murder in my heart. I had barely reached the entrance of the complex. I froze. The man—the one who claimed to be my father—was squatting beside the security booth with that shabby canvas bag of his. When he saw me come out, his eyes lit up, and he quickly stood and came toward me. "Pansy!" I took a wary step back, my hand pressing against the hilt of the knife in my pocket. "What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to rest at the hotel?" He rubbed his hands together a little sheepishly and gave an honest, simple smile. "I got to thinking—that hotel has to cost a few hundred a night, right? Such a waste." "You work hard for your money. Your dad can't burn through it like that." "I thought about it, and I figure you could just find me a cheap little inn nearby to get through the night. I'll leave my luggage at your place for now, and that saves the storage fee too." Hearing all this, I went completely rigid. The hand around the knife loosened, little by little. The way he looked at me was full of tenderness and a careful, eager wish to please. It was the purest love a father could have for his daughter. But… He wasn't my father… If my father had had even a fraction of his thoughtfulness. If he had shown a little sympathy for how hard I worked, staying late at the office every night. If he had left me one hot meal on the day I got laid off. How could I have stood by and watched him have his heart attack? How could I have been so heartless as to stuff him into the freezer and keep him frozen for three years! Looking at this "fake dad" who thought of me in every little thing. I regretted it. I truly regretted it. For the past three years, I had jolted awake from nightmares every single night. I thought I was afraid of being found out. The truth was, I was running from the reproach of my own conscience. My sanity had been driven mad by this man's tenderness. I didn't want to keep guessing anymore, and I didn't want to keep hiding. I took out my phone and, right in front of him, called 911. "Hello, is this 911?" "I want to turn myself in. I killed someone." The smile froze on the man's face, and the canvas bag dropped from his hand with a thud. "Pansy… what nonsense is this?" He grabbed frantically for my phone. I shoved him away and shouted into the phone: "The address is Unit 501, Building 4, Fairview Apartments! Come and arrest me!" I hung up, and it was as if every ounce of strength had been drained out of me. I sank down onto the edge of the flower bed. Before long, sirens came screaming in. Two patrol cars stopped at the entrance of the complex, and several police officers stepped out at a brisk pace. "Who called it in?" I raised my hand, my voice frighteningly calm. "I did." "Who did you kill?" The officer looked me up and down. "I killed my father. Toby Dickerson." The words had barely left my mouth. The man beside me lost his temper and slapped his own thigh. "Bullshit!" "Officer, don't listen to her spout nonsense! I'm her father, Toby Dickerson, and I'm standing right here, perfectly fine!" The officer was stunned, looking at me, then at the man. Clearly, they had never run into anything this outrageous before. "You shut up!" I whipped my head around and stared at the man, my eyes like knives. "You're a fake! I don't know who sent you, but I have proof!" I turned to the officers and took a deep breath. "Officer, I killed my father three years ago." "To fraudulently collect his pension, I hid his body in the freezer at home." The officers' expressions changed in an instant. They exchanged a glance, their hands moving instinctively toward the gear at their belts. "Lead the way." I walked ahead, leading the officers upstairs. I opened the door. I pointed at the freezer. "He's in there." The officers approached warily. The lead officer took a deep breath and abruptly threw open the freezer lid. A cloud of white, cold mist rose up. I closed my eyes, waiting for the cold handcuffs to close around my wrists. But none of what I'd expected came. The room was deathly silent. Confused, I opened my eyes and followed the officers' gaze into the freezer. The next second. I felt every drop of blood drain from my body in an instant. Inside the freezer there was nothing but a few bags of frozen dumplings. Toby Dickerson's body was gone!