The Ravioli Alibi

When I came back to life, the first thing I did was order fifty pounds of ground meat and gather my family to make ravioli.

I did this because, in my last life, my stepmother, Brenda, had an affair and got pregnant by another man.

To hide her betrayal from my father, she orchestrated a public spectacle. She went to a chaotic Black Friday sale, intentionally got into the scrum for a discounted coffee machine, and let herself be knocked to the ground, inducing a miscarriage.

When she came home, she collapsed into my father’s arms, sobbing. “It was Mia,” she cried. “She’s so cheap, she insisted we go fight for that stupid sale. If she hadn’t dragged me there, I wouldn’t have fallen. I wouldn’t have lost our son…”

I tried to explain, but my own fiancé, Caleb, stepped forward to drive the nail into my coffin.

“Mia, I am so disappointed in you,” he said, his face a mask of disgust. “I’ve tolerated your cheapness—scamming free meals, shoplifting snacks from the bulk bins—but this? Forcing your stepmother into a dangerous crowd just to save a few bucks, causing her to lose a child? I can’t do this anymore. The engagement is off.”

My father exploded. He chased me through the house, his rage a storm of slaps and curses.

Afterward, he had me committed to a corrupt psychiatric facility upstate. I was locked away, mistreated, and left to die from a septic infection after a botched medical procedure.

It was only after I died that I learned the truth. Caleb had been sleeping with my stepmother all along. Our engagement was just a convenient cover for their affair.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back on the morning of the day Brenda went to the Black Friday sale.

1

I was curled up in bed, tears soaking my pillow, when the phone rang.

I answered it instinctively. It was Brenda. “Morning, sweetie,” she chirped. “It’s Christmas Eve, so I’m going to do a little shopping, treat myself. I won’t be home to cook today, so you can handle the housework and make dinner for your dad and grandparents, okay?”

She said it not as a request, but as a statement of fact, giving me no room to refuse.

“And don’t tell your dad where I am. You know how he hovers. A girl needs her breathing room.” Her voice was syrupy sweet. “You’re such a good girl, Mia. You’re my little helper. I’ll bring you back something nice!”

Then she hung up.

I tried calling her back—five, six times. Every call went straight to voicemail. She’d already blocked my number. The repeated dial tone shocked me back to the present, and a cold sweat broke out across my skin.

I was back. I had been given a second chance.

In my last life, Brenda had married my father thinking he was wealthy. She was sorely disappointed to find out he was just a retired tradesman with no pension. All the nice things he’d shown off during their courtship—the car, the apartment—were actually mine. She felt trapped, but she stayed, her resentment simmering just beneath the surface.

Last time, on Christmas Eve, she had made the sa...