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“You wave at whoever it is before you’ve finished checking.”
“I’m being nice.”
I look at Mom over the rim of my coffee mug, hoping for support. She keeps spreading butter across her toast without the slightest interest in rescuing me. “She’s got a case.”
“Thank you, Grandma,” Babs says with the satisfaction of someone who’s just won a court ruling.
“I didn’t say she was right.”
“You did.”
Biddy finishes chewing another spoonful of cereal before looking up from her bowl. “I think Grandpa would’ve opened the door by now.”
Mom smiles into her coffee. “Some things never change.”
Another chime echoes through the apartment, and Sprout tears out of the living room with enough enthusiasm to convince anyone listening we’ve got an armed invasion outside instead of a visitor.
His paws slide across the hardwood before he plants himself in front of the door and barks at it with complete confidence.
“You’re batting zero this week,” I tell him as I walk past.
He answers by barking even harder.
The security monitor shows a courier standing outside with a medium-sized package tucked beneath one arm, so I unlock the door, sign the electronic pad, thank him, and carry the box back inside, the elevator doors closing behind him.
I don’t think much about it until I glance down at the label.
For Babs & Biddy Wolf.
Their names sit neatly across the front in careful blue ink, and I turn the package over once before looking back at the label because whoever sent it didn’t include a company logo, a sender, or a return address.
Before I even think about it, I’m replaying the last thirty seconds in my head.
The courier’s height. The company logo on his jacket. The time stamped on the security monitor. Which cameras would’ve caught him from the lobby to the lift.
Years spent protecting people train your brain to gather details before you decide whether they matter, and that habit follows me everywhere.
“Package!” Babs announces, appearing beside my elbow so quickly I’m beginning to suspect she can teleport.
Biddy wanders over at a considerably less hazardous speed. “For us?”
“So it would seem.”
Sprout decides the cardboard deserves a thorough inspection with his tongue.
“No.” He pauses halfway through the attempt and gives me a deeply wounded look. “I wasn’t asking.”
The girls trail me back into the kitchen while I set the package on the island. “Can we open it?”
“Can we keep the box?”
“Can Sprout have the paper?” Biddy yells louder.
“Just to make a mess?”
“Is that a yes?” Babs asks.
“It’s a yes to opening it.”
