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Grandma Ruth: I GET BETTER RECEPTION OUT IN THE OPEN.

Karen: Who approved this new platform?

Trevor: @Grandma, that’s not a thing

Patty: honestly iconic

Julie: Can we please just focus on the cake?

Grandpa Alfonse:

Someone had changed the group icon to a blurry photograph of Grandma holding a wooden spoon. Someone else renamed Trevor Unpaid Debts Department. Three people began arguing about whether the previous chat had been unsafe. Aunt Karen demanded administrator access.

I lowered my phone.

Through the window, Grandma Ruth was still smiling.

Beside me, Julie cut into the lemon cake as though nothing unusual had happened.

I looked down at the dozens of notifications filling the screen and wondered whether my grandmother and I had ever shared the same definition of fun.

3

SLOANE

GRANDMA, THIS APP HAS LIKE SEVENTEEN BUTTONS

My phone continued vibrating long enough that I briefly wondered whether I’d accidentally subscribed to emergency weather alerts for every county in the continental United States.

I unlocked the screen to find one hundred and twelve unread messages in a messaging app I sometimes used with my clients. The number climbed to one hundred and thirteen while I watched.

At the top of the screen sat the culprit.

THE PACK

I frowned.

The icon was a blurry photograph of an elderly woman holding what looked suspiciously like a wooden spoon. Below it was a sentence I’d definitely never seen before.

Grandma Ruth added you.

“Who?”

I stared for another moment, waiting for my brain to connect this situation to something that made sense.

Nothing came.

I didn’t recognize the chat name. I didn’t recognize any of the people in it. And unless I’d developed a second family without noticing, I was fairly certain I didn’t belong.

My thumb immediately hovered over Leave Conversation. Before I could press it, my laptop chimed. The calendar notification flashed across my phone screen.

Video Meeting Starting Now

I blinked.

The meeting wasn’t supposed to start yet.

Then I remembered one of my clients had emailed that morning asking whether we could “hop on a few minutes early if inspiration struck.”