The sound moves through my house like something breaking in instead of out.
“Tell Sophie she’s welcome to buy me new sheets,” I call.
Sophie yells back, “Already on the list.”
“I hate lists.”
“You need several.”
Amelia presses her fingers to her mouth, still smiling.
I stare at her longer than I should.
She catches me.
The smile fades, but not because she is scared.
Because she feels it too.
That little hook.
That inconvenient pull.
Down the driveway, tires crunch over gravel.
I straighten immediately.
Amelia’s eyes go wide.
I move past her before she can ask, heading for the front window. I pull the curtain back just enough to see Lottie’s car coming up the drive with Brittany in the passenger seat and enough grocery bags in the back to feed a youth camp.
“Groceries,” I say.
Amelia exhales.
I hate that relief has to come so hard.
Sophie comes out of the bedroom with August behind her. “Good. We’ll get the kitchen handled, then clothes.”
“No one handles my kitchen,” I say.
Sophie walks past me. “Your kitchen currently contains beer, bacon, mustard, and emotional neglect.”
“Sounds balanced to me.”
Amelia laughs again under her breath.
This house is doomed.
The next hour is the strangest damn hour of my adult life.
Lottie and Brittany invade with groceries, curtains, kid snacks, actual cereal, fresh sheets, paper towels, and a dinosaur coloring book that makes August look like someone handed him a title deed to happiness. Sophie directs traffic. Wildcat keeps working on the truck. Oaks checks the tree line twice. Whiskey calls with updates I don’t like and refuses to share over speaker because Amelia is close enough to hear fear in his pauses.
My kitchen fills with women.
My cabinets get opened.
My fridge gets judged.