Page 182 of Wild Card 13

You are not right. You are bored.

Bea: I am pregnant, engaged, and currently watching Alois try to decide whether a labeled moving box that says kitchen is too vague.

Freya: Wait. What did he want it to say?

Bea: Plates. Small plates. Bowls. Mugs. Mugs Bea likes. Mugs Bea will murder me over if broken.

Please tell Alois I respect his process.

Bea: He does not need encouragement.

I smiled despite myself and started walking again.

The park path curved past a low stone wall and a narrow stretch of untouched snow. Beyond the trees, downtown Northbend glowed in warm squares of window light. Somewhere several blocks away, Talon Arena rose against the darkening sky, steel and glass and history, still too visible from almost everywhere that mattered.

Bea: Back to the issue.

There is no issue.

Bea: He called you Shortcake in front of God, children, volunteers, and my clipboard.

Freya: Your eye twitched. Tiny twitch. Very elegant. Very emotionally repressed.

There had been a time when my phone lighting up after a long day meant work. Dad. Calendar alerts. Crisis management. Areminder that someone needed something from me because I was useful, organized, competent, available.

Lately, it meant Bea complaining about hockey men. Freya sending voice notes from the training room. Lo texting me a picture of something she baked with the caption, Come over before your father finds it. Arlo demanding I stop by North Line because he had “accidentally” made too much soup.

Bea: Also, I’m inviting Lo tomorrow.

Freya: Excellent. Adult supervision.

Lo is not adult supervision. Lo is beautifully dressed emotional chaos.

Bea: She is also the only person who can make Arlo give us the good igloo without complaint.

The wind moved lightly through the bare branches overhead, sending a fine dusting of snow from one limb to the ground. Dottie paused to watch it fall, her ears lifted as if the sky had personally addressed her.

Bea: Lo says she would be delighted and that she has been craving North Line’s cinnamon rolls.

Freya: I trust her taste.

Lo craves cinnamon rolls every day.

Freya: Are we telling Lo about Shortcake before or during brunch?

Neither.

Bea: During.

Freya: Definitely during.

I hate you both.

Freya: Sure you do.

Across the park, an older couple walked slowly beneath the lights, mittened hands linked between them. The woman wore ared scarf tucked into a cream coat. The man leaned slightly toward her every time she spoke, as if whatever she said deserved his full attention even after what looked like decades of hearing her voice.

Dottie tugged me sharply toward a tree, saving me from becoming sentimental in public.