Britt joined her as they collected the dishes. “The usual. Answering comments, organizing my email.” After her phone call.
“You’re being careful about who you talk to online, right?”
She fought the urge to roll her eyes. Her mother constantly asked her that question and had been asking since she first started her channel. The only thing that stopped Britt from making a snarky reply was... Mom was right. There were absolute creeps out there in the cyberworld, and she always kept in mind that whoever she was talking to, unless she knew them personally, couldn’t be completely trusted. Since there were few people she knew on a personal level, she always had her guard up. “Yes, Mom. I’m being careful.”
“Good.” She opened the dishwasher, which was only partway full of dirty dishes. “I know you get tired of me nagging you about that—”
Truth.
“—but you wouldn’t believe the things I hear from kids at school, their parents, even law enforcement, about what can happen online. Two weeks ago we had in-service about yet another way criminals are trying to steal personal information.” She shook her head. “Technology is so helpful, but it has its downsides.”
Britt rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, and a few minutes later the kitchen was clean. Between the two of them it didn’t take long, and it had been the two of them for almost twenty years. They both liked things neat, and the house never got too out of control.
“I’ve got a stack of finals to grade.” Mom yawned. “I’ll be in the living room.”
“Okay. After I’m done with a little work, I’m going to finish the novel I started last night.”
“About dragons?”
She smiled. “Nope. Not this time.”
“Anime?”
“That was last week. I decided to switch things up and read C. S. Lewis again.”
“Ah, Narnia.” Mom smiled. “Enjoy.”
“I will.”
They went their separate ways as they did every night. Britt entered her room and shut the door, then took her phone out of her pocket and found the number in her Contacts list. He answered on the first ring. “Hello?”
She lay down on her stomach on her twin bed. “Hey, Dad.”
***
Buzz... buzz...
Amy Branch startled from a dead sleep. She sat up and looked at her cell phone on the side table, then at the crooked stack of papers on her lap. When had she fallen asleep? She took off her glasses and grabbed the phone without looking at the screen. “Hello?”
“Oh, hey. Did I wake you up?”
“No.” She resisted the urge to yawn, settling back in her recliner to chat with her friend Laura. She was feeling every bit of her forty-seven years tonight. “You called at the perfect time.”
“Fell asleep grading papers again?”
“Maybe.”
Laura chuckled. “You know I’m an expert at snoozing over paperwork.”
“Yeah, because legal paperwork is boring,” she said, taking a dig at Laura’s paralegal profession.
“That’s where you’re wrong, my friend. I would rather pore over pages and pages of writs than grade one single quadratic equation.”
“These are calculus papers, not algebra.”
“There’s a difference?”
They both laughed as Amy glanced at the clock above the fireplace mantel. Ten thirty. She needed to get to bed before eleven or she would be groggy in the morning. “You’re calling kind of late.”
