Below that, on another yellow slip in slightly smaller handwriting, as if he’d added it as an afterthought or a postscript, which seemed redundant when written on a Post-it, he’d scrawled:
The milk is fine where you put it.
I stood in the kitchen reading this note with the focus of a literary scholar examining a primary source. Peter Loupier had admitted I was right about the milk. He’d done so in the smallest possible handwriting, in an addendum to a note whose primary purpose was to tell me I was wrong about everything else—but he had done it.
Concessions had been made.
Ground had been yielded.
I wrote back.
Thank you for acknowledging my milk expertise. I accept your surrender.
— B
I left two sparkle emojis because escalation is a language and I am fluent.
By the end of the first week, the fridge lookedlike an archaeological dig. Our notes were layered three and four deep in places, a geological record of domestic negotiations covering everything from shower schedules:
Please limit showers to 15 minutes. The hot water tank is not infinite.
— P
Please limit newspaper reading to one century per sitting. The bathroom is not a library.
— B
To kitchen protocols:
The French press is cleaned with hot water ONLY. No soap. Soap ruins the oils.
— P
The French press has been cleaned with hot water only. You’re welcome. Also, I Googled it and soap is fine.
— B
Soapis not fine.
— P
The internet disagrees.
— B
The internet is wrong.
— P
To the ongoing and increasingly elaborate kitten containment discourse. The kitten notes deserve their own chapter. Maybe their own book.
It had become clear within the first few days that the bathroom window was not the kittens’ only escape route. The calico, the one I’d named Beyoncé despite Peter’s explicit instructions not to name the fosters, was an engineering prodigy. She had figured out how to nudge the bathroom door latch from the inside by standing on Solange’s back, reaching up with one paw, and applying lateral pressure until the mechanism gave way. I watched her do it through the crack under the door one morning and was so impressed that I filmed it for TikTok before remembering that I was supposed to be preventing the escape, not documenting it.
Peter’s notes on the subject grew increasingly detailed.
Kittens were in the living room when I gothome. The bathroom door was open. The latch was engaged when I left. Either the kittens have developed opposable thumbs or you forgot to latch it. I’m not sure which option concerns me more.
— P
