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Nana lifts her head, sniffing more intently.

“Well, I’m gonna eat,” I say, putting a hand to my chest, “because I’m starving, and if I don’t, I think Nana here is gonna scarf down my entire burrito.”

Wendy, in spite of herself, giggles and mutters something under her breath.

“What’s that?” I glance up from picking apart the knot in the top of the first bag. I ordered basically one of everything because I genuinely am starving and could eat all of it. And I didn’t really know what Wendy would want.

“I said, she’d fart so bad,” Wendy murmurs a little bit louder.

I snort, too. And something about the moment—maybe the fact that she said the word fart, maybe the fact that she’s here and okay, and I’m here and okay, and we have more Mexican food than either of us knows what to do with—it just feels better somehow. Not good, definitely not perfect, but something.

I pry open the first styrofoam clamshell and extract my prize: a foil-wrapped burrito the size of my forearm that has my mouth watering before I even unwrap it. I peer at the bottom, examining.

“This one’s chorizo,” I say, tapping the Sharpied letter C on the foil. “Do you like spicy or nah?”

Wendy makes a face and shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “I mean, no, thank you.”

“Here.” I set the burrito back down and shuffle the containers to find the next one. “Huevos rancheros quesadilla. I think they did it mild.” I hand it to her.

She looks at me a second, then takes it.

“Weaponry?” I offer, and hand her a plastic-wrapped fork, knife, spoon combo, which she takes.

I go back to my burrito and start to shuck it open when I realize Wendy’s just looking at me.

“Are we just gonna eat in the bed?” she says, a little incredulous.

I lower my burrito slightly.

“I mean, yeah.” I can’t help it. I smile. “Living with guys for these many months has rubbed off on me, okay? There’s kind of something to be said for it.”

Wendy looks skeptical, but shrugs.

“It’s your bed,” she says, and flips open her food.

We eat a few moments in silence, me trying not to absolutely house this burrito, and Wendy delicately lifting triangles of quesadilla to her mouth, eventually submitting to Nana’s begging and tossing her a chunk of crispy cheese from the edge of the tortilla.

“What about her farting?” I say through a full mouth, nodding at the dog.

Wendy gives me a wicked little smile.

“Like I said,” she says, “it’s your bed.”

I laugh and swallow quickly so I don’t choke to death on chorizo—what a way to go—and polish off as much as I can of the burrito, leaving just the heel of it in some foil, the part that’s mostly bread. I wad it up and stuff it into the bag, then let out a deep sigh.

Wendy too has made decent progress, putting away a good three quarters of her quesadilla. So much for not being hungry. A pang shoots through me as I wonder if she’s already at the age where she thinks girls are supposed to refuse food. And we are supposed to, aren’t we? I think, grimly. I just haven’t had to worry about that for the last…however long.

I swallow, even though there’s no more burrito to go down, and look at her, the moment suddenly serious.

“You feel better?”

She bobs her head up and down.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Suddenly she looks up, her clear eyes locked on mine.