Chapter 2 — The Cages

It was my sixty-fifth birthday.

Weeks earlier, Austin and Chloe had promised to come cook me dinner and help me sort through Ernest’s study. I spent the morning cleaning, baking my own small cake, and setting the table for three.

At four o’clock a sleek Uber pulled into my driveway. But they hadn’t come to celebrate. They’d come to colonize my space.

Chloe swept through the front door like a hurricane of entitlement, carrying three chaotic cages. Austin followed, dragging two massive designer suitcases.

The noise was instant and unbearable. Two neon-green parrots squawked in one cage; a terrified white rabbit thumped its foot in another; a miserable Persian cat yowled from a urine-stained carrier.