Gramercy Park
New York, New York
Two weeks later
The knock on the door comes just as the woman is cleaning up the breakfast dishes. The tall, brunette sets the plate back down on the drying rack in the sink, dries her hands.
“I wonder who that could be?” she says.
“You want me to get it, Mom?” says the twelve-year-old girl seated at the kitchen table. She’s making pigtails out of her long dark hair with little colorful rubber bands.
“Not on your life,” the woman says. “It’s a crazy world out there. You just keep getting ready for school, young lady.”
“Be careful, Mom.”
The woman exits the kitchen, crosses the vestibule of the townhouse, goes to the front door, peeks out the peephole embedded in the door. It’s the FedEx man.
She opens the door, is handed a small package which she s
