Arianne's phone lit up twice before her alarm did, then a third time while she was still deciding whether either notification was worth reading before coffee. By the time she made it downstairs, it had lit up eleven more times, and Lily was already at the kitchen table with a spoon halfway to her cereal, eyes fixed on her mother's face instead of her breakfast.
"Is something wrong?" Lily asked.
"Eat your breakfast." Arianne set the phone face down beside the fruit bowl, though she'd already read enough of the headline to know exactly what waited underneath it. Leo, seated across from his sister, kept spooning cereal without looking up, apparently satisfied that whatever this was belonged to the adult side of the morning.
She waited until both twins were absorbed enough in an argument about who got the last of the strawberries before she turned the phone back over.
