Certain

  ***

  “Mom? Mom?” It was clear that her mom was not even close to paying attention to what was happening in the room.

  “What?” her mom said, almost in a whisper, like she was only halfway in the present.

  “Dad. Where is he?”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m sorry. I got lost in my thoughts. It’s late. I’m tired, and… Oh, your father should be home soon. He had an errand to run after work and had a conference call with clients in Cali, so he got out late from there. So yeah, he got out of work late and then went to run an errand. He should be home soon.” Her mom seemed almost nervous as she rambled on with too much information. Clearly, it meant one thing… a present.

  “Would this present happen to be coming from a store with a little fruit on its sign?” Scout’s eyes sparkled as she thought about the computer that might be coming her way. She was nervous about her laptop making it the whole semester. The warranty just wore out and that usually meant that the item, whatever it was, was about to fall apart. It was like they had a self-destruct button set to go off the day after it expired. All serious thoughts were gone as she started to focus on her potential new gift.

  “I never said… Damn, don’t tell him I let the cat out of the bag. How did you know?”

  They looked at each other and began laughing once again.