The Sister (The Boss 6)

Olivia’s crankiness required speed on Neil’s and my part. We hurried through eating and excused ourselves.

“Sorry, I don’t want to be rude, Mom, but she’s on the cusp of a meltdown.” I pushed my chair back and grabbed up some dishes.

“Leave those. I’ll take care of them,” she said. “Get that little one to bed.”

Neil took Olivia, and we headed out of the kitchen, toward the nursery. I stopped him. “Wait a second. Mariposa isn’t back, yet, and Olivia is going to be up and down all night. Why don’t we just bring her to bed with us?”

“You said sleeping with her in our bed was like sleeping with a bulldozer made out of lava,” he reminded me.

He wasn’t wrong. Olivia pushed us around the bed like a tank and put off more heat than the sun. But she was miserable, and she’d been gone for a long time. “She needs the cuddles.”

Neil pretended to consider. “I could stand some cuddling.”

“We can bring the playpen in, if she gets too impossible to sleep with,” I suggested. “Why don’t I grab that, and you can carry her Pull-Ups and PJs.”

“Potty,” Olivia reminded us somberly. She wasn’t fully toilet trained, yet, but she did like to use the potty before bed, just to get in the habit. When we reached the nursery, Neil took her to the bathroom and patiently helped her get situated on the little green frog potty. I got the playpen from the closet and a thin summer nightgown from her dresser, plus a couple of Pull-Ups.

When I heard Neil exclaim, “Well done!” in the bathroom, I went to the door.

“Did you do potty?” I asked with a big smile for her.

“Ta-da!” she announced, clapping her hands.

Over her head, Neil mouthed, “Now what?”

I picked up some baby wipes from the counter and tossed them to him. “Now, you clean her up, Afi.”

Before he could argue, I grabbed the supplies and stranded him.

I dropped Olivia’s things off in our bedroom then returned to the kitchen, where Mom and Tony were still eating.

“Did you get her down already?” Mom asked, surprised. She’d heard many epic tales about the battles fought at bedtime.

I shook my head. “No. We’re going to sleep with her in our bed. I didn’t want you to think we abandoned you.”

“No way,” Tony assured me. “You do what you need to for that little girl. Maybe it’s not my place to say so, Sophie, but I’m real proud of you.”

Getting a compliment from my future stepfather was too weird to deal with, so I deflected. “Don’t forget, I have a full-time nanny.”

“Yeah, you do,” he conceded. “To make sure she’s cared for and don’t want for nothing. That’s good parenting.”

“Well, I’m not a parent.” I couldn’t remind people of that enough. It felt too much like I was pretending to be Olivia’s mother. “But I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“I’ll just clean up here, and we’ll head out,” Mom said.

“Okay. Just call security and tell them to set the night alarms.”

When I got to the bedroom, Olivia lay in the middle of our bed, rolling back and forth in nothing but her diaper, her feet in her hands as she chanted, “No, no, no,” at varying volumes.

Neil sat beside her, the nightgown held helplessly in his hands. “How does Mariposa get her dressed?”

“Brute force, I assume.” I took the nightgown from him and tossed it aside. “She’ll be warm enough without it.”

He pulled the covers back, and Olivia rolled to her stomach to crawl toward the pillows, squealing with delight when he playfully flipped the corner of the sheet over her head.

“Don’t rile her up!” I warned him. “I’m not going to be responsible.”

Neil went to the bathroom and took out his contacts, but I wasn’t ready for bed at eight at night. He probably wasn’t, either, but he would lay with Olivia, anyway. I wondered how often he’d done this with Emma when she was sick or sad or otherwise needed him.

The hardest part about caring for Olivia wasn’t the day-to-day. Changing diapers sucked, tantrums in public were the worst, and I don’t know how or why she’d thought putting one of my earrings up her nose was a good idea, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was watching Neil compare every stage and quirk and behavior to his memories of Emma. I never knew if I should want him to see them there or not.

“Afi?” Olivia called, scooting as though she would try to reach the end of the bed.

“Nope.” I picked her up and put her right back into the middle. “Just wait here for Afi. Tell me about what you did at Grandma Valerie’s house.”

“Varee’s house?” Olivia pointed toward the door. “Over there.”

“Yeah, it’s not in here, is it?” I lightly petted her back, and her little eyelids drooped. She wriggled onto her stomach.