“Critch a back,” she ordered sleepily, toddler speak for “scratch my back”.
“You went away for seven sleeps,” I informed her, drawing circles with my fingertips on her impossibly soft skin.
“I tired. I gotta go night-night.”
“Yup,” I agreed, and yawned. “Maybe I should go night-night.”
“No…” Olivia’s voice faded and gave way to a small snore.
The bathroom door opened, and I held up a finger to preemptively silence Neil when he came out.
“Is she already asleep?” he whispered, approaching the bed.
I tested by slightly shifting on the mattress. She snorted, and one hand flew up. I held my breath. Then, her body eased, again.
“Yup,” I whispered back with a sigh of relief. Slowly, like a grenade might go off, I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. “So, we’re off the hook, if we want to be.”
“No.” Neil pulled his shirt over his head as he went toward the closet. “I don’t want to leave her here alone.”
I waited to respond until he returned, clad in some white-and-blue pinstriped cotton sleep-pants. Ugh, he looked so good, no matter what he wore. And he looked absolutely adorable slipping under the covers to snuggle up beside Olivia’s worn out little form in the center of the bed.
“It’s, like, eight. Are you really going to bed, right now?” I teased.
“She isn’t going to be this small forever. The days of cuddling a baby are fast escaping us,” he mused.
I held my tongue and did not remind him that, while those days might be escaping him, I was escaping them. “Well, you enjoy. I’m going to go see if Mom needs help with the dishes. And then, I’ll probably do some of the normal human things people do when they don’t go to bed at nine.”
I gave them one last glance and dimmed the lights on the way out. Parent or not, that little girl owned my entire heart. The thought of any hardship or disappointment befalling her made weird panicky feelings assault my brain. Someday, something would happen that I couldn’t control or prevent. I was completely helpless.
It was terrifying.
And Neil had known that helpless feeling in the worst way.
I thought about my sister, the other daughter of Joey Tangen. He’d probably put her in bed beside him when she hadn’t felt good. He’d probably felt helpless when they’d learned of her diagnosis.
I ached for myself that I’d never had that. I ached for him that he’d had to endure it.
I went to the kitchen, knowing I would find Mom there. Our conversation on the subject of my kidney had been far from over when we’d gotten interrupted.
True to form, Mom was slowly washing the last of the dishes. “Tony went down to the house. I’m just finishing up.”
“And waiting to see if I’m okay,” I tacked on for her.
She sighed. “I just don’t understand them. You’re successful. You run a magazine, you’re a published author, you’ve got billions of dollars. Why not be proud of that? Why wouldn’t they want to know you?”
“Maybe because I have billions of dollars?” I waited for Mom to come to the same conclusion I had; that money had changed me, that my heart wasn’t as good as other peoples’, that something about me was defective.
And of course, that’s not a conclusion my mom made about me. “Do you think they don’t want to seem like they’re after your money?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.” I took a paper towel and went to work wiping up the counter. “Maybe I shouldn’t have offered them money in the first place.”
“They might be embarrassed,” Mom said, tilting her head. Then, she tilted it the other way. “Or they’re upset that you offered before they could take you for more?”
“No, I don’t think that’s the case.” And I didn’t want to believe that, either.
“Sophie Ann,” Mom began softly, “you’re not doing this because you think it will make them like you?”
“No.” I shook my head vehemently. “Susan and I have been shockingly honest with each other about how weird this is. Neither of us really knows how to navigate it.”
“It’s a very strange situation.” Mom braced her hands on the edge of the sink, the sponge still in her hand. “I am so sorry. I had no idea how hard this was going to be for you.”
“What, when you were banging a strange teenager at a party twenty-eight years ago?” I made a mock-stern face at her. “Where was your good judgment?”
“Where was your good judgment when you went to a hotel room with a grown man?” she countered.
I just held up my hands and gestured around the vast expanse of the huge kitchen. “Duh.”
“You know you’re not in it for the money. You never were.” Mom went back to scrubbing a pan. “What does Neil think about this? I know he’s very supportive, but what does he really think?”