Sophie (The Boss 8)

I wondered if she'd even had time to grieve properly.

"Well, if you want to come back for the holidays—" I asked, hoping I wasn't crossing yet another of our recently established boundaries. Damn my midwestern hospitality.

Luckily, she declined. "Maybe after the New Year."

"You're always welcome," I lied.

After Olivia and Valerie said another round of goodbyes, Olivia and I started our walk back to the house.

"How was your visit?" I asked, wondering how to broach the subject of Laurence.

"It was good," she said, a bit reluctant and evasive.

"But?" I prompted her.

She snickered. "Butt."

"No, I was asking you if you had more to say. Because it sounded like you weren't done." There. No pressure. She could say more if she liked.

She sighed deeply, an Elwood trademark, and sounded defeated before she even began speaking. "Why nobody will tell me where Grandpa Laurence is?"

Boom. The only thing the kid needed was for us to show that we were listening. "Did you ask Valerie?"

Olivia nodded. "And Afi! And Daddy. So much times I asked."

"And they probably didn't give you a satisfactory answer, huh?" The question was met with a raised eyebrow.

"Sophie," she said gravely. "I am only in Kindergarten."

"They didn't give you an answer that made sense to you. That stopped you from needing to ask," I reworded.

"I asked you so many times, and you didn't give me a statistical answer, either," she pointed out sadly.

I stopped in my tracks right there on the driveway and knelt so I could be eye-to-adorable, Precious Moments-esque-eye with her. "You're right. And that's not cool of me. From now on, I promise I will tell you the real answer to anything you ask me." I put my pinkie finger out, and she linked hers with mine.

The moment we'd sealed the deal, she asked, "Where is Grandpa Laurence?"

I'd promised. Pinkie swore, even. "Grandpa Laurence isn't going to be seeing you anymore."

Her bottom lip trembled, and tears flooded her eyes. "Is he in heaven with my mom?"

No, and he never will be. "No. He didn’t die. We had to make Grandpa Laurence go away from us because he did a very bad thing."

I saw the uncertainty flash through her eyes. I quickly added, "Not ‘bad’ like getting in trouble for not sharing or for saying a naughty word. Something bad that you'll understand when you get older."

"Was he not a nice person?" she asked quietly.

Like she already knew.

"No. He wasn't nice." She must have noticed something. Maybe he'd yelled at Valerie, or Olivia had overheard us talking. I didn’t want to believe she’d been exposed to worse. "Olivia, sometimes people can be very nice to us, and we can love them very much, but the things they do aren't safe. Or they can be very nice to us and very hurtful to other people."

"Like playing a joke on Grandma Valerie?" Olivia asked, a tear spilling down her flushed cheek.

"What kind of joke?" My leg was going numb, and I could see my breath, but a tsunami couldn't move me out of this conversation.

"A tripping joke." Olivia kicked my ankle.

I wanted to throw up. "That's one thing that isn't safe, yeah."

"It can make you fall," she said, her tiny voice haunted.

"Yeah. And that's mean, isn't it?" I waited for her nod in confirmation. "Olivia...was he ever mean to you?"

She shook her head immediately. "No. But I think he was mean to Grandma."

"He was." I put my arms around Olivia and hugged her tight. "And I know it hurts. And I know you still love him, and you're going to miss him."

She nodded and sniffled against my shoulder.

"But guess what?" I choked back my tears. "You've still got so many grownups who love you and who won't be mean and unsafe. Okay?"

"It makes me sad." Her voice finally broke into a wail, followed by hiccupping sobs.

"Come on," I said, struggling to stand while still holding her. Since when did kids get so heavy? As I trudged us both toward the house, I sniffed her hair. It was gross. She didn't smell like a baby anymore. She wasn't a baby anymore, just a little person who needed someone to help her get through the world and make sense of it all.

I knew about the world in a way that Neil and El-Mudad never could. I knew the real world, the real challenges Olivia would face when she grew up and had to strike out independently. Yes, she would have an incredible safety net, but she would have to stand on her own feet. We couldn’t shield her from hard things forever.

Like Neil had shielded and sheltered Emma.

That's why, I marveled in my heart. That was why Emma had chosen me. Out of all the other adults around Olivia, I was the only one who'd ever experienced the world without unlimited privilege. And even though I thought of myself as a disastrous flake most of the time, Emma had seen a stabilizing influence.