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1
OLIVIA
I hate crying.
The lump in my throat is trying to choke me and it takes all the willpower I have left to swallow it down. I hate crying and I’m not going to do it in front of two kids I practically raised as my own. They need me to be strong; they need to know that this is going to be okay.
It’s not, of course. And it won’t be.
But they don’t need to know that.
I’m kneeling in front of Liam—a precocious little blondie who has more wits than any other five-year-old I’ve ever met—and his sister, Sophie. She’s only three, but I can tell she’s going to be just as bright as her big brother.
Their brilliant, blue eyes look up at me. Their gazes are kind of glossy, though, like they know that something is off. I’ve been around Liam since he was just barely one year old. I was there when Sophie came home from the hospital, fresh out of the womb with her mother already poised to hand her off to me. I’ve never seen a beautiful baby as beautiful as my little Soph.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that,” I say, keeping my voice as playful as possible. I brush my fingers through Liam’s cornsilk hair. “Sometimes, adults have to go to new places. We can’t always stay behind, even if we want to.”
“But why can’t you visit?” Liam protests. “You can’t live here… but Gram-Gram lives in Da-ko-ta, and she visits!”
I swallow hard.
How do I explain this? I can’t tell a five-year-old that his father likes me a little too much, even though he has a wife. I can’t tell him that I’ve fought off Eric’s advances for well over a year. I can’t make him understand that his mother is absolutely certain I’m having sex with her man, and rather than consider the possibility that her female employee is being harassed, she’d rather just get rid of me than get rid of the husband who pays the bills?
Even for the smartest kid, that’s a lot.
It’s true, obviously. But despite all of that being fact, I still don’t have the heart to ruin Liam’s opinion of his father like that. He thinks the man hung the moon—what would it do to him if I tore that happy little fantasy to shreds?
“Well. Gram-Gram is your family, Liam. And I?—”
“But you are family, Liv!” He stomps his foot, his little blonde brows furrowed with confusion. “You said?—”
“You’re right.” I nod, smoothing my fingers over his apple cheeks. “I said that. And it’s true. But we’re different kind of family than you and Gram-Gram, remember? I have to go, and I can’t come back. But you can remember me in here—” I point to his head “—and in here.” I point to his chest, right over his heart. “You and Sophie both, right?”
I look to the little girl, whose face only reveals more confusion. “Liv… going?” she asks, her head tilted and her cheeks fat and puffed out, pouting.
“Liv is going,” I confirm. “But Liv will miss you and love you, and think about you every, every day.”
Liam sniffles. I think he’s going to stomp again, but he just hangs his head. “I don’t wanna miss you, Liv. Don’t go.”
I can feel the tears trying to come harder now. They burn at the corners of my eyes. My nose gets drippy and my ears start to ring. I bundle the pair up in a tight hug so that they can’t see my face. Maybe, if I don’t have to look at them, it’ll be easier to let them go.
But it takes about two seconds to confirm that’s not the case at all.
This isn’t fair to me—I was just trying to do my job. But more than that, it isn’t fair to Liam and Sophie.
They’re just children. They don’t understand the drama of adults. They only understand when adults come and go seemingly without care for their feelings. They think this is about them.
That’s the thing that wrecks me the most.
“I think that’s enough.”
The demeaning, prim-and-proper cadence of Jess Harrison breaks me from my hold on the kids. She is Liam and Sophie’s mother—and the woman who hates me more than any other person alive.
She stands at the foot of the foyer stairs, glaring down her nose at me. Liam and Sophie got their piercing shade of blue from her.
In them, it’s adorable.
In her, it’s terrifying.
