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I lowered the bucket to the ground. Cora peered inside, shifting the packets of candy back and forth. Finally she came out with a king-sized Twix. The boys watched with wide eyes as she held the packet up.
“I’m going tosaveit for later,” Cora announced, sounding as haughty as a queen commuting a prisoner’s sentence.
“Nuh uh!” Dustin said. “You have to eat it now!”
“Cora can do whatever she wants with the candy,” I said. “As long as you eat itbeforebrushing your teeth.”
The boys mouths practically watered as they watched their sister disappear into her room.
“That’s three days in a row she has gotten candy, and you haven’t,” I told them.
“We know,” they said in unison. Micah’s freckled cheeks drooped.
“Then why don’t you behave better?” Rogan asked them.
They both shrugged.
“I don’t even want it,” Micah said, which was such a bold-faced lie that I almost laughed.
“Go put your jammies on,” I told them. “Then I’ll read you a bedtime story.”
“Bedtime story!” they cried excitedly, and went stumbling down the hall in a race to get changed first.
I sighed and looked at Rogan. “Were you and Brady this bad when you were kids?”
“I was very well-behaved,” Rogan said. “And I didn’t know Brady when he was six, but I’m assuming he wasexactlylike this.”
“No problem with Cora,” Asher said while sipping a glass of water. “She got a big piece of candy tonight.”
“It’s not a competition,” Rogan said dryly. Asher shrugged and walked away.
The misbehaving continued. More time-outs were handed down. I began brainstorming new ways to incentivize them. New items added to the buckets, like small toys or puzzle games. I even considered giving out a small piece of candy at the end of every single activity—basically moving the carrot much closer to them. If a reward at the end of the day was too abstract, then maybe a reward every hour would work.
But I hated the idea of giving them candyall day. That wouldn’t fix the core problem, and it would just give them more bad habits.
My commercial was set to be filmed on a Thursday. At ten in the morning, Brady’s sister Patty came over to watch the kids.
“I don’t mind at all!” she said when I greeted her at the door. “They’re practically different children than when I was watching them full-time. Especially if you’ve whipped them into shape over the past couple weeks.”
I winced. “Well, actually they’re starting to regress. The last week has been… problematic, to say the least. The boys aren’t motivated by the reward system anymore. They haven’t had any candy in over a week.”
Patty barked a laugh that was eerily similar to Brady’s. “I’ll tell you what the problem is. They found a way to get into the bucket themselves.”
“I thought of that, so I started counting the candy inside,” I replied. “There were two missing from the big bucket yesterday. But it turns out Brady raided it when he got home from watching Amirah’s place. Aside from that, all candy has been accounted for all week.”
“Oh.” Patty shrugged like it couldn’t be helped. “I’ll do the best I can do. I can’t believe you’re going to beactingtoday! Wicked exciting! How long will you be gone?”
“It’s only a commercial. So… a few hours, maybe? I’ve never done one before.”
I said goodbye to the children and went downstairs. All three guys were waiting for me—even Brady, who looked like he could barely stand up after being out all night on watch-duty.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“What’s wrong is that we haven’t wished you luck,” Brady said. His eyes were lidded, but his smile was warm and full of life. “Fucking break a leg, all right?” He clapped me on the shoulder.
Asher’s hug was tender and loving. “Relax. You’ve practiced, so this should be easy.”
I had been too busy to do much practicing, but I didn’t want to say that.
