“Shhhhh,” Sophie, the eight-year-old, breaks in before I can respond. “She’s stressed out. Just be good until she feels better. Then you can be bad again.”

Melody splashes her sister. “I’m not bad!”

“Hey!” I hold up the time-out signal, not able to keep it there for longer than two seconds on account of my spaghetti-arm muscles that no longer want to work. “Chillax, you two. Can’t you see Sammy is in crisis?”

We all look over at him and his sad expression.

“Constipated again?” I ask.

He nods. “Conthapated again. My bummy and my tummy hurt-th.”

“Don’t strain. Just relax.”

“Yeah, just relax,” Melody says, giggling.

“Hey,”—I point at her face—“no mocking your brother. Being constipated sucks.”

“Yeah, being conthapated thuckth.” Sammy grabs a toothbrush off the counter and launches it at his sister.

I stand up as fast and I can in an effort to distract Melody from certain retaliation. “Okay, smallish people, listen up!”

All the kids tilt their heads to look up at me. The bathroom goes quiet enough that we all hear the cork popping out of a wine bottle around the corner in the kitchen.

I make a sweeping gesture with my very sore arms. “Auntie May is here!” I lower my arms so I can count on my fingers. It’s much easier on my muscles this way. “And that means there will be no throwing things, no spitting, no potty talking, no farting, no barfing, no calling each other names, and no complaining about what I cook—you got it?” I stare each of them down in turn, lowering myself back into a seated position because the muscles in my legs aren’t very happy right now.

They exchange silent looks among themselves.

A squeak comes from the toilet. Sammy tries not to grin when I glower at him.

“Oopth. I fahted. Thowwy.”

They all giggle.

Melody points at her brother. “He broke the farting rule!” She grips her elbows against her ribs, strains, and forces three little bubbles to come up out of the water.

Sophie looks at her aghast. “You just farted too! Ew! Not in the tub!” She jumps up and tries to scramble out of the bathtub, but she’s too covered in bubbles to make it happen. She slides back in with a tumble of arms, legs, elbows, and knees. Bubbly water flies up everywhere.

By the time I can see again, all three kids are laughing hysterically.

“Auntie May, you have bubbles all over your head!” Melody yells.

“Ow! I have a bruise on my knee now,” Sophie whines.

“Hey! Geth what, evewybody?!” Sammy screams.

We all look at him, waiting for the big news.

“I pooped!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The kids are eating their spaghetti at the kitchen table, with Felix underneath, ready for things to drop. They’re being extra quiet in exchange for an ice-cream dessert, and I’m pouring myself a glass of wine from the bottle my sister has already half-finished.

When I drop into the armchair next to her couch, she stares at me over her glass.

I stare back as I take a sip.

“So? Are you going to tell me about this new job or what?”

I consider folding my legs up under me, but when I try, it hurts too much, so I just let them drop to the floor instead.

“It’s no big deal, really. I’m just taking some pictures for these people.”

“Why do I get the impression that it’s a lot more than just taking some pictures? Is this some kind of porn thing?” She glances over her shoulder at the kitchen and then lowers her voice. “You know you can’t get involved in the porn industry. They’ll recruit you into the acting part!”

I laugh. It’s so nice to be sitting here in her family room with her. I love my sister and her nutty mind. “You’re crazy. And you can relax, because it has nothing at all to do with the porn industry. It’s a security company.” It sounds so much safer when I say it that way. No risk. It’s better for my sister to hear it this way; otherwise, she’ll go all mother hen on me and make me start doubting myself.

She blinks a few times as she mulls it over in her head.

“Remember that guy who helped me out when I accidentally ended up in Frankie’s bar?”

“The one with all the muscles?” She smiles for the first time since I arrived.

“Yeah, that one. He offered me a job.” I try not to smile, but it’s tough.

“So he works at a security firm, and he offered you a job to take pictures? Of what?”

I shrug, trying to think of a way to minimize the danger. Jenny has always been my self-assigned protector. “I don’t know. People. Places. Things.”

“A job of nouns.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t play, little sister. What aren’t you telling me?”

I fiddle with a loose thread on my new workout shorts. “Nothing much. Just that it’s basically kind of like—a little bit of this sort of thing that’s kind of hard to explain.”

She takes a long sip of her wine, almost emptying her glass.

I jump up to get the bottle, hoping it will distract her from my horrible attempts at downplaying my job’s negative points.

“You are the worst liar who ever walked planet Earth,” she says, laughing into her glass as she finishes it off.

“Better than being the best liar, right?” I lean over and fill up her glass, topping off my own while I’m at it, before setting the bottle down on the coffee table.

“Maybe. So what’s the deal? Straight up. Just tell me. I won’t get mad.”

“Straight up? Fine. It’s a surveillance gig. I take pictures of bad guys doing bad things.”

She rolls her eyes to the ceiling and lets out a long, loud growl. “Eeeeeerrrrrhhhhh!” Then she glares at me. “May, how could you?!”

“How could I what?” I’m playing innocent. “Get a job so I can pay my bills?”

“How many times have I asked you to move in with me? We could both save so much money.” Her eyes get teary.

“Aw, babe . . .” I get up and sit next to her on the couch, leaving my wine on the table, “you know I can’t do that. I need my space. You guys need your space to be a family. I don’t want the kids getting mad at me because I’m cranky all the time.”

“You’re not cranky all the time.” She’s crying now. “You’re always happy.”

“That’s because I have my own place.”

“Are you saying being at my place or living with me would make you unhappy?”

It’s a fair question. I have kind of been saying that for the last year. “No, I’m saying that I’m a young, single girl who likes to walk around her house naked sometimes and take long baths with a glass of wine once in a while.”

Jenny sighs, leaning her head on mine. “That sounds nice, actually.”

“Anytime you need that, just call me. Or text me like you did today, and I’ll come running. I’m here for you; you know that.”

“I do know that.” She pats me on the leg and sips more wine. “I’m just feeling sorry for myself. Ignore me.”

“What happened? Was it Miles?” The ex. The arrogant asshole who refuses to step up to the plate and be a real father to these kids.

“Of course it was Miles—who else would it be? The child-support check he gave me bounced, once again, so several payments I made to other places aren’t going to go through now.”

I chew my lip, knowing I’m treading on dangerous ground. Moving in with her could save her from a lot of these problems, but I also worry that if I did that, Miles would stop doing the little he does do. He’d see me as his kids’ stand-in dad and disappear forever. Forget the bouncing check problems; we’d be moving into three hundred and sixty-five days of continuous child care on my sister’s part instead of her getting the two weeks of vacation when he takes them for some of the summer and the one weekend a month he still manages to put on his schedule.